Strategic Outlook

Driving Toward Distributed Maritime Operations: Getting the Navy Out of Its VLS Hole

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By Peter Kouretsos

The Department of War is addressing its critical shortfall in precision munitions, but it also needs more platforms capable of using them. This is especially true for the U.S. Navy. As the number of missile-equipped vessels shrinks, the Navy risks sailing into a dangerous trough, just as operational demands in the Indo-Pacific grow. To prepare for a more dangerous world and continue on its course of distributed maritime operations, the Navy could take steps to grow and make better use of its missile shooters.

The Navy faces at least three challenges for its missile shooters. First, in a high intensity fight, current vertical launch system (VLS) capacity may be insufficient to sustain operations, as ships risk rapid magazine depletion and could face challenges reloading in contested waters. Second, the defense industrial base struggles to keep missile production at pace with requirements. Third, much of the Navy’s missile capacity is concentrated in its cruiser and destroyer fleet; while these ships carry significant firepower for high-intensity operations, their loss—or even temporary withdrawal—would greatly reduce the fleet’s strike capacity. Each of these problems is interconnected, and addressing them all will require serious attention and investment. This article focuses on the first challenge—the number and distribution of VLS cells—and specifically what can be done with surface ships in the near term. While imperfect, the surface navy remains the workhorse of the fleet, and enhancing its strike and defensive capacity is an immediate way for the Navy to buy back combat power in this decade.

Source: Author’s calculations from US Navy, USNI News, IISS (The Military Balance). Figure 1: If not for the delayed retirements of older ships and deliveries of newer ones, including a handful of new Virginia-class submarines during this period, the situation would be much worse. Note: CG = guided missile cruiser, DDG = guided missile destroyer.1

The Decline in Surface and Undersea VLS Capacity

One of the clearest indicators of naval firepower is the number of VLS cells across the fleet. These cells house everything from Tomahawks to Standard Missiles, and are an important part of the Navy’s offensive and defensive operations. But the Navy’s VLS capacity has been shrinking. As of early 2025, the Navy’s approximately 9,000 VLS are concentrated primarily in Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, and submarines (primarily Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and Ohio-class nuclear-powered guided missile submarines (SSGNs)), but the imminent retirement of cruisers and SSGNs represents a continued drop in total launchers, one that new construction alone will not significantly offset anytime soon. By the 2027-2028 time frame, the Navy will have fewer launchers at sea than it did in 2020—despite more demanding operational requirements.

Source: Author’s calculations from IISS (The Military Balance), US Navy. Figure 2: The Navy’s VLS capacity is concentrated in large surface ships and large payload submarines.2

This decline is especially troubling given the so-called “Davidson Window,” deadline by which the People’s Republic of China’s President Xi Jinping charged the People’s Liberation Army to be prepared for invading and capturing Taiwan. In any Indo-Pacific crisis, the Navy’s surface ships and submarines would be among the first U.S. forces to respond. Yet only a fraction of overall VLS capacity is forward-deployed west of the International Date Line. U.S. Seventh Fleet controls roughly 10–14 destroyers and cruisers and 8–12 submarines at any given time—facing a regional adversary operating close to home with shorter supply lines and faster reinforcement timelines.

The second problem is that deliveries of new destroyers and Virginia-class Block V submarines will eventually replenish lost capacity, but under today’s schedules, those platforms will not make a meaningful impact on missile inventories until well into the 2030s. Much has been written on the state of the submarine industrial base and efforts to improve its maintenance and production backlogs, but any further delays in Virginia Block V and future variant deliveries could extend the strike gap (see Figure 3). In the meantime, the Navy has demonstrated concepts for at-sea reloading of VLS cells, but these methods remain cumbersome and limited by weather, sea state, and operational risk. At-sea reloads will require ships to operate in relatively calm waters—often away from the fight—slowing the fleet’s ability to sustain fires in a peer conflict.

Source: Author’s calculations from IISS (The Military Balance), U.S. Navy. Figure 3: Today more than half of the Navy’s total undersea strike capacity resides in 4 submarines, all expected to retire soon. Note: VA = Virginia Class SSN, LA = Los Angeles Class SSN, SSGN = Ohio-class SSGN. Note: Future Block V and VI Virginia class SSNs with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) will be capable of deploying up to 28 additional Tomahawk cruise missiles or 12 CPS hypersonic missiles.

