Admiral Charles Richard
Commander, U.S. Strategic Command
Charles A. “Chas” Richard was born in 1959 or 1960 in Decatur, Alabama. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama and has earned master’s degrees from The Catholic University of America and Naval War College.
His operational assignments include command of USS Parche, as well as Submarine NR-1, then the U.S. Navy’s only nuclear-powered, deep-submergence submarine. He also served aboard USS Portsmouth, USS Asheville, and USS Scranton. As a flag officer, he commanded Submarine Group 10, was director of Undersea Warfare at the Pentagon, and deputy commander of Joint Functional Component Command for Global Strike at the U.S. Strategic Command.
He served as executive assistant and naval aide to the Under Secretary of the Navy; chief of staff, Submarine Force Atlantic; and command of Submarine Squadron 17 in Bangor, Washington. He was director of resources for the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; squadron engineer of Submarine Squadron 8, and was a member of Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group.
In October 2019, Richard became the commanding officer of United States Strategic Command, after appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee and receiving a confirmation vote of the full Senate.
In the News…
A recent survey showed that only 48 percent of Americans have a “great deal of trust or confidence“ in the U.S. military. Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, recently confirmed these concerns saying, “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking… As those curves keep going, it isn’t going to matter how good our (operating plan) is or how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are — we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.”
Another report stated, “The U.S. Army is the smallest it has been since 1940, the Air Force is the smallest and oldest it has been since its inception, and the Navy, though well-below its targeted size, retires more ships than it builds. The Army missed its FY 2022 recruiting goal by 25%, its worst performance since the U.S. military became an all-volunteer force nearly 50 years ago. The Navy, Air Force, and Marines hit their goals only by accelerating enlistments of recruits scheduled for 2023.”
