Current Operations, Force Structure

Lost in the Small Surface Combatant Wilderness

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By Kevin Eyer

Between January 13 and 15, the 38th Annual Surface Navy Symposium convened in Crystal City, Virginia, offering a detailed look at the state of the surface fleet. Senior leaders—from the Secretary of the Navy to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commander of Fleet Forces Command—delivered formal presentations outlining priorities and challenges.

On the final morning, a closed session was held exclusively for active-duty and retired captains and commanders. The premise was clear: a room limited to officers who had commanded at sea would allow for a more candid, less scripted discussion. Four senior captains from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations delivered brief, upbeat remarks before opening the floor.

Soon, a retired captain stepped to the microphone and asked:

“What is the difference between the Littoral Combat Ship and the ‘Future Frigate’ now under development?”

It was, upon consideration, a troubling question. The Littoral Combat Ship program has become, in many respects, a relic—originally planned for 55 ships, later reduced to 35, and widely viewed as misaligned with the Navy’s operational needs. The program endures largely through institutional momentum and the absence of ready alternatives.

By contrast, the Future Frigate—the FF(X) —is presented as the way ahead. A central element of President Trump’s “Golden Fleet” modernization initiative announced in December 2025, it is intended to contribute to a faster, more capable Navy and sustain maritime superiority. The frigate represents an effort to correct decades of uneven performance in designing smaller surface combatants and to expand a segment of the fleet long criticized as both undersized and underpowered—the Small Surface Combatant (SSC) element.

The relationship between the two ship classes had, in fact, been addressed earlier in the symposium by Rear Admiral Derek Trinque, Director of the Surface Warfare Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. He distinguished the Littoral Combat Ship’s mission-module concept from the frigate’s proposed approach. One of the Littoral Combat Ship’s program difficulties, he explained, was attempting to integrate systems that did not yet exist with a hull still under construction—an ambitious concept that proved harder in practice than in theory. The Future Frigate, by contrast, will incorporate existing systems packaged with defined interfaces to the ship’s combat system, allowing more reliable and rapid changes in capability.

In essence, according to Rear Admiral Trinque, the Future Frigate—like the Littoral Combat Ship—will rely to some extent on modular mission packages. The difference lies in execution: a more disciplined, technically mature integration model.

Yet the retired captain’s question reached beyond a simply question of architectural integration. The deeper issues he posed with his question remained unaddressed: What missions are assigned—or will ultimately be assigned to the Littoral Combat Ship? Will the Future Frigate assume those same roles? What is the envisioned division of labor between these two small surface combatants? What, if any, differences exist in their limitations—and how should those limits shape the missions they are given?

Perhaps most importantly, what can these ships do or not do?

The Future Frigate and the Golden Fleet

On 19 December 2025, Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan stated: “To deliver at speed and scale, I’ve directed the acquisition of a new frigate class based on HII’s Legend-Class National Security Cutter design: a proven, American-built ship that has been protecting US interests at home and abroad. President Trump and the Secretary of Defense have signed off on this as part of the Golden Fleet. Our goal is clear: launch the first hull in the water in 2028. To expand capacity and production across our maritime industrial base, we will acquire these ships using a lead yard and competitive follow-on strategy for multi-yard construction. Shipyards will be measured against one outcome: delivering combat power to the Fleet as fast as possible.”

As part of the President’s recently advertised “Golden Fleet,” the Navy plans a “high/low” mix of ships, featuring several new classes in addition to combatant classes already in the fleet. On the “high” end, the Navy intends to maintain a Large Surface inventory, including a new guided missile battleship class, supported by both existing and planned Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, which have been and continue to be built in multiple “Flights.” According to Issues for Congress, the goal is to maintain approximately 87 large combatants. These large combatants are intended for assignment to complex mission sets, potentially involving multiple warfare areas in the most heavily contested waters. For example, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer operating in the Red Sea is fully capable of simultaneously escorting merchant ships, providing on-call Tomahawk land-strike capability, and offering the most-sophisticated air defense umbrella for an entire region of the battlespace.

On the “low” end of the spectrum are Small Surface Combatants which include the Navy’s frigates, like the Future Frigate, and the Littoral Combat Ships, as well as mine warfare ships. With the retirement of the Avenger-class there are no more dedicated mine warfare ships in the Navy These ships are smaller, less expensive, manned by smaller crews, and less capable than Large Surface Combatants. While they can operate in conjunction with Large Surface Combatants and other Navy vessels, particularly in higher-threat environments, they are also designed to operate independently in lower-threat settings.

As specified at the Symposium, missions assigned to Small Surface Combatants – including both the LCS and the FF(X) – may include Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Mine Countermeasure Operations (MCM). According to the briefings, these ships will enable a significant expansion of the Navy’s worldwide footprint while increasing fleet capacity in areas of active combat operations. To fill the ranks of these small combatants, the Navy plans to rely on a combination of existing Littoral Combat Ships and the now-planned Future Frigate class.

So, how many Small Surface Combatants does the Navy plan on fielding? 

The Navy’s Fiscal Year 2025 30-year shipbuilding plan calls for a future force of 381 manned battle force ships, including 73 Small Surface Combatants. Of these, 15 are Littoral Combat Ships capable of conducting mine warfare operations, while 58 are designated as guided missile frigates — meaning frigates built to either the original or a modified Flight II design. (A Flight II FFG was, until recently cancelled, the Constellation-class). Under its 2025 budget submission, the Navy proposed maintaining a force of 25 Littoral Combat Ships instead of 15. This adjustment would imply a total of 48 frigates, rather than 58.

However, the Navy has reportedly prepared a new ship force-level objective which will succeed the existing plan. This new objective is predicated upon the requirements outlined for the “Golden Fleet.” As of late December 2025, the force composition of this new objective had not been announced. Still, considering that multiple speakers at the Symposium firmly indicated the Navy intends to maintain 35 Littoral Combat Ships while building perhaps as many as 50 Future Frigates, one might sensibly suppose that the small and large combat fleets will be roughly equal in size – somewhere around 85 hulls for each.

Unclear Missions

It is curious that the Symposium suggested that the ships of the SSC classes may…may…contribute to ASuW, ASW, and MCM. While that seems worthy, RADM Trinque also outlined another, entirely more nebulous, role for the Future Frigate: That ship, he said, is explicitly intended to help alleviate the workload on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. He framed this need within the perspective of Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle, as outlined in his “Fighting Instructions.”

Published after the Symposium, on February 9, the Fighting Instructions introduce the “Hedge Strategy,” which calls for a balanced, scalable force mix rather than reliance solely on expensive, high-end formations like carrier strike groups. The strategy emphasizes tailored forces—combinations of ships, aircraft, unmanned systems, and other capabilities—that can be adapted for specific missions and crises, instead of a brittle model optimized only for high-end conflict but with capabilities underutilized in day-to-day operations.

Problematically, the Fighting Instructions are more strategic philosophy than technical manual. They do not prescribe specific weapons, sensors, or deployments, but rather articulate principles for how the fleet should organize, operate, and fight in a complex global environment. While the guidance supports a shift away from using Arleigh Burke-class destroyers as the default solution for every mission – favoring distributed, purpose-built packages – the Littoral Combat Ship and the Future Frigate are not mentioned as relieving the overburdened Burkes.

This raises a key question: where is the Future Frigate’s role—and particularly with regard to relieving the burden on Large Surface Combatants—explicitly defined? Where is this requirement laid down?

The answer is that it is not, which begs the question, what is the real purpose of the ship? Is it ASuW, ASW, or MCM? Is it there to relieve the Arleigh Burke-class? Of what? Or is it something else, as of yet unspecified?

