Notes to the New CNO Series

By Peter Dombrowski

With Admiral Caudle assuming the post of Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy has a timely opportunity to realign its strategic narrative with its emerging operational reality, especially in the Indo-Pacific. After years of experimentation with distributed maritime operations, integration of unmanned systems, and renewed industrial partnerships, the Navy must overcome headlines about past scandals and failures to restore the faith of the President, the Department of Defense, Congress, and the American people. The task before the new CNO is to seize this moment and make clear how the Navy will prevail in the next maritime era.

President Trump and his national security leaders have already made clear that it is a priority to reestablish maritime dominance. Further, bipartisan groups of legislators have proposed bills to support maritime dominance in all its dimensions.

Admiral Caudle has an excellent opportunity to shift the narrative to emphasize recent successes and, more important, set a clear path to the future. Shifting the narrative is necessary for rallying support for the taxpayer-funded investments the Navy needs to meet its missions. It also will reinforce the hard work and morale of our sailors.

The two pillars of a new narrative are: 1) how the Navy has adapted to shifts in maritime warfare and 2) how the Navy is buying new platforms and systems to take advantage of emerging technologies. The first point is not simply about technology. Rather, it is about warfighting and the operational lessons learned in the Black and Red Seas. The second is to clarify how the American naval industrial base, in collaboration of partner nations and new entrants into the defense sector, can and will provide, advanced systems to allow new operational concepts.

New Way to Fight. The Navy has been discussing distributed maritime operations (DMO), “means dispersing the fleet while concentrating effects.” DMO represents the Navy’s effort to employ widely dispersed yet tightly networked forces in order to complicate adversary decision-making and enhance combat resilience. By integrating sensors, communications, and strike systems across a broad maritime battlespace, the concept seeks to preserve sea control and extend American power despite increasingly contested environments.

New Fleet to Fight. It took longer to understand what type of fleet made sense for distributed operations. Dating back to the aborted net-centric warfare revolution of the later 1990s, the Navy has understood that dispersion could improve survivability to allow for great lethality. But the technologies for C4ISR and non-ship platforms lagged behind theory. Today, with unmanned systems of all types entering the fleet and enabling communications systems, sensor, and AI algorithms improving daily, the Navy is ready to implement a new fleet to match a new way of fighting.

Admiral Caudle can aid the Navy’s supporters by using his bully pulpit to amplify commitments made by the Trump administration. He can explain the new way to fight, and the new forces needed to fight it. He can explain how this will counteract the rise of the PLAN.

By articulating a powerful vision statement, the CNO will help unify effort within the Navy and provide insight to the other sea services about how the Navy will conduct its business for the next three years and beyond. This might mean issuing a new maritime strategy, but surely it means using congressional testimony, internal Navy documents, and the CNO’s voice among the other service chiefs to relentlessly explain how the Navy will support the Joint Force in deterring and defeating the pacing threat of China.

Dr. Peter Dombrowski is the William B. Ruger Chair of National Security Economics at the Naval War College. The views expressed are the author’s own and not with any organization with which he is affiliated.

Featured Image: The Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) prepares to moor on Navy Pier onboard White Beach Naval Facility during a scheduled port visit, Aug. 7, 2025. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Zack Guth)