The Math of Winchester

A rough estimate of the U.S. Seventh Fleet figures discussed earlier suggests there could be about 1,600 VLS cells in the western Pacific at any given time. Assuming half of the surface capacity is reserved for defensive use and all undersea capacity is assumed to be offensive, only about 950 cells are available for offensive strike.3 That might sound like a lot, but it is not much of a margin. Most targets—especially more heavily defended ones—require multiple missiles to ensure an adequate probability of arrival and probability of kill, even in a precision world. A few salvos could leave the fleet “Winchester”—out of weapons and forced to withdraw.4 A shot doctrine of “shoot, look, shoot” or “shoot, shoot, look, shoot” while intended to conserve inventory, could quickly deplete a ship’s VLS magazine. That is not an abstract risk: in a contested environment, inability to sustain offensive pressure would push U.S. naval forces off the front line. The credibility of conventional deterrence depends not just on showing up, but on staying in the fight.

Momentum Before 2030

Faced with the dilemma of losing so much VLS capacity above and below the surface during a high-profile threat window, the Navy appears to be taking steps to address this looming gap. It announced plans to extend the service life of three Ticonderoga-class cruisers and twelve Flight I Arleigh Burke-class destroyers into the 2030s. If the Navy follows this plan, these delayed retirements—combined with new ship deliveries—could help VLS inventories reach pre-2020 levels by the end of the decade (see Figure 4). When these and other ships retire in the mid to late 2030s, Flight III Arleigh Burke-class and other vessel deliveries should help prevent significant declines in VLS capacity. Given the current state of the submarine industrial base, solutions for preserving and adding VLS capacity in the surface fleet appear more promising and achievable.

Source: Author’s calculations from IISS (The Military Balance), U.S. Navy. Figure 4: Navy plans to extend the service lives of select Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Flight I Arleigh Burke-class destroyers could help pad VLS counts, buying time for capable future ships to enter service.

The Navy is also taking steps to up-gun other ships. In October 2019, the first Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) received two 4-cell canisters containing the Naval Strike Missile, which now reportedly has a range of greater than 300 km. By FY 2023 these were installed on eight ships, and there are plans to outfit the whole class of fifteen by FY 2026. Similar plans have been announced for ten Freedom-class LCSs. While these platforms do not match the punch of cruisers or destroyers, every additional shooter adds complexity for adversaries and depth to U.S. strike options. A more flexible launcher option to allow these vessels to carry other payloads for longer range, multi-mission strike and self-defense capability would go a long way to building out the Navy’s distributed maritime operations concept and complicating adversary plans.

A more ambitious and promising approach lies in containerized launchers. For example, the Navy recently tested and installed a MK 70 payload delivery system (PDS) on an LCS, and plans to install them on additional hulls, including uncrewed surface vessels. Based on the Army’s mid-range capability Typhon launcher, each 40 foot container can carry four Tomahawk- or Standard Missile-sized VLS weapons. While this might not amount to much at an individual level, launchers like the MK 70, Adaptable Deck Launcher (ADL), and other containerized launchers can be installed on most ships, including DDGs, LCS, and even amphibious ships and auxiliaries, without extensive modification. If widely deployed—three MK 70 per LCS, two MK 70 per amphib, six ADL per destroyer—containerized systems could add over 1,000 missile launch cells to the fleet by 2028 (see Figure 5).

Source: IISS, The Military Balance; U.S. Navy; USNI News; publicly available information from Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems. Figure 5: Outfitting more Navy ships with containerized missiles could add 1,000+ missile capacity to its Battle Force by 2028, buying time for capable future vessels to enter service. Note: MK 70 = MK 70 Payload Delivery System PDS, ADL = Adaptable Deck Launcher. Note: Assumes 3x MK 70 on LCS, as shown by Lockheed Martin. Assumes 2x Mk-70 on Amphibious Warfare vessels, to preserve room for flight operations; Assumes gradual integration of 6x 2-cell ADL on DDGs, as shown by BAE Systems.

These systems bring additional operational flexibility. Containerized launchers could be loaded onto vessels as needed based on the mission, allowing the Navy to quickly surge strike capacity in response to a crisis. Ships that might otherwise play only a supporting role in wartime—such as fast transports, amphibious command ships, or Military Sealift Command vessels—could carry launchers and operate as arsenal ships in lower-threat environments. This approach broadens the base of missile shooters without requiring new hull designs or major redesigns.