Ambition Beyond Need?

The Navy appears to be aiming for roughly 85 small surface combatants. What is the origin of this number? More important, is that number the correct one to ease pressure on the Arleigh Burkes, and how will that relief be operationalized?

Determining deployable force size requires the application of the Navy’s standard availability model: at any given time, roughly one-third of ships are deployed, one-third are in training and certification cycles, and one-third are in maintenance or modernization. 

Applied to an 85-ship Small Surface Combatant fleet, that model would yield approximately 28 ships deployed at any given time. That is a striking figure. Some estimates put the total number of active destroyers in the future at 94. 

Ninety-four destroyers and 85 frigates would create an essentially one-for-one situation. Granted: such comparisons are inherently imprecise; however, the implication is notable and suggest a strategic ambition that goes well beyond merely alleviating pressure on the destroyer force.

And, while small combatants may be able to execute ASuW, ASW, and MCM, they are absolutely not a one-for-one replacement for a Large Surface Combatant.

So, what does the term “relief” actually mean, and how does that square with other mission sets mentioned for these ships at the Symposium? And why so many FF(X)s?

The Unexpected Future Frigate Mission

Curiously, at least one slide presented during the Captain/Commander session suggested that the Future Frigate might eventually assume “Anti-Air Warfare Mission Sets.” This raises a significant issue. Neither the Littoral Combat Ship nor the Future Frigate possesses—nor are planned to possess—an organic air defense capability beyond point defense.

Point defense protects only the ship itself. Area-air-defense, by contrast, protects groups of ships or an entire task force.

The proposed baseline armament for the Future Frigate includes a 57mm main gun, a 30mm auxiliary gun, and a Mk-49 launcher carrying 21 Rolling Airframe Missiles, supported by AN/SLQ-32(V)6 electronic warfare systems and Nulka decoy launchers. The ship is expected to carry an AN/SPS-77 air and surface search radar. Mission modules may include containerized weapons such as Naval Strike Missiles or Hellfire missiles installed in a stern payload space. As of now, no specific Combat Management System has been identified. 

This configuration essentially mirrors the air-defense capability of the Littoral Combat Ship: 21 Rolling Airframe Missiles, and a surveillance radar. It is important to note here that while Rolling Airframe Missiles provide effective self-defense, they cannot perform area air defense. The system is effective only at ranges out to 10km, and for threats below Mach 2. It is not, for example, capable against several classes of air threats, including ballistic missiles, Hypersonic Glide Vehicles, and high and medium altitude aircraft. Further, low magazine depth means that the system may be overwhelmed by saturation.

Modern area defense requires Standard Missiles, a vertical launch system, and a powerful radar integrated with a combat system such as Aegis and AN/SPY-6 radar. Without these elements, a ship cannot reliably counter the full range of modern aerial threats. These are the facts, and they are not in dispute.

Nor is such an upgrade feasible. The Littoral Combat Ship already operates near the limits of its stability, while the Future Frigate is derived from the Legend-class National Security Cutter, a design of roughly 4,500 tons displacement. By comparison, the now-canceled Constellation-class guided-missile frigate, the smallest modern Navy design intended to carry an area-air-defense system, displaced over 7,000 tons. The radar, launch systems, missiles, and supporting equipment required for area defense simply exceed the weight and space margins of a 3,500-ton Littoral Combat Ship or a roughly 4,700-ton Future Frigate.

This reality matters. In U.S. Navy classification, the “G” designation—as in guided missile destroyers or frigates—indicates a ship capable of guided-missile . Suggestion that the Future Frigate can perform Anti-Air warfare missions without such capability is therefore misleading.

Historically, frigates served as ocean escorts, but ships equipped only with point defense cannot safely escort other vessels where air attack is possible. They can defend themselves, but not the ships around them. For the Small Surface Combatants, this obviates escort of merchant shipping or amphibious forces. That mission must fall to the Large Surface Combatants—Arleigh Burkes.

The importance of this distinction—point and area defense capability—is growing as air and missile threats proliferate. A decade ago, it would have seemed implausible that the Houthis in Yemen could challenge shipping with anti-ship ballistic missiles—yet that has been reality since 2023. Meanwhile, advanced systems such as Russia’s Tsirkon and China’s DF-21D anti-ship missiles continue to expand the threat environment in genuinely

The conclusion is unavoidable: Small Surface Combatants cannot operate independently against peer adversaries in high air threat environments. As for missions like Anti-Submarine or Anti-Air Warfare, those missions can only be carried out under the area-air-defense umbrella provided by guided missile destroyers.

Which raises the central question, yet again: if Arleigh Burke destroyers remain the only ships capable of protecting the fleet from the air, what does it truly mean to “relieve the burden” on the destroyer force?

The One True Mission

A major problem for the Navy today is a reliance on sledgehammer solutions for problems that may only require a tack hammer. For example, in 2009, USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) was assigned to anti-piracy operations off Somalia. In March 2025, USS Gravely (DDG 107) was sent to the Gulf of Mexico for a maritime border mission under US Northern Command, helping to deter illegal sea crossings and drug trafficking. Simultaneously, USS Stockdale (DDG 106) deployed off the US–Mexico Pacific coast to support the same operation, with a Coast Guard detachment embarked.

It is troubling that these ships—the critical core of the Navy’s Large Surface Combatant power for the next 50 years—are being expended on missions more appropriately suited to smaller, lightly armed and manned ships. Ships can only accumulate so many operational miles; once Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer miles are used for counter-drug or other low-end tasks, they cannot be reclaimed.

Rear Admiral Trinque touched upon this critical dynamic. According to Trinque, with destroyers focusing on “high-end” missions, there’s room for the Littoral Combat Ship to do the less involved work of countering narcotics trafficking, which has shot to the top of national security priorities in the past year. “If it’s defending the territorial integrity of the United States against illegal trafficking, counter-narcotics, if it’s controlling sea lanes in a lower threat environment, then a small surface combatant should be in your toolkit.”

Rear Admiral Trinque was referring to a mission set known as Maritime Interdiction Operations. However, today, and as noted above, maritime interdictions is not a mission exclusively assigned to Littoral Combat Ships

So, what specific missions should these Small Surface Combatants perform? How can they relieve the Arleigh Burke-class? The answer lies in straightforward yet fundamental Navy tasks that lie below the heavy combat requirements assigned to the destroyers:

Maritime Interdiction Operations: This includes interdiction of drugs, weapons, and human smuggling; enforcement of sanctions and embargoes; counter-piracy; interdiction of terrorist movements and logistics; and prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation.

Mine Countermeasure Operations: With the retirement of the Avenger-class, there are no purpose-built mine warfare ships in the fleet. For years, the Navy has relied on NATO to provide these capabilities. However, any fight in the Western Pacific cannot be assumed to be mine-free, nor can NATO be expected to supply mine warfare ships. Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers have no such capability; this gap must be filled elsewhere to ensure access for operations such as the defense of Taiwan or Korea.

Multinational and Presence Operations: The Navy routinely operates with allied navies in exercises such as BALTOPS (Baltic), UNITAS (South Ameria), CUTLASS EXPRESS (East Africa/Western Indian Ocean), and FOAL EAGLE/FREEDOM SHIELD (Korean Peninsula). These missions involve dozens of ships annually. Assigning Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers to such low-threat demonstrations is equivalent to sending a sledgehammer to perform tack-hammer work.

of these missions require sophisticated combat systems, larger size, or large and complex crews. Except for Mine Countermeasure Operations, none require operations in high-threat waters. Yet these missions remain core Navy responsibilities. This is not to say that the inclusion of a Large Surface Combatant would not have the value of sending a powerful message to both allies and adversary; however, that choice should be optional.

