The Navy’s effort to trim spending through the concept of minimum manning showed promise in theory until material assessments revealed a downward trend in mission readiness. In January 2011, then-Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert declared that “minimum manning is over.” That was followed by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ announcement that 6,000 sailors would be reallocated back to the Fleet. While minimum manning was an attractive notion, cutting manpower alone does not work, as the recent past shows. The answer, however, is not to declare minimum manning a failure. It was minimum training, not minimum manning that forced those sailors back to the Fleet.
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