Simpler Reloads, Smarter Fires

Containerized launchers also offer a more flexible approach to reloading at sea. Unlike traditional VLS, which require specialized ships and calm seas for replenishment, containerized systems could be swapped out more quickly using cranes and be delivered preloaded. This would allow faster turnaround in safer waters and could enable ships to remain forward and armed for longer durations. The Navy could also continue exploring options for reloading from expeditionary sites, further increasing operational tempo.

Still, containerized launchers are not a panacea. They compete with other mission priorities for deck space—particularly on LCSs, amphibs, and logistics vessels with helicopter pads and mission bays – valuable real estate for resupply; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and air-launched effects. Some experimentation with different configurations might be necessary to strike the right balance. As a first step, placing one or two MK 70s on these ships would allow the Navy to evaluate operational tradeoffs and solicit feedback from crews. Meanwhile, destroyers could host several ADLs without compromising existing sensors, radars, or communications systems.

Even as the Navy experiments with reloading VLS at sea, it should rethink the future of its missile architecture. That could include considering and evaluating options for new ships with more flexible launcher form factors, developing new and more flexible VLS weapons, investing in logistics to reload under fire, and ensuring that forward forces can stay lethal for longer. Containerized launchers will not replace the traditional fleet, but they could buy valuable time for these solutions to materialize while adding redundancy when it matters most.

The U.S. Navy faces a period in which its missile-firing capacity is declining as strategic threats are rising. Distributing long-range fires across existing additional classes of ships with the help of containerized launchers offers a solution to fill the VLS gap, provide reload flexibility, and expand the number of shooters at sea. While some vessels might not possess the same organic communications, radars, and command and control capabilities as destroyers and cruisers, Navy efforts to improve the fleet’s connectivity and battle network could eventually mean these missiles can be used with the help of other ships in the theater. In distributing lethality this way, the Navy could dig itself out of its VLS hole faster, and achieve the virtues of mass without the vulnerabilities of concentration.5

Peter Kouretsos is a researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a Young Leader with Pacific Forum, and a member of the Military Writers Guild. The article reflects the author’s personal views and not those of IDA, the US Navy, the Department of War, or any affiliated institution.

Endnotes

[1] Note: Total Missile Cells includes MK 41 and MK 57 VLS cells aboard surface ships, VLS tubes in Los Angeles- and Virginia-Class attack submarines, and Tomahawk cruise missile capacity of Multiple All-up Round Canisters, Virginia Payload Tubes, and Virginia Payload Modules employed on Ohio-class guided missile submarines, and Block III, IV, and V Virginia Class attack submarines, respectively.

[2] Note: Submarine Missile Cell figures do not include torpedo tube-launched weapons capacity.

[3] Assumes approximately 14 Flight IIA/III DDGs with a loadout split between defensive interceptors and offensive missiles, and 12 submarines (11 SSNs and 1 SSGN) with Tomahawk missiles.

[4] A notional target set might include 500 targets: the PLA Navy’s estimated battle force of 370 naval platforms, and 130 other targets such as air defenses, missile sites, aircraft hangars, and other operationally relevant surface infrastructure.

[5] Author note: The data and projections analyzed in this article were collected and compiled before the recent announcement regarding changes to the U.S. Navy’s frigate program – specifically the cancellation of the Constellation-class (FFG-62) frigates and subsequent development of the Navy’s new FF(X) frigate concept, which reportedly will not include an integrated VLS array in its initial configuration.

Featured image: USS Savannah (LCS 28) conducts a live-fire demonstration in the Eastern Pacific Ocean utilizing a containerized launching system that fired an SM-6 missile from the ship at a designated target. US Navy photo.

Alliances and Partners

Turkey’s Air-to-Air Drone Test and the Logic of Middle-Power Alliance Stress

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By Lawrence J Kaiser

In late 2025, Turkey conducted a successful test of an air-to-air missile launched from an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV).  At first glance, the event appeared to be a narrow technical milestone – another incremental advance in the rapid evolution of drone warfare. Yet in strategic terms, the test reveals something far more consequential:  a structural shift in Turkey’s strategic posture as a middle power, a shift that increasingly tests, reshapes, and exploits alliance boundaries rather than choosing sides within them.