Three critical missions to ease the burden on the Large Surface Combatants. While these small ships can augment that force in combat areas, without area air capability, they absolutely cannot relieve a single Large Surface Combatant of its duties.

Is This About Shipbuilding?

What stands behind the Secretary of the Navy’s push get the first of very many Future Frigates into the water by 2028 – an extraordinary number since the shortest time recorded for a Littoral Combat to go from keel laying to commission was 36 months.

Is it the need for a significant small combatant force?

In truth, this rush may well be more connected to national shipbuilding concerns that it is to the specific force structure needs of the Navy. The president has repeatedly emphasized the need to revitalize US shipbuilding, which is critical to national security. During World War II, the US outbuilt adversaries and achieved naval dominance; today, fewer than two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers are delivered per year. The United States has arguably lost the ability to build ships in numbers, and that may tell in a war situation with a peer competitor, like China. 

This is not to say that an American ability to build ships and submarines in number is not a national imperative—it is. It is, in fact, a key element of the National Security Strategy. The published document makes clear that cultivating a strong American industrial base—including critical production capacity – is fundamental to national power and security. This implies that building the capacity to produce ships and other systems is part of national strategy, not just defense programs.

But is building the Future Frigate, at least in part, to stimulate this industrial imperative enough. It is not. The Navy needs to build the right ship, not just a ship. With respect to fleet needs, 85, point defense-equipped frigates is many more than required to either execute the destroyer-relieving missions of Presence, Mine Warfare, Maritime Interdiction, or even combat augmentation.

While building the Future Frigate may be an indispensable win for US shipbuilding, the cost —in money, resources, fleet coherence, and the opportunity to build the next, right warship —remains significant.

What are we Doing and Why?

The central point is this: the Future Frigate is being pursued less as a decisive warfighting innovation than as a means to stabilize a shipbuilding enterprise in distress. Its secondary purpose is to relieve the operational burden on the Arleigh Burke–class destroyers. Beyond that, it functions as a stopgap—bridging the gap until the Navy can define and build the “next” truly capable surface combatant. That ship is not the Future Frigate.

As for the cancelled Constellation-class, which the Secretary of the Navy deemed too expensive, too far behind schedule, and abutting the fleet space occupied by the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, that ship most likely would have filled the need for a modern, area air defense capable frigate. The net result of the cancellation is a faster, cheaper solution which can be quickly built in numbers—the Future Frigate—even if that solution is far less capable than the Constellation. But then, this appears to be more about stimulating the industrial base than it is about the warfighting mission.

In the near term, the Navy should take practical steps to maximize the utility of its existing and planned Small Surface Combatants. This is not to argue against making these ships as capable as possible within clearly defined limits. The strategic environment is increasingly unpredictable; even a vessel assigned to counter-piracy could find itself drawn into a broader conflict. Small combatants can and must contribute meaningfully to high-end warfare—but only if their limitations are clearly understood and accepted.

With respect to the Littoral Combat Ship classes, two viable paths present themselves. First, the Independence-class should be rationalized into a single-mission platform focused on mine countermeasures. These ships should be forward-deployed to the Arabian Gulf and Western Pacific—Japan or Guam—along with the necessary shore infrastructure. There, they would provide a credible and responsive mine warfare capability in the theater of greatest risk. While the mine countermeasures module remains immature, the absence of alternative dedicated capability in the fleet makes these ships indispensable. Further, their large flight decks and speed also make them well suited to operate unmanned aerial systems, extending surveillance, reconnaissance, and limited strike capacity across the battlespace, albeit not concurrently with mine operations.

The Freedom-class, by contrast, should be based on the U.S. East Coast and tasked with maritime interdiction operations that currently consume high-end assets. These missions—ranging from counter-narcotics to presence operations—do not require robust air defense and are ill-suited to Arleigh Burke–class destroyers. In peacetime, the forward-deployed Independence-class could supplement these roles as needed. While both Littoral Combat Ship variants are more complex and manpower-intensive than ideal for such missions, they are available and sufficient.

As for the Future Frigate, the Navy must resist the temptation to expand its mission beyond its inherent limits. It will not be, and cannot be, a “pocket destroyer” capable of full-spectrum air warfare. That kind of mission creep—allowing requirements to exceed the physical and power constraints of the hull—was a central factor in the Littoral Combat Ship program’s difficulties.

Anti-Submarine Warfare capability remains particularly uncertain. Senior officials have suggested that more advanced Anti-Submarine Warfare systems may be deferred to later increments, leaving early ships reliant primarily on embarked helicopters. Proposed modular solutions—containerized towed arrays or unmanned systems—remain undefined. Given the cancellation of the Littoral Combat Ship Anti-Submarine module, following years of delay, expectations for a near-term frigate-based solution should be tempered

Consequently, the Future Frigate, with limited point-defense air warfare capability and no clearly defined organic Anti-Submarine Warfare suite, will not be suited to escort duties in contested environments. Missions such as convoy escort, amphibious protection, and area air defense will remain the responsibility of the destroyer force.

Instead, the Future Frigate should be designed to replace the Littoral Combat Ship fleet over time while sustaining the industrial base and maintaining hull numbers for low- to – medium intensity missions. Conceptually, it should resemble an enhanced Coast Guard cutter: equipped with a medium-caliber gun, point-defense missile systems, modest Anti-Submarine Warfare capability, and possibly an over-the-horizon strike weapon, but nothing more ambitious. These ships can augment deployed forces—but only under the protective umbrella of destroyer-provided air defense.

Ultimately, the restoration of U.S. shipbuilding capacity may itself justify the program, even if the resulting force structure exceeds the strict requirements of the Small Surface Combatant mission set. This industrial imperative likely explains the urgency behind the 2028 timeline, despite the lack of fully defined requirements.

The Navy’s enthusiasm for the broader fleet expansion, and for the Future Frigate in particular, appears driven in large part by the need to relieve the unsustainable operational tempo imposed on the Arleigh Burke force—tasked with everything from high-end combat to routine patrol duties.

In that sense, the current leadership has been charged with addressing the cumulative consequences of several troubled acquisition efforts, including the Littoral Combat Ship and the Zumwalt-class destroyer. Yet it is essential to recognize the Future Frigate for what it is: an interim solution, intended as much to sustain shipbuilding as to enhance combat capability.

The real challenge remains the development of the next-generation surface combatant—a ship with the size, power, and growth margin to accommodate future weapons and sensors. That search has eluded the Navy for decades. The Future Frigate is not that answer. Achieving it will require a clean-sheet design, sustained discipline, and a willingness to align ambition with technical reality. Until then, the frigate program represents not a destination, but a holding action.

Captain Kevin Eyer is a retired Surface Warfare Officer who served on active duty for 27 years. He deployed in seven cruisers and commanded three Aegis cruisers; USS Thomas S. Gates (CG 51), USS Shiloh (CG 67), and USS Chancellorsville (CG 62). Captain Eyer completed tours on both the Navy Staff and Joint Staff and attained a master’s from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tuft’s University. He was the US Naval Institute Proceedings Author of the Year in 2017, and three-time winner of the Surface Navy Literary Award.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Feb. 27, 2019) The Independence variant littoral combat ships USS Tulsa (LCS 16), right, USS Manchester (LCS 14), center, and USS Independence (LCS 2), left, sail in formation in the eastern Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shannon Renfroe/Released).

