I'm John Batchel.

This is the new John Batchel show represented by CBS News Radio.

It's a pleasure to continue a conversation with my colleague Jerry Hendricks, the author

Jerry Hendricks, to provide and maintain a Navy,

why Naval Promise is America's First Best Strategy,

asking the question, what Navy do we need?

Or as Jerry puts it very plainly,

what is the correct mix?

Jerry, how would you characterize the mix of the U.S. Navy today at under 300 ships?

What is its mission and can it adequately supply what is needed in this changing world?

Thank you, John. And great questions, once again. So the Navy has two essential roles that it has to do on a day-to-day basis.

And in one of those missions or roles is unique to the U.S. Navy, which is the requirement to

provide persistent naval presence around the world. No other force, the Air Force, the Army,

has a requirement to be persistently forward-deployed in order to uphold American interests.

And this approach isn't unique to the United States in history.

The British did this.

The Romans did this where they would use their navies to uphold their interests.

But for right now, the United States is sort of the ruling

top on the beat in the world on the idea of upholding rules and norms. And so we need a fairly

substantial Navy in order to be persistently out there. In fact, we need about 150 ships to be at sea

on any given day in order to satisfy all

of the presence requests and requirements that have been identified by our regional combatant

...