However, for U.S. and NATO planners, the significance of the test lies elsewhere.  Turkey’s air-to-air UCAV capability alters the escalation calculus of the alliance itself while remaining formally inside NATO’s institutional framework.  The episode signals less about alliance defection than an emerging pattern of alliance stress-testing – one that exploits gray-zone ambiguity from within.

The Event and the Misreading

Turkey’s successful air-to-air missile launch from a UCAV, reportedly conducted using Bayraktar’s Kizilelma platform, was widely reported as evidence of Ankara’s growing defense-industrial sophistication.  Commentators emphasized technical details:  sensor fusion, indigenous missile development, and the potential export market for Turkish drones.  While accurate, this framing misses the strategic significance of the test.

Air-to-air capability is qualitatively different from the ground-attack roles that have defined drone warfare in Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, and the Middle East.  Ground-attack UCAV’s typically operate against fixed or surface targets in permissive or degraded air-defense environments where escalation remains geographically bounded and politically intelligible. However, air-to-air systems directly contest air sovereignty and interact with the manned aircraft of other states. They enter, then, a domain historically governed by tightly managed rules of engagement and alliance de-confliction arrangements. As a result, their use moves these weapons from supporting roles in peripheral conflicts, to potential instruments of direct interstate belligerence within contested airspace. In doing so, Turkey is not merely adding a new weapon, it is redefining the political and strategic meaning of unmanned force.

Why Air-to-Air Matters for a Middle Power

For a middle power like Turkey, air-to-air UCAVs offer three distinct advantages. First, they reduce political risk. The absence of a pilot lowers the domestic and alliance costs of escalation, enabling assertive signaling without immediate reputational or human consequences. Second, they enhance ambiguity in the escalation environment. Unmanned aircraft do not hold a distinct legal status under the U.N. Charter, the Law of Armed Conflict, or U.S. Standing Rules of Engagement. The destruction of such a platform remains a use of force. Yet the absence of a pilot materially alters the political and psychological dynamics of confrontation. Without the risk of killed or captured personnel, incidents involving unmanned systems generate lower immediate domestic or alliance pressures to retaliate. As a result, leaders are able to frame them as limited coercive signals – or even technical miscalculation – rather than as acts demanding a reciprocal military response. Third, they strengthen bargaining leverage. Indigenous air combat capability signals autonomy from alliance supply chains and constraints.

These advantages are not merely theoretical. Turkey has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for tools that expand its room for maneuver, while preserving plausible deniability. From drone operations in Syria and Libya to naval posturing in the Eastern Mediterranean, Ankara has favored capabilities that allow it to probe limits without triggering decisive retaliation. Air-to-air UCAVs fit squarely within this pattern.

Supply Chains, Material Sourcing, and Strategic Autonomy

Turkey’s progress in unmanned air combat cannot be understood solely in terms of platforms or doctrine. Its deeper significance lies in the supply chains and material sourcing strategies that underpin Turkey’s drone ecosystem. These industrial foundations are what allow Ankara to sustain operational tempo, absorb potential political friction, and maneuver within alliance constraints without triggering formal rupture.

Unlike many NATO allies, Turkey has pursued defense-industrial depth rather than specialization. Over the past decade, Ankara invested heavily in a more vertically integrated production model across a host of sectors: airframes, avionics, sensors, and – perhaps most critically – munitions. Firms like Baykar operate within a broader ecosystem of domestic subcontractors that, in turn, reduce reliance on single foreign suppliers. This matters because air-to-air UCAVs are not one-off prestige systems. They require reliable access to not only propulsion components and guidance systems, but missile inventories and data links that can be replenished under conditions of political stress.

Supply chain autonomy has already proven decisive in earlier phases of Turkey’s drone deployment. Western export controls on engines, optics, and precision components following operations in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh forced rapid substitution and indigenous development. Rather than halting progress, these constraints accelerated Turkey’s efforts to diversify its sourcing and indigenize critical subsystems. While the result is not complete autarky, it is a fairly resilient hybrid model that limits the coercive leverage of any single supplier or alliance partner.

In the air-to-air domain, this resilience takes on heightened strategic importance. Unlike ground attack drones, the use of air-to-air UCAVs implicate alliance airspace management, rules of engagement, and escalation control. Capability that exists only on paper – or even depends on fragile supply chains – would offer only limited leverage.  In contrast, a system backed by secure production lines and scalable munitions supply enables Turkey to signal persistence rather than experimentation.  It tells allies and adversaries alike that these platforms are not exceptions, but part of a durable force structure.