Undersea

The Aramid Shield: Snare Drones for an Active Undersea Defense Capability

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By Franciszek Kopczewski

In January and February 2025, Chinese-operated ships Shunxing 39 and Hong Tai 58 committed similar sabotage tactics. Both ships dragged their anchors for miles, intentionally targeting and cutting the critical undersea cables that connect Taiwan to the global internet.

This was not an isolated incident of maritime negligence. These vessels were employing a refined gray zone harassment tactic first observed in February 2023, when Chinese ships severed the two main arteries leading to the Matsu Islands. That 2023 incident resulted in a digital blackout for 50 days, paralyzing the lives of 13,000 residents and stripping the island of its ability to communicate with the central government.

Russia and China routinely weaponize commercial shipping to hide behind the veneer of plausible deniability and evade accountability from international law. China’s primary tool in this domain is the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM). These fishing boats are civilian only on paper. In reality, they operate as a subsidiary arm of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), capable of conducting swarming operations that overwhelm coast guard capacities. In the Baltic Sea, the Russian Federation employs a similar modus operandi through its shadow fleet – a disorganized but coordinated mass of tankers operating under flags of convenience and ignoring international safety standards. Most recently, the Russian tanker Eagle S was identified as the primary suspect in the cutting of the Estlink 2 cable. Every incident follows the same script: Anchors drag across cables, the ships in question claim innocent navigational error, while the timing and location of the damage suggest coordinated intent to harm. Democratic regimes, bound by the rule of law and the aiming to avoid escalation, consistently struggle with this malign activity.

The Mismatch of Traditional Hulls

The current maritime defense architecture relies on a binary choice that no longer fits the reality of the gray zone. On one hand, both the Baltic states and Taiwan possess gray hulls – commissioned ships of national navies like frigates and destroyers. While powerful, these assets are ill-suited for combating asymmetric sabotage. The persistent mismatch between conventional naval architecture and gray-zone provocation creates a state of strategic paralysis. Gray hulls are designed for high-intensity conflict, leaving commanders with a binary choice: passive observation or disproportionate kinetic escalation. Without intermediate force capabilities, a billion-dollar destroyer is not a deterrent, but a high-priced witness to institutional helplessness. Furthermore, maintaining gray hulls in a constant state of alert to shadow hundreds of potential saboteurs is economically unsustainable.

Meanwhile, national coast guards, or white hulls, operate under a regime of chronic mission saturation. Tasked with search-and-rescue, fisheries enforcement, and border security, these fleets lack the hull numbers required for persistent, point-to-point protection of thousands of kilometers of linear seabed infrastructure. Expanding these organizations to meet the surveillance requirements of a contested EEZ is not merely a budgetary hurdle but a logistical impossibility; the procurement cycles and manpower demands for a fleet capable of providing a credible presence over every vulnerable cable segment would cripple national maritime budgets. This creates a permanent surveillance deficit that cannot be solved by building more manned platforms, but only by shifting the burden to autonomous, scalable systems.

Since traditional hulls cannot secure maritime infrastructure, a new category of sea power is required. With the rapid development of robotics and drone technologies, Taiwan and the Baltic states must pivot toward an undersea asymmetric buffer. While the Danes now monitor infrastructure with surface drones and Poland’s WB Group develops UUV for the same purpose, these concepts currently focus on ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). However, eyes alone will not stop this aggression. Passive monitoring only provides a front-row seat to the destruction of one’s sovereignty. States must move beyond deterrence by detection. The gap in defense is the lack of Intermediate Force Capabilities (IFC). Intermediate Force Capabilities are defined as tools and effects designed to bridge the gap between presence and lethal force. They provide commanders with scalable options to impede, disable, or neutralize targets without causing permanent damage or loss of life. In the context of seabed infrastructure, IFCs represent the only viable path out of the binary trap of doing nothing versus starting a war.

From Monitoring to Active Occlusion

To achieve true security, maritime operational posture must transition from passive detection to active non-lethal intervention. Taiwan’s Submarine Cable Automatic Warning System (SAWS) is a world-class monitoring tool, but it lacks a physical means by which to stop the crime. The answer lies in dual-use drones: platforms capable of ISR and snaring. The breakthrough approach here relies on what the U.S. Department of Defense officially categorizes as occlusion technology, a developing class of Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) designed to physically obstruct a vessel’s propellers in a reversible but effective manner.

In the context of our proposed system, this translates to active propulsion occlusion: the mechanical incapacitation of a vessel’s drive system through the deployment of aramid snares. Unlike traditional naval weapons that target the hull and risk lethal escalation, this capability focuses exclusively on the propulsion train, rendering the target immobile without causing kinetic damage or environmental hazards.

To understand the viability of this mechanism, it is essential to look at material science. Aramid fibers, most commonly known by the commercial brand name Kevlar, are a class of synthetic polymers characterized by extraordinary tensile strength, impact absorption, and high thermal resistance. While vessels occasionally experience accidental propeller entanglements with standard maritime ropes or discarded fishing gear made of polyethylene and nylon, these conventional plastics are suboptimal for intentional occlusion. Under the massive torque and friction generated by a commercial ship’s drive shaft, standard ropes typically melt or snap. Conversely, steel cables could withstand the friction but are far too heavy to be deployed by compact, autonomous drones.

Aramid fibers offer a unique asymmetric advantage: they are exceptionally lightweight for drone payloads, yet they refuse to yield, stretch, or melt under extreme friction. When deployed into the water column, these snares aggressively bind the spinning propeller shaft, safely stalling the engine and rendering the target immobile without causing kinetic damage or environmental hazards. This non-lethal entanglement forces a critical tactical pause. It immobilizes the ship without harming the crew, giving white hulls the time needed to arrive, board, and facilitate legal prosecution.

The Legal Frontier: From Passive Penalization to Active Prevention

This initiative transcends mere tactical innovation; it represents a fundamental legal necessity aimed at closing a systemic gap in the Law of the Sea. While Article 113 of UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) obliges states to ensure that the injury or breaking of a submarine cable is a punishable offense, the international community currently lacks the means to apprehend perpetrators red-handed during maritime disruptions. Snare drones address this by functioning as instruments of pre-emptive law enforcement, establishing a rigorous chain of custody and physical evidence that effectively strips aggressors of their plausible deniability.

To codify this shift, Taipei and the Baltic states should spearhead a ‘Cable Guardian Coalition’ – a framework defining autonomous snare drones as legitimate ‘Cable Cops’ for maritime law enforcement. This evolution of Article 113 mandates that state obligations move toward active prevention in the age of hybrid warfare, establishing a new customary norm: within critical infrastructure zones, the right of innocent passage terminates exactly where documented sabotage begins.

An Aramid Shield concept can serve as the operational framework for this defense, a technical architecture that integrates autonomous drone swarms with the aramid-based occlusion capabilities described above. To mitigate accusations of unlawful maritime interference, the shield must operate under a rigorous, three-tier behavioral protocol. When the SAWS system detects anomalous vessel behavior – such as anchor dragging within a designated cable corridor – the drone does not engage immediately. Instead, it first issues directional acoustic and radio warnings. Only after explicit instructions are ignored and a designated exclusion zone above the infrastructure is breached does the drone deploy its snares. This controlled escalation – a hallmark of Intermediate Force Capabilities (IFC) – shifts the burden of consequence onto the sabotaging captain, transforming immobilization from an arbitrary defensive act into a direct result of the aggressor’s own refusal to comply.

The ultimate legal safeguard must be a state-backed liability framework. In the event of a system error resulting in the immobilization of a vessel with a genuine mechanical failure, the host state would provide immediate compensation for vessel tie-up. This is a cold calculation: the cost of a one-time payout for a ship’s delay is a rounding error compared to the billions in losses generated by a digital blackout. By absorbing this risk, states like Taiwan or Poland signal to the international community that the integrity of the global data backbone is a non-negotiable priority, over-riding minor maritime traffic disputes.

