The Admiral is an idiot.

National Security Cutter.

Absalon Command Ship

Skjold Class Missile Fast Patrol Boats

You're going to have to go over to Commander Salamander's house to read this whole thing but I was half in the tank while I read this and wondered if the Admiral wasn't like that during normal business hours.  Check this out....

The spirit of Monitor -- and every other type of revolutionary ship -- is alive and well in LCS. As Monitor ushered in the era of armored ships and sounded the death knell for those of wood, so too will LCS usher in an era of a netted, flexible and modular capabilities.

With its interchangeable mission packages, its raw speed, and its ability to operate with so many other smaller navies around the world, LCS gives us a geo-strategic advantage we simply haven’t enjoyed since the beginnings of the Cold War.
The response by Singapore and by other Pacific partners to Freedom’s deployment, for example, has been overwhelmingly positive. They like the ship precisely because it isn’t big, heavily-armed or overtly offensive. They like it because they can work with it. I fail to see how that’s a bad thing in today’s maritime environment.
Let’s be honest. LCS was never intended to take on another fleet all by its own, and nobody ever expected it to bristle with weaponry. LCS was built to counter submarines, small surface attack craft, and mines in coastal areas. Thanks to its size and shallow draft, it can also conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations, maritime security and intercept operations, as well as homeland defense missions. It can support Marines ashore, insert special operations forces and hunt down pirates in places we can’t go right now.

Let me say that again … in places we can’t go right now.
That counts for something. The CNO always talks about building a Navy that can be where it matters and ready when it matters. Well, the littorals matter. The littorals are where products come to market; it’s where seaborne trade originates. Littorals include the major straits, canals, and other maritime chokepoints so necessary to this traffic. It’s also where a whole lot of people live. Coastal cities are home to more than three billion people right now, a figure that some experts estimate will double by 2025.

The Admiral is smoking crack.

Quite honestly the mission that he's talking about was performed by the Perry Class Frigates that are going out of service.

Except for mine hunting...which should be on a dedicated platform by the way...we're getting nothing new.  The comparisons to truly paradigm breaking ships of the past is a flat out lie.  He knows better.  We all know better.

The navies that he's talking about are involved in a massive program to upgrade their fleets and this is a step below what many of them are bringing into service.  The worship of "partnerships" has once again been proven to be a false god.  Those navies want to team with a technologically advanced force, one that brings things to the table that they don't have...and they want to get those capabilities themselves.  The Japanese don't want to train with the Marines so that they can be "part of the team" (well they do, but that's a small part of it).  They train with Marines because they want to learn the amphibious warfare art.  They want to achieve what the Marines already have.  If the Marine Corps approached them with watered down examples of how its done then they would be insulted.

That's actually what the Navy is doing with this boat.  They're insulting our allies.

Think about this and cry in your beer.  The Pegasus Hydrofoil has more firepower than the LCS.

It operated in the littoral zone and it was tossed aside by the big Navy.  Riverines was a throwback to the patrol boat Navy.  It was tossed aside.
You need something like the Riverines or the Coast Guard to do what is envisioned for the LCS if we're being honest.  But an undermanned LCS won't get it done, it won't insert Special Forces (Navy SEALs or MARSOC might ride along to claim a maritime role again...but it'll be a self serving role, not a real mission need), it won't provide support ashore for Marines (other ships---amphibs will do that and do it 1000% better) and in the end it won't even have the mine hunting mission (that'll be done by other ships that carry helicopters...this will be a helo based mission in the end).

Long story short.

The LCS is just another failure from this generation of generals/admirals that will forever mark this Pentagon as one of the worst in history.