Material sourcing also shapes Turkey’s export behavior which reciprocally feeds back into its posture within the alliance. Because Turkish drones are not fully captive to U.S. or European components, Ankara can sell them to partners that Western suppliers would exclude or delay. This export flexibility strengthens Turkey’s diplomatic reach, while reinforcing domestic production volumes and, thereby, further insulating its supply chains from external pressure. In effect, Turkish exports subsidize Turkish autonomy.

For NATO, this presents a subtle but consequential challenge. Alliance influence has traditionally flowed through shared logistics, interoperability standards, and supplier dependence. Turkey’s drone supply chain strategy erodes that leverage without violating formal commitments. Ankara remains interoperable where it chooses, while retaining the option to diverge when alliance consensus constrains Turkish interests.

This pattern is not unique to Turkey. Arms-transfer data from the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI) suggest that other middle powers, including India and South Korea, also have long pursued analogous diversification and domestic production strategies in order to reduce supplier leverage, while remaining formally aligned with U.S.-led security frameworks.

Viewed in this light, Turkey’s air-to-air UCAV capability is not merely a technological leap. It reflects the mindset of a deeper industrial strategy that converts supply chain resilience into strategic optionality. This material foundation is what allows Turkey to stress-test NATO from within, while remaining confident that any resulting political friction will not translate into immediate operational vulnerability.

Alliance Stress-Testing Rather Than Alliance Exit

Much of the commentary on Turkey’s defense trajectory assumes a binary choice: either Ankara is drifting away from NATO or it remains a difficult but ultimately loyal ally. This framing obscures a third possibility: Turkey is deliberately stress-testing the alliance to extract concessions, redefine roles, and maximize its autonomy.

The UCAV air-to-air test exemplifies this approach. By developing capabilities that NATO itself is still debating conceptually and doctrinally, Turkey positions itself as both indispensable and disruptive. It contributes innovations while simultaneously complicating alliance planning. This duality is not accidental. It allows Ankara to argue for greater voice and flexibility within NATO, while retaining the option to act independently when alliance consensus falters.

Importantly, this is not equivalent to the logic behind Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 system. Whereas the S-400 represented a clear breach of alliance norms, indigenous UCAV development does not violate formal commitments. Instead, it creates informal pressure, thereby forcing allies to adapt to Turkish capabilities rather than constrain them.

For NATO, while alliance commitments remain unchanged, incidents involving unmanned platforms may unfold at a tempo that tests NATO’s consultation processes, thereby increasing the risk that political coordination lags behind rapid escalation dynamics.

Escalation Optionality and the Compression of Thresholds

One of the most significant implications of the air-to-air UCAVs is their effect on escalation dynamics. Traditional air combat involves high thresholds: the deployment of manned fighters, formal rules of engagement, and alliance consultation mechanisms. In regions such as the Aegean and the Black Sea, where air encounters are frequent and politically sensitive, this ambiguity creates new risks of miscalculation that are difficult to manage through existing alliance procedures. For example, a Turkish unmanned interceptor operating near contested airspace in the Aegean could shadow a Greek aircraft or conduct a radar lock without immediately triggering the political shock associated with a manned confrontation. If the unmanned platform was damaged or downed in such an encounter, the absence of a captured or killed crew would reduce the immediate domestic and alliance pressures that typically accompany the loss of a pilot, even though the legal characterization of the incident would remain unchanged. The legal threshold would be the same, but the political demand for swift retaliation would be lower. Unmanned air-to-air platforms alter escalation tempo without altering legal thresholds.

For Turkey, the effect is not the creation of new legal authorities but the expansion of escalation flexibility. Manned fighters are equally capable of conducting warning intercepts or employing force in self-defense, and neither NATO policy nor the UN Charter establishes a distinct approval regime for unmanned systems. The distinction lies in the consequences attached to the loss of personnel. When a crewed aircraft is damaged or downed, the presence of killed or captured aircrew generates immediate domestic and alliance pressures that narrow response options and accelerate consultation demands. Incidents involving unmanned platforms, while still constitute a serious use of force, do not carry the same immediate human stakes, thereby allowing greater room for graduated signaling and a controlled response. In contested environments such as the Aegean, northern Syria, and the Black Sea, that marginal difference can matter.