The Economic Perspective: Prevention vs. Repair

The global fleet of Cable Repair Ships is dangerously limited. Currently, fewer than 60 such vessels exist worldwide, and they are often booked months in advance. A single sabotage event can lead to long queues and astronomical repair costs. The financial argument for autonomous intervention is compelling when viewed through the lens of a cost-exchange ratio. While a single sabotage event can incur repair costs exceeding $1 million-compounded by catastrophic, multi-billion dollar GDP losses during connectivity blackouts, a swarm of fifty mass-produced AUVs represents only a fraction of the price of a single naval frigate. Investing in prevention via a scalable drone architecture is not merely a tactical choice, but a long-term strategic necessity that offsets the cumulative expenses of a decade’s worth of potential repairs.

The strategic value of this autonomous persistence is best illustrated in high-density maritime chokepoints, such as Taiwan. The concentration of critical infrastructure in nodes like Tamsui and Fangshan, where the loss of a few square kilometers of seabed could effectively decapitate regional digital sovereignty – makes them ideal candidates for shore-based drone launchers. By establishing automated response zones at these specific Cable Landing Stations (CLS), defenders can achieve a level of weather-independent, zero-hour readiness that traditional naval patrols, often delayed by transit times from distant ports, cannot provide. Similar vulnerabilities exist in the Luzon Strait (Philippines) or the Okinawa prefecture (Japan), where the seabed is becoming a theater of gray-zone competition. This model of localized, high-readiness persistence is not a niche solution for the Pacific, but a blueprint for securing any critical maritime hub.

The Risks: Aramid Shield is Not a Silver Bullet

Every asymmetric solution carries its own set of risks. The Aramid Shield is no exception, and its success depends on managing three critical vulnerabilities. First is the risk of narrative inversion. Beijing and Moscow are masters of lawfare. Both countries will likely frame the non-lethal immobilization of their civilian vessels as a hostile act against international shipping. Even without drawing blood, the act of snaring a propeller can be weaponized in the media to cast the defender as the aggressor. To counter this, if possible every drone intervention should be backed by real-time video evidence to prove the vessel was engaged in sabotage.

Second is the escalation of escorts. If China perceives snare drones as a serious threat to its maritime militia, it may justify the deployment of armed naval escorts to protect its fishing fleet. This would raise the cost of intervention, forcing a direct confrontation between gray hulls – precisely the scenario IFC is designed to avoid.

Third is the technological cat-and-mouse game. The effectiveness of occlusion is not permanent. Adversaries will adapt by installing propeller cages, reinforced propulsion systems, or acoustic deterrents to jam AUV sensors.

Finally, attribution remains the core challenge. A snared vessel can still claim mechanical failure or randomness. Without a rapid-response white hull presence to board and inspect the ship immediately after it is immobilized, the physical evidence provided by the snare might be lost or dismissed in international courts. To avoid accusations of maritime harassment, the use of snare drones must be tied to a strict behavioral trigger. A vessel only loses its innocent passage status when its actions – such as unannounced anchoring or hovering over critical coordinates – violate standard maritime transit protocols.

Conclusion: The Aramid Shield

The global frontiers, from the Baltics to the First Island Chain are the new laboratories of asymmetric innovation. The synergy between frontline states, from Poland and Ukraine to Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines must be industrial, not just political. By establishing a shared technological standard for modular mission payloads, these nations can build a scalable deterrent that great powers often overlook.

Policymakers must understand that infrastructure security is not a one-time investment but a constant operational struggle. There is an urgent need for a unified legal framework that recognizes AUVs as legitimate tools of maritime order. While the Silicon Shield protects Taiwan from a full-scale kinetic invasion, an “Aramid Shield” is required to prevent digital strangulation in the gray zone. Across the Indo-Pacific and Europe, the cost of inaction is too high; if critical cables are severed, the most advanced semiconductors will mean nothing if the data can never leave the factories. In the gray zone, silence is a signal of weakness, but a snare is a signal of resolve. The era of passive monitoring must end. The era of active undersea defense must begin.

Franciszek Kopczewski is a geostrategic analyst specializing in asymmetric warfare. He is a guest contributor to international outlets including Eurasia Review and the Polish-based Układ Sił. He is currently pursuing a degree in International Relations at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Toruń, Poland, and completing an online certification in the Politics and Economics of International Energy at Sciences Po.

Featured Image: Propellers of the ship USS Sacramento. (Photo via National Archives)

Force Structure

A Four-Ocean Navy: A Wrong Solution to the Right Problem

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By Bruce Stubbs

I. Introduction

“Whether you build a Navy for high consequence, low probability or low consequence, high probability scenarios — in either case you’re left with an over or undersubscribed force that’s sub-optimized to address specific use cases which may never come to bear.” —Admiral Daryl Caudle, Chief of Naval Operations, 2026

Professor Derek Reveron’s March 2026 CIMSEC essay, “Why America Needs a Four-Ocean Navy,” is the kind of grand strategic thinking the naval profession needs more of — clear, historically grounded, and bracingly ambitious. His diagnosis of the Navy’s central problem is essentially correct: a globally dispersed force trying to do everything with a shrinking number of expensive multi-mission ships is a formula for strategic incoherence and operational exhaustion. On that point, there is little to dispute.

Reveron’s prescription is a two-part proposal: a command and control (C2) organizational redesign and a tailored forces program. On the organizational side, he proposes replacing the Navy’s current theater-oriented fleet structure with four ocean-based fleet commands — the Atlantic Ocean Fleet Command, Pacific Ocean Fleet Command, Arctic Ocean Fleet Command, and Indian Ocean Fleet Command — each with its own commander, budget, and procurement priorities. On the forces side, he proposes tailoring each fleet’s composition to its specific threat environment: frigates, destroyers, attack submarines, maritime patrol aircraft, small surface combatants, unmanned systems, and diesel-electric submarines sourced from allied yards for the Atlantic and Arctic; logistics ships, replenishment oilers, mobile bases, amphibious ships, destroyers, and patrol craft for the Indian Ocean Fleet Command; and the Navy’s most advanced combat-ready platforms — aircraft carriers, nuclear attack submarines, and Aegis-equipped destroyers interoperable with Japan and South Korea — for the Pacific Ocean Fleet Command. To authorize and fund this differentiated structure, he invokes the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 as his legislative model, proposing a Four-Ocean Navy Act of 2026.

The organizational and forces logic is strategically intuitive. But both elements of Reveron’s proposal rest on a foundation that is missing its first and most essential element: a strategy that disciplines the demand for naval forces before it designs the force to meet that demand. Without that prior strategic work, force design becomes institutional preference rather than strategic requirement — and no organizational architecture survives contact with a political system that treats naval power as its primary instrument of coercive statecraft. Five arguments establish why. Before examining those arguments, however, it is worth establishing what Reveron gets right — because he gets a great deal right, and the critique that follows is stronger for acknowledging it.

II. What Reveron Gets Right — The Strategic Case for Differentiation

In World War II, the Navy that fought in the Pacific was structurally different from the Navy that fought in the Atlantic — not accidentally, but by deliberate strategic design. The Pacific Fleet was organized around fast carriers, submarines, and amphibious assault capability, sustained by a massive mobile logistics force — Service Squadron Ten and its predecessors — across the vast distances of the Pacific. The Atlantic Fleet was organized principally around escort destroyers, anti-submarine warfare vessels, and convoy protection against the German U-boat threat, though it also mounted major amphibious operations in North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Southern France, and Normandy. One strategy and one force design did not fit both theaters.

