Numerous challenges, uncertainties, and opportunities confront the Navy as we continue to chart our course into the 21st century. A critical element in the success of the Navy's transformation from a Cold-War force to a force tailored for the threats, roles, missions, and tasks of the future is a clear, focused, and objective assessment and a comprehensive, balanced process for program decision-making. Both must take into account evolving requirements and core capabilities for today's and tomorrow's Fleet in Network-Centric Warfare, Sea and Area Control, Power Projection, and Force Sustainment. Resources will continue to be constrained relative to all of our requirements, however. This situation will be aggravated by high-tempo, global operations that stress our people and their equipment. Still, the Navy is making the hard decisions and implementing key programs that will ensure critical forward-presence, crisis-response, and warfighting needs are satisfied, today and in the decades to come.
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