From a strategic perspective, Turkey is acquiring not just a weapon, but a spectrum of options that blur the line between peace and conflict. This is a hallmark of contemporary middle power strategy under conditions of multipolarity and institutional strain.

Turkey as Systems Integrator, Not Mere Spoiler

A common caricature portrays Turkey as a spoiler within NATO: unpredictable, transactional, and disruptive. The UCAV test suggests a more nuanced reality. Turkey is increasingly acting as a systems integrator, combining indigenous platforms, tailored doctrines, and selective alliance participation into a coherent strategic posture. But this integrative posture also introduces alliance friction. A Turkey able to conduct limited unmanned air operations in contested airspaces – such as an intercept or retaliatory strike in the Aegean or northern Syria – without incurring immediate personnel loss may act more rapidly than NATO’s consultation processes can accommodate. While such an action might fall below the threshold of collective defense, it could nevertheless trigger countermeasures from a third party, thereby placing the alliance in the position of managing escalation dynamics it did not collectively authorize.  Allies may diverge over what constitutes a proportional response, levels of risk tolerance, or the necessity of consultation, exposing internal fractures and complicating deterrence signaling. The issue, then, is not alliance collapse, but the strain placed on cohesion and decision-making under compressed timelines. 

This posture does not reject the West, nor does it align fully with revisionist powers like Russia or Iran. Instead, it seeks leverage against all sides by creating capabilities that others must account for. In this sense, Turkey resembles other middle powers that pursue strategic autonomy without formal non-alignment (e.g. India or Brazil), albeit within a more militarized and volatile regional context.

Forward Indicators: What to Watch

If the UCAV test is a signal, what does it signify? Several indicators merit close attention. First, integration with naval aviation, particularly Turkey’s ambitions for carrier-based drone operations, would further enhance its independent power projection. Second, export behavior – whether Turkey restricts or proliferates air-to-air drone capabilities – will reveal how Ankara balances profit, influence, and restraint. Third, NATO doctrinal debates on unmanned air combat will indicate whether the alliance adapts to Turkey or attempts to constrain it.  Finally, shifts in Turkish strategic rhetoric will signal how Ankara seeks to justify its posture diplomatically.

Conclusion

Turkey’s successful air-to-air missile launch from a UCAV should be understood as a strategic signal rather than a technical curiosity. It reflects an emerging middle power logic that prioritizes escalation optionality, alliance stress-testing, and indigenous capability development. Far from signaling a simple drift away from NATO, the test underscores Ankara’s efforts to redefine its role within (and occasionally beyond) the alliance.

For analysts and policymakers, the lesson is not that Turkey is drifting away from NATO, but that an alliance may increasingly face stress from within as members acquire tools that compress escalation thresholds without breaking formal rules. Turkey’s air-to-air UCAV highlights how military innovation can outpace alliance governance, turning institutional ambiguity into leverage. Understanding this dynamic is essential not only for managing Ankara’s trajectory, but for adapting alliance strategy to an era in which escalation control is no longer monopolized by manned platforms.

Dr. Lawrence Kaiser is a geopolitical strategist focused on alliance politics, middle-power hedging, and escalation dynamics. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and an ALM in international relations from Harvard University.

Featured Image: Turkey’s KIZILELMA UCAV: A next-generation unmanned combat aerial vehicle designed for precision strikes, with supersonic speed, 1.5-ton payload capacity, and advanced autonomous flight capabilities. (Picture source Ugur Ozkan via X)

Education

Sailor’s First – Aligning the Leadership Continuum

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By CAPT Paul W. Nickell, USN, MA, MBA

The Sailor is the Navy. No Navy is better than its Sailors. An unstructured, disconnected leadership continuum is a disservice to our Sailors and our Navy. The ideal Navy starts with the ideal Sailor. Now is the time for a coherent, connected Sailors First leadership continuum.

Introduction

Admiral Caudle provided a systematic build-up to framing his vision (priorities) for how our Navy will fight: C-NOte #1 on Sailors and their Quality of Life to C-NOte #2 on the Foundry and envisioned infrastructure necessary to generate and sustain naval power to the Worldclass Fleet in C-NOte #3 described for the fight: Sailors First–Foundry Always–Worldclass Fleet.1 

Now, in C-NOte #4, he outlines the vision for how that force will operate: a Golden Fleet capable of Enhanced Mission Command, delegated autonomy, and winning in a strategic environment (that is) fundamentally different from that of two decades ago. This is a fleet that is built in the foundry and forged to fight. We must assume a new foundry and a new forge – not old legacy ways and means.