It is worth being precise about what the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 was and was not. Congress authorized an unprecedented industrial expansion to build enough warships for two oceans. It was the strategic situation — the fall of France, the prospect of fighting Germany and Japan simultaneously without European allies — and the Roosevelt administration’s Germany-first policy that determined the different force compositions each theater required. The Act was the industrial means to execute a prior strategic judgment; it was not the strategic judgment itself.

That historical lesson translates directly to Reveron’s present argument. In the Pacific, China’s navy — now the world’s largest by hull count — operates along interior lines within its near seas, supported by land-based anti-ship missiles, a sophisticated air defense envelope, and a clear strategic objective: controlling the first island chain and deterring or defeating American intervention over Taiwan. The tyranny of distance favors China in its own near seas; the United States must project power across thousands of miles of open ocean to contest it. In the Atlantic, Russia’s rebuilt and modernized submarine fleet represents the most capable undersea threat the NATO alliance has faced since the 1980s — and Russian submarines can also launch long-range precision cruise missiles against targets in Europe and against critical military infrastructure along the American eastern seaboard, raising important questions about whether the Atlantic Ocean Fleet Command’s operational concept should be containment in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) Gap or forward operations in the Barents Sea. In the Indian Ocean, China’s port access agreements stretching from Sri Lanka to Djibouti and Iran’s threats to critical chokepoints create distinct maritime competition and security challenges. In the Western Hemisphere and Caribbean, the challenge is lower-end maritime security that demands small combatants and unmanned systems rather than Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

CNO Caudle confirmed the operational consequence of failing to match force to threat at the Paris Naval Conference in February 2026: “What I find now is I end up having to use carrier strike groups and amphibious readiness groups in places where I believe I could tailor a force package and be more suited to the threat.” The structural mismatch Reveron identifies is real, and his geographic and threat analysis is sound. The question is not whether his diagnosis is correct. It is. The question is whether his C2 organizational redesign and tailored forces program can be built and sustained without the prior strategic work that makes force design accountable rather than aspirational.

III. Five Arguments Against the Prescription

1. A Strategy-Free Force Design

“While the right organization might not guarantee success, the wrong one will likely guarantee failure.”—President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Reveron’s proposal is a strategy-free force design. He identifies what each ocean fleet would do — anti-submarine warfare and escort in the Atlantic, sea lines of communication protection in the Indian Ocean, power projection in the Pacific. He does not identify what winning looks like against a named adversary, by when, under what theory of victory, or how his proposed C2 structure and tailored forces connect to a national strategy for prevailing. Without those answers, force design becomes preference rather than requirement.

The prime criteria for designing any C2 organization require a clearly defined mission and a stated objective before force design, geographic assignment, or threat analysis can follow. Reveron’s proposal begins with the latter and leaves the former unstated.

Consider the Atlantic Ocean Fleet Command. Reveron proposes diesel-electric submarines sourced from allied yards — a reasonable inference from the Russian submarine threat in the North Atlantic. But Russian submarines can also threaten Europe and the American eastern seaboard with precision cruise missiles. Does the Atlantic Ocean Fleet Command’s mission require containment in the GIUK Gap or offensive operations in the Barents Sea to threaten Russia’s submarine bastions, as the 1980s Maritime Strategy proposed? The answer determines whether the right submarine is a diesel-electric boat, a nuclear attack submarine, or both. Reveron’s proposal cannot answer this question because it has not asked it. The same gap exists in the Pacific: whether the objective is deterrence, denial, or decisive defeat of China’s naval forces determines fleet size, composition, and basing in ways his mission lists do not resolve.

Reveron’s Four-Ocean Navy Act invokes the legislative mechanism of the 1940 Two-Ocean Navy Act without supplying its prerequisite: the strategic assessment that determined what needed to be built and why. Without that assessment, the four constraints that follow cannot be resolved. They can only be compounded.

2. The Demand Signal Is Politically Irresistible

“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it.”— President Donald Trump, on ordering the USS ⁠Gerald R. Ford ⁠Carrier Strike Group to the Middle East, February 2026

Reveron’s organizational redesign assumes that assigning specific forces to specific ocean fleet commands will concentrate those forces on their assigned missions. This assumption has never survived contact with the actual source of naval demand. The demand signal for naval forces is not generated by fleet commanders or strategic plans. It is generated by a President who reaches for his most powerful coercive instrument when a crisis erupts, by combatant commanders who request forces with no incentive to be sparing and no accountability for the readiness costs their requests impose, and by secretaries of defense who approve those requests because the political cost of not having a carrier forward is always calculated as higher than the readiness cost of deploying one. The only person in the chain who understands what saying yes does to long-term readiness is the CNO — and the CNO has no authority to refuse.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work documented this pathology in a 2021 USNI Proceedings essay: after the Cold War, the Navy adopted forward presence as its strategic concept and its budget justification, combatant commanders began generating unconstrained demands the Navy felt compelled to satisfy, and the result was a shift from a readiness-centric to a deployment-centric culture and the beginning of a long, inexorable decline in material readiness. Work cited Mackenzie Eaglen’s finding that in 2015 the Navy met only 44 percent of combatant commander requests — and would have needed 150 more ships to satisfy all of them. The Center for Naval Analyses’ 2010 Tipping Point study documented that despite an 18 percent reduction in battle force ships between 1999 and 2009, the number of ships on deployment remained essentially constant, sustained by longer deployments and a doubling of the forward-deployed naval force. The consequence was not abstract: the relentless forward presence tempo contributed to four Seventh Fleet accidents in 2017 that claimed the lives of 17 sailors.

The current administration has demonstrated this dynamic with unusual clarity. The 2025 National Security Strategy explicitly warned against overcommitment and overextension, declaring that prior administrations had defined national interests too broadly. Within fifteen months of that declaration, President Trump had ordered major carrier strike group deployments to four contingencies: Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis in early 2025, at a cost exceeding $1 billion and the loss of two fighter aircraft at sea; Operation Southern Spear in the Caribbean, consuming 38 percent of available Navy warships; the Ford Carrier Strike Group pulled directly from the Caribbean to the Middle East for operations against Iran in February 2026; and as of this writing, a third carrier strike group ordered to enforce a presidential blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. That is the demand signal in its purest form — not a combatant commander’s request, not a strategic plan, but a president reaching for his most powerful coercive instrument because it is available and because the political cost of not having it forward is always higher than the readiness cost of deploying it.

Reveron’s Four-Ocean Navy gives each ocean fleet commander a theater, a headquarters, forces, and — inevitably — a stream of presence requirements with genuine strategic justification behind every one. It does not give the CNO the authority to say no to the combatant commander requests and presidential orders that consume fleet readiness. It does not constrain a president who views carriers as instruments of coercive diplomacy. The Navy today already has numbered fleet commanders generating competing presence demands — and still cannot satisfy them. Reveron’s Four-Ocean Navy replaces them with four ocean fleet commanders, each with broader geographic scope, deeper strategic justification, and stronger institutional standing to press their requirements. The demand does not decrease. Its strategic defensibility increases. As retired Navy Commander Phillip Pournelle documented in a 2017 War on the Rocks analysis, the average gap between consecutive U.S. Navy ship presence periods in the South China Sea ran between 95 and 105 days — and sometimes up to 164 days — illustrating that even in the Pacific, persistent global demand prevents the Navy from maintaining the continuous presence its own strategy requires. The pattern has not merely resisted organizational remedies. It has survived them, grown in spite of them, and exacted lethal costs in the process.

