Another major screw up on Mitt "I'm a Liar" Romney during the foreign policy debate was his attempt to depict U.S. Naval strength as greatly diminished and used the number of Navy vessels in 1916 as an apparent bench mark. While the absolute number of ships is smaller now than in 1916, the power and capabilities of the ships the Navy has now are far superior to those of 1916. Worse yet for Romney, the ranking of the U.S. Navy relative to other nations has increased enormously since 1916 when it ranked 3rd in the world with 11% of the world's naval power to now when it ranks 1st in the world with 50% of worldwide naval power. Here are highlights from an analysis of 1916 versus now:
In the last debate, Governor Romney made the claim that the US Navy is the smallest it’s been since 1916 implying that the US Navy is regressing in terms of overall strength. How accurate is this claim? We recently compiled a new data set on naval capabilities and created a measure of state naval strength for all countries from 1865 to 2011. As such, we are in a position to address the claims of the Romney campaign.
In 1916, the US controlled roughly 11% of the world’s naval power. This is an impressive number that ranks the US third in naval strength behind the UK (34%) and Germany (19%), and just ahead of France (10%). What about the US navy in 2011? In 2011, the US controlled roughly 50% of the world’s naval power putting it in a comfortable lead in naval power ahead of Russia (11%).
The US Navy has decreased in absolute size as Governor Romney argues (although this decline has been ongoing since the end of Cold War). U.S. warships are more powerful now than in the past, as President Obama implied. However, neither the number of warships nor the power of our ships is what is most important for understanding military and political influence. It is relative military power that matters most. In this respect, the U.S. navy is far stronger now than in 1916.
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