Middle east turmoil disrupts navy's ship maintenance plan.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

The Navy has long faced a backlog of ships awaiting maintenance. High operational tempos have forced vessels to deploy longer while repair schedules are shifted to the right.

Despite the fact that the Navy has come up with new maintenance plans, actors like the Islamic State--also known as ISIL or ISIS--may compromise its ability to get ships repaired on schedule.

Last year was "unusually active" in terms of new threats and missions, said retired Navy Vice Adm. Peter Daly, CEO of the United States Naval Institute. The biggest by far was the rise of ISIL.

The focus on counter-ISIL missions could potentially damage the Navy's efforts at creating a predictable maintenance schedule, Daly said. "Nobody saw this ISIS thing a year ago," he noted. Navy vessels play a key role in the effort as many U.S. air assets fly off the decks of carriers.

Before ISIL entered the spotlight, Navy officials expected there to be a cutback in missions in the Middle East as the combat operation ended in Afghanistan in 2014.

"The people who are planning maintenance and planning schedules might say, 'OK, there's going to be less demand when that winds down,'" Daly said. "Well, no sooner does that start to wind down then ISIS pops up."

Increased missions in the Middle East will likely force carrier strike groups to extend their missions in theater, he noted, potentially throwing off planned schedules.

In truth, ISIS didn't get the memo," Daly said in jest. "They didn't know about the big maintenance plan."

Compounding this problem are longstanding barriers to keeping planned maintenance on schedule.

The root of the problem is that the demand for ships exceeds the supply, Daly said.

"You've got this tension that exists between the combatant commanders who are out there--and they're demanding certain ships and airplanes from the Navy and the other services--and the suppliers," Daly said. "The providers are the service chiefs and they're the ones that have to man, train, ... equip and generate those forces."

The combatant commanders and the service chiefs have polar opposite views when it comes to maintenance, Daly noted. The commanders are fiscally unrestrained, have a short-term outlook --often only a year out--and are regionally focused in places such as Central Command or Pacific Command. But the service chiefs are at the other end of that spectrum. "They're absolutely fiscally constrained. They get a budget, a top line, and they have to balance." Additionally, they...