3. Optimization in Peace Creates Rigidity in War

“If the Navy hoped that reductions in the demand signal would give it breathing room to reset the force, its hopes have proved to be false.”— Center for Naval Analyses, The Navy at a Tipping Point, 2010.

Forces optimized for specific theaters in peacetime cannot be rapidly reallocated in general war. The Navy fights globally when it matters most, not theater by theater in neat sequence. Theater-bound forces reduce strategic flexibility precisely when that flexibility is most needed.

The World War II model Reveron invokes illustrates both sides of this argument. Theater differentiation worked because the industrial base produced ships in quantities sufficient to fully equip both fleets simultaneously and retain surplus for redeployment as the strategic situation evolved. The nation produced 1,051 destroyer escorts for the Battle of the Atlantic — enough to equip the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and transfer significant numbers to the U.S. Pacific Fleet as the German threat diminished. Both fleets, though differently optimized, were built to standards that allowed cross-theater redeployment when the strategic situation demanded.

Today, neither condition exists. The threats are no longer geographically bounded: China operates in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean simultaneously; Russia’s submarines operate in the North Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Mediterranean; Iran threatens the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. A strategy that has thought through the redeployment problem — which theaters are primary, which are economy of force, how forces shift as the situation evolves — is the prerequisite for theater-specific optimization. Without it, optimization in peace becomes rigidity in war. Diesel-electric submarines, optimized for the acoustic conditions of the North Atlantic and the GIUK Gap, lack the range and endurance to sustain operations across the Indo-Pacific. If a Pacific Ocean Fleet Command crisis requires every available submarine, the Atlantic Ocean Fleet Command’s diesel boats contribute little. As August Cole and Peter Singer documented in a March 2026 Proceedings analysis, a Pacific conflict risks being lost in part because theater-specialized forces arrive too late, run short of fuel when allied port access is denied, and fail to simultaneously cover the GIUK Gap and surge to the Indo-Pacific. Reveron’s proposal institutionalizes exactly this rigidity. It is, in its operational reality, the Shrinking Status Quo with a new organizational framework — it does not add ships, money, or industrial capacity. It reorganizes existing and insufficient assets into four specialized formations, each weaker than a coherent two-theater strategy requires.

4. You Cannot Build the Fleet You Imagine

“When we run wargames, the red team goes for the Combat Logistics Force every single time.”—Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, February 2024

The United States lacks the shipbuilding capacity, workforce, and sustained funding to build multiple differentiated fleets given that it is already unable to produce a single adequate one. This is not a marginal constraint. On current trajectories, it is the defining industrial reality of American naval power.

The Heritage Foundation’s 2026 Index of U.S. Military Strength found the Navy operating with more than $1.32 trillion in deferred investment, a fleet rated “weak,” and a force 110 ships below the 400-ship two-war standard. The International Institute for Strategic Studies December 2025 Strategic Comments found that 37 of the 45 battle-force ships under construction face delays, and in 2024 only 41 percent of surface-ship maintenance was completed on time. The GAO documents that despite nearly doubling its shipbuilding budget over two decades, the Navy has not increased its number of ships. Virginia-class submarine Block V production runs at 60 percent of its two-per-year goal. The Columbia-class first boat will be at least a year late. The Pentagon appointed its first-ever submarine “czar” — Vice Admiral Robert Gaucher — in February 2026 specifically to manage those delays. The Navy is managing an industrial crisis in its existing programs. Reveron’s proposal adds new ones.

In fiscal year 2023 the Navy delivered only 7 of the 13 ships required to maintain its annual force structure objective — a failure the GAO attributes to cost overruns, design changes during construction, and immature program baselines that have persisted across multiple ship classes and multiple administrations. The shipbuilding budget has nearly doubled over two decades; the fleet has not grown. Reveron’s Four-Ocean Navy requires adding new ship types on top of a procurement system that cannot deliver the ships it is already contracted to build.

Stephen Biddle and Eric Labs documented in Foreign Affairs in March 2025 that China’s shipbuilding capacity exceeds that of the United States by a factor of more than 200 — and that it now takes eleven years to build an aircraft carrier and nine years to build a nuclear attack submarine or destroyer in the United States. During World War II, an aircraft carrier could be built in just over a year and a submarine in a matter of months; the U.S. fleet grew more than twenty times during that war. Those conditions no longer exist. As Biddle and Labs concluded, if an aircraft carrier were lost in battle today, it may not be replaced for decades — or ever. China, by contrast, is now building carriers and nuclear submarines in roughly half the time American yards require. Reveron’s Four-Ocean Navy requires building new ship types — among them diesel-electric submarines not produced by an American yard since World War II — on top of a shipbuilding base already failing to meet existing commitments.

The industrial base needed to execute this program has been contracting, not expanding. Over the past fifty years, seventeen private shipyards that built ships for the defense industry have either closed or left the sector entirely — leaving the Navy dependent on a handful of yards at precisely the moment demand is rising. Reveron’s proposal requires standing up diesel-electric submarine production at an American yard for the first time since World War II. There is no yard equipped to stand up.

What his Four-Ocean Navy would require on top of this crisis is substantial and, in key respects, cannot realistically be delivered on any strategically relevant timeline. Arctic icebreakers remain Coast Guard multi-mission cutters, not Navy combat vessels, and the lead ship of that program is already six years behind schedule. No administration since President Ronald Reagan has sustained naval investment at the levels the Navy’s own planning documents require. A Four-Ocean Navy Act can be legislated. The appropriations to build it, in a nation that has not sustained naval investment for three decades and lacks a public strategy establishing clear priorities, cannot be assumed.

The Combat Logistics Force (CLF) compounds every other industrial constraint. Secretary Phelan stated the problem plainly in January 2026: “Logistics and auxiliaries form the backbone that sustains operations across distance. A world-class combat fleet without a modern auxiliary force is a fleet that cannot stay in the fight. The logistics tail wags the operational dog and right now our tail is too short for our ambitions.” The Heritage Foundation’s January 2026 Tidal Wave Project found that the entire CLF can sustain a maximum at-sea fuel delivery throughput of approximately 265,000 to 280,000 barrels per day to naval end-users in the Western Pacific — a figure that would degrade rapidly under sustained Chinese strikes.

While twenty John Lewis-class replacement oilers were planned, only four had been delivered as of late 2024 at unit costs exceeding $900 million each. Reveron adds logistics ships as a line item for the Indian Ocean Fleet Command. He does not address the systemic CLF recapitalization that must precede any serious differentiated fleet strategy. As Rear Admiral L.D. McCormick observed in 1944, “Logistics is all of war-making except shooting the guns, releasing the bombs, and firing the torpedoes.” China already knows where that seam is — and in Admiral Paparo’s wargames, they exploit it every time.

5. The Navy Will Over-Specify the Fleet You Design

“We are first and foremost a fighting, sea-going service.”—Admiral Mike Mullen, Chief of Naval Operations, CNO Guidance for 2006.

The Navy’s institutional culture drives every platform toward high-end, multi-mission capability. This dynamic has defeated similar efforts repeatedly — the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the Constellation-class frigate — and it will override any Four-Ocean construct. The reason is worth stating precisely: the Navy pursues exquisite capabilities because it — not Congress, not the Secretary — carries the operational risk when its ships prove inadequate in combat. That logic is not irrational. It is, however, incompatible with the affordable, differentiated fleet Reveron envisions.