Though the vision is sound, it faces a critical obstacle. While the Navy has issued Fighting Instructions in the past to address tactical application, we still lack a coherent philosophical doctrine for warfighting leadership.2,3  Instructions and notes alone are insufficient to achieve a timeless model for naval warfighting, as exemplified by the United States Marine Corps’ FMFM-1: Warfighting.4 

Doctrine, Notes, Pamphlets aside, we must also win the mind and truly cultivate the cognitive edge of the command leader at sea – Education. Currently, the Navy’s mechanism for winning that mind – our Leadership Development Framework (Enterprise) – is fractured and requires a fresh look.

Unifying Navy’s Leadership Enterprise: A Strategic Imperative for Warfighting Excellence

The fundamental flaw in our current alignment of leader development is not merely bureaucratic; it is philosophical. This creates a strategic category error. By housing the Navy Leadership and Ethics Center (NLEC) and the Senior Enlisted Academy (SEA) within a training command, the Service imposes a mechanistic training framework on an adaptive human problem.4 

To help the reader understand this distinction, we must look to the Navy’s own professional doctrine. The U.S. Naval War College’s primer on the Navy Profession explicitly differentiates between a bureaucracy and a profession. Training is the tool of the bureaucracy; it is skills-based, compliance-based, and focused on the efficiency of resource expenditure through checklists and standard operating procedures (SOPs). This approach is inherently mechanistic, designed for routine work and the known.

In contrast, education is the tool of the profession. It is expert-based, requiring life-long learning to develop the discretion and judgment necessary to achieve mission effectiveness in the face of the unknown.6 As Admiral P. Gardner Howe III observed, “a bureaucratic organization will never succeed in combat; only a professional organization can and will.”7

By relegating leadership development to a training command, we are effectively using checklists to solve for culture. The result is a force trained for compliance and ill-equipped for the ambiguity of command. This structure restricts our ability to develop leaders who can out-think the adversary because it prioritizes hardware and routines over the development of critical-thinking skills – the primary driver of innovation and adaptability.

To fix the output, Navy must fix the input structure. Reintegrating NLEC and SEA under the USNWC replaces a mechanistic training model with a dynamic educational framework, offering a coherent model from E-1 to O-10.8 This move leverages the War College’s research power for adult development (vertical growth) – expanding a leader’s capacity to think in more complex ways – rather than just horizontal learning (adding more technical facts).

Furthermore, this unification restores a massive, currently dormant strategic potential (from the 2013 Navy Leader Development Strategy). Prior to COVID, CNO directed that senior Flag Officers speak to every NLEC class, ensuring that the CNO’s message reached every Triad leader in the Navy. Today, this engagement has greatly diminished, often replaced by administrative or junior Flag representation. Unifying the enterprise under the USNWC would institutionalize the “leaders engaging leaders” model, ensuring that the warfighting goals of C-NOte #4 are forged into the minds of every front-line leader.9 This is the human capital solution required to achieve the cognitive overmatch our current strategic environment demands.

Education: The Framework for a Disciplined Mind

True education is what remains after one has forgotten everything they learned in school.10 It transcends memorizing transitory facts – specific dates, formulas, or administrative procedures – to cultivate lasting, under-the-hood professional skills: critical thinking, problem-solving, empathy, curiosity, and adaptability. While training minimizes variance to prepare us for the expected (the known), education expands our cognitive capacity to handle the unexpected (the unknown). We train for certainty; we must educate for uncertainty.

For a Naval leader, education is how learning transforms the mind to handle life-and-death challenges in complex, high-stakes environments. To achieve this, the Navy must move away from its current bifurcated structure and toward a single, unified enterprise that manages the leadership journey from “Day One” to Flag rank.

