Risk to Readiness

The Navy has been working to improve the readiness of its surface combatant and amphibious warfare ships, but the service "faces risks to fully implementing its strategy and has not assessed these risks or developed alternatives to mitigate them," according to a Sept. 21 Government Accountability Office report titled, "Navy Needs to Assess Risks to Its Strategy to Improve Ship Readiness." The report states that while the service has developed a new strategy to better integrate maintenance actions, training and manning, other factors such as high operational tempos and supporting organizations' staffing levels "could delay the entry of some ships into the strategy and the execution of the strategy."