The documented pattern is consistent. The LCS was conceived as fast, agile, and modular — affordable in quantity and flexible in mission. Its mission modules never matured, its survivability was questioned, and procurement was truncated. The Constellation-class was based on the proven Fregata Europea Multi-Missione hull — already built, already proven, already affordable. Five years of Navy-driven requirement additions produced a ship with only approximately 15 percent commonality with its predecessor, approaching destroyer cost. It was cancelled in November 2025. Secretary Phelan’s selection of the Legend-class FF(X) — a hull that already exists, from yards that already build it — represents the most honest acknowledgment in a generation that the Navy must accept what the industrial base can produce rather than specify what strategists wish it could. As Phelan stated at the Reagan National Defense Forum: “We are going to take our warfighters’ requirements, translate them into stable, producible designs, and stick with them once they’re set.”

Reveron’s four ocean fleet structures would each face a real and distinct threat environment providing genuine strategic justification for the most capable ships available. The Pacific Ocean Fleet Command faces China’s advanced surface combatants and submarines. The Atlantic Ocean Fleet Command faces Russia’s modernized submarine force. Unlike the Constellation-class, where the strategic justification was always somewhat arguable, each ocean fleet’s requirement growth would be strategically defensible — which makes it harder to stop, not easier.

What stopped it with the Constellation-class was not a change in institutional culture. It was a Secretary of the Navy who intervened personally, cancelled the program, selected the Legend-class, named it a “low-end workhorse” without apology, and reserved Fridays at 5:00 p.m. for change-order accountability. That kind of top-down override is the only thing that has ever worked. It is difficult with one procurement pipeline. With four ocean fleet pipelines — each backed by genuine strategic requirements and championed by a fleet commander carrying real operational risk — it becomes structurally improbable.

The arithmetic is unsparing: U.S. surface combatants currently field roughly 1,344 vertical launch system cells against China’s Type 055 cruisers and Type 052D destroyers alone, which provide approximately 2,944 — a ratio of better than two-to-one before counting PLA Rocket Force land-based anti-ship missiles. Four ocean fleets do not solve this firepower disadvantage. They distribute an already insufficient force across four commands, each demanding the most capable platforms available, none able to close the gap.

IV. Conclusion

Professor Reveron has identified a genuine strategic problem and proposed a historically grounded solution. His geographic differentiation is the correct starting point for the analysis the nation needs. The problem is that he skips that analysis and proceeds directly to organizational and industrial solutions — giving us the Four-Ocean Navy Act before the strategy that would justify it.

The historical model he invokes teaches a different lesson than he draws from it. The Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 did not create the strategy. It funded one. The Roosevelt administration’s Germany-first decision, the fall of France, and the prospect of simultaneous war against Germany and Japan — those were the prior strategic judgments that determined what each theater needed and what could move between them. The Act was the industrial means to execute that judgment. Four decades later, the Reagan-era Maritime Strategy worked the same way: it named the adversary, defined a theory of victory — taking the fight to Soviet home waters, threatening Soviet ballistic missile submarines, collapsing the Soviet defensive perimeter — and derived the force requirements from that analysis. The 600-ship Navy followed the strategy. Reveron wants to reverse the sequence. He proposes a Four-Ocean Navy Act first and leaves the strategy that would justify it for later. It has never worked in that order.

Reveron is solving the wrong problem at the wrong level. His diagnosis is correct: a globally dispersed force trying to do everything with a shrinking number of expensive multi-mission ships cannot be sustained — but his organizational and industrial prescription does not address why it is being asked to. The causation is a political system in which no President, no Secretary of Defense, and no combatant commander wants to carry the risk of not having a carrier strike group available when a crisis erupts — and in which the CNO, the one person who understands what saying yes does to long-term readiness, has no authority to say no. No force design has ever solved a demand problem where the demand is generated by actors with no incentive to restrain themselves and no accountability for the costs they impose.

The right answer is to first do the strategic work the Maritime Strategy did: name the adversaries in priority order, define the end states in each theater, state the theory of victory, and derive force requirements from that analysis. Until that work is done, no fleet architecture — two oceans or four — can be evaluated as right or wrong. It can only be attempted. And no force design, however well-organized and however well-funded, has ever survived contact with a political system that treats naval power as its primary coercive instrument without first establishing the strategic discipline to govern its use.

Prior to his full retirement as a member of the U.S. senior executive service, Bruce Stubbs had assignments on the staffs of the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations from 2009 to 2022. He was a former director of Strategy and Strategic Concepts in the OPNAV N3N5 and N7 directorates. As a career U.S. Coast Guard officer, he had a posting as the Assistant Commandant for Capability (current title) in Headquarters, served on the staff of the National Security Council, taught at the Naval War College, commanded a major cutter, and served a combat tour with the U.S. Navy in Vietnam during the 1972 Easter Offensive.

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (June 23, 2020) The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group transits in formation with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group while conducting dual carrier and airwing operations in the Philippine Sea. (U.S. Navy photo)

Call for Articles

Call for Articles: Maritime War with Iran

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Articles Due: June 1, 2026
Week Dates: June 15-19, 2026
Story Length: 1,5000-3,000 Words
Submit to: Content@cimsec.org

The United States and Iran are at war, with a vital waterway dominating strategic concerns. A fight over the Strait of Hormuz has been a prominent naval scenario for more than 40 years since the U.S. and Iran fought in the tanker wars of the 1980s. Now this scenario has become reality, with the U.S. and Iran attempting to reestablish the flow of seaborne commerce on their own terms.

Despite a significant presence of U.S. naval forces in the region, Iran has effectively contested control of the Strait with asymmetric means. The distributed forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy have posed a persistent threat, while a wide variety of drones and munitions have helped Iran make its presence felt in the waterway. These methods may be demonstrating new facets of the evolving character of naval warfare and hinting at the future.

Another vital waterway has exerted major influence on the operational maneuver of forces. The circuitous route of the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group around the entire continent of Africa, and the Ford strike group’s confinement to the northern reaches of the Red Sea, mark critical strategic effects reaped by the the Houthis. U.S. carrier strike groups have been effectively deterred from transiting the Bab El Mandeb strait, allowing the Houthis to inflict a major logistical price against U.S. naval forces.

Despite considerable tactical success and relatively few losses, the U.S. has struggled to translate combat outcomes into strategic results. The linkage between tactics and strategy has proven tenuous in this war, with the Navy’s contributions being subsumed under questionable strategy. It is also questionable how well the U.S. Navy can help secure vital sea lines of communication, a strategic role that has dominated its mission set for generations. The Navy’s challenges in controlling two major waterways against third-world adversaries may cast doubt on how well it can fulfill its strategic purpose.

At the same time, the operational effects of the war offer significant insights for the employment of Marine Corps forces in contested maritime terrain. Iran has been achieving disproportionate operational effects by using lethal, low signature, mobile forces operating within contested maritime spaces to disrupt U.S. plans and deny the U.S. freedom of maneuver. This is the Marine Corps’ Stand-in Forces concept made manifest, and potential lessons for refinement of this concept abound. As speculation continues about the seizure of key maritime terrain such as Kharg Island, the war compels the Marine Corps to look at its own concepts from and determine how to conduct amphibious operations in a highly contested maritime environment. As two amphibious readiness groups remain present in the region, the role and viability of the USMC in this war and modern conflict writ large could be put to the test.

The Iran war offers a rich set of lessons on the exercise of maritime power and naval force. How are combat operations highlighting changes in the character of warfare? How else may the fight over the maritime domain unfold? What does this war reveal about controlling the maritime domain with force and for strategic effect? Authors are invited to consider these questions and many more as this war unfolds.

Send all submissions to Content@cimsec.org.

Featured Image: The Strait of Hormuz as viewed from space. (NASA photo)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.