The Strategic Advantage of a Single Entity

Currently, leadership development is split: NLEC (E1–O6) and SEA (E7-E9) fall under the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC), while the USNWC College of Leadership and Ethics (CLE) handles Flag Officers (O7–O10). Reintegrating NLEC and SEA under the USNWC offers three decisive advantages:

Unified Command of the Continuum: A single entity ensures the Warrior Ethos – a mindset marked by honor, integrity, and resilience – is consistently developed across every career milestone. When the NLEC was established as an Echelon III under the Naval War College in 2014, the intent was to create a single “Home of Thought” for leader development from E1 to O10.11 Returning to this structure resolves the current philosophical disconnect. Furthermore, bringing NLEC and SEA back under one roof mirrors the reality of the Fleet. The CO and CMC do not lead in silos; they lead together as a Triad under a unified vision. Their development should reflect that partnership, rather than separating their educational foundations into disparate training and education

Research-Driven Excellence: The USNWC is a research powerhouse that outshines the bureaucratic focus inherent to NETC’s Street to Fleet mission. In the Service’s own professional doctrine, training is defined as “skills-based” and focused on “efficiency of resource expenditure” within a bureaucracy.12 While NETC excels at this training – horizontal learning that is designed for technical competence in finite systems – leadership is an infinite human activity that requires vertical development to foster judgment of the unknown.

By keeping NLEC and SEA under a training command, the Navy commits a strategic category error: attempting to apply mechanistic solutions (checklists and administrative procedures) to organic, adaptive problems like culture and trust. Bureaucracies exist to support professions, not the other way around. Housing an educational powerhouse like USNWC under a training command would be a “category error” of the highest order, as it would subject discretionary professional judgment to procedural compliance. As RDML P. Gardner Howe III observed, “a bureaucratic organization will never succeed in combat; only a professional organization can and will.”13

Unifying these bodies under the USNWC allows for the expert application of specialized knowledge through the discretion and judgment of the individual leader. NETC’s mission is to efficiently expend resources for routine training. The USNWC’s mission, as tasked by the CNO, is to educate and develop leaders capable of out-thinking the adversary. These missions are complementary but must remain distinct, with the professional educational authority (USNWC) setting the standard for the leadership continuum.

Bridging the Flag Officer Gap: There is currently a significant visibility gap between Flag leadership and the foundational leadership schoolhouse, limiting understanding of NLEC’s role in Navy leadership development. While Flag Officers are intimately aware of the benefits of the USNWC CLE team’s Flag and Executive (FLEX) courses, their understanding of NLEC’s current evolution is often limited to their own past participation in legacy courses.

This gap is evidenced by the decline of the Leaders Engaging Leaders model. Prior to NLEC’s move to a training command, the CNO mandated that senior Four-Star Admirals engage with every NLEC class, ensuring that the CNO’s strategic vision was institutionalized directly into the minds of every Triad leader in the Navy (Howe, 2015).14 Today, this top-level engagement has largely been replaced by administrative or junior Flag representation.

Reintegration leverages the established trust Flag Officers have in the War College Brand as the Home of Thought to restore this critical engagement. By placing NLEC and SEA back under the NWC, the Navy ensures that senior leaders remain the primary drivers of professional identity for the commanders they lead, restoring the prestige, credibility, and visibility of command-level leadership development across the Navy.

The Cost of a Disjointed Continuum: Lessons from the Press

A fragmented leadership model – where “reins” are split – creates a disconnect between theoretical wisdom and practical application. This disjointed continuum often leads to systemic failures that result in negative press and eroded public trust:

  • Institutional “Lessons Noted” vs. “Lessons Learned”: Insights from isolated seminars rarely translate into sustained action, leading to recurring patterns of failure.
  • Crisis of Character and Trust: High-profile episodes of misconduct or Command failure often stem from leadership deficits – poor judgment, lack of clear vision, or a “zero-defect” mindset that breeds paralysis.
  • Operational Risk: Public crises regarding Sailor Quality of Life – housing, galley facilities, and pay delays – highlight a failure to manage the “Total Force” with a unified leadership mindset.

Institutionalizing CNO Goals: The Untapped Potential

Prior to COVID, the CNO directed each of the Navy’s Four-star Admirals to speak to every NLEC class (14 classes annually). This ensured that both the CNO’s message reached every “Triad” leader in the Navy within a 2-3-year span and that the wisdom and vision of our most senior flag officers across the fleet were shared with our front-line command leaders. Today, that engagement has diminished, with the occasional Four-star engagement largely in the shadows of predominantly administrative and junior Flag representation replacing Fleet leadership – Senior Fleet leaders are not engaging in this dedicated and precious time for thