Projo Politics Blog

The Navy's top officer today gave a ringing endorsement of the submarine program, calling it a ``killer arrow'' among the weapons available to commanders.

``I love submarines,'' Adm. Gary Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, told a convention of submariners, contractors and others close to the industry, joking that some of his colleagues in the surface Navy ``think I have gone over to the dark side.''

But Roughead, a rare CNO who has commanded both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, observed on a serious note that some people ``think that submarines are a thing of the past.''

He said skeptics view submarines as ``cold war relics'' that have outlived the usefulness. ``I am not in their camp,'' Roughead told the annual symposium of the Naval Submarine League in Northern Virginia.

Roughead went on to allude in general terms to the versatility of submarines, which are uniquely able to operate without detection on missions of intelligence-gathering, special forces warfare and long-distance missile attacks.

As a commander in the Pacific, Roughead suggested that he relied heavily on submarines, calling them ``the killer arrow in the quiver,'' that offers ``options and capabilities that exist nowhere else.''

Roughead offered particular praise for the small, new class of former ballistic missile subs that have been overhauled in recent years to accommodate large payloads of conventional missiles, as well as special forces units.

The Navy leader spoke at a moment of growing challenges for the Navy, which faces heavy budgetary pressures even as such potential adversaries such as China expand their undersea fleets.

 Tags  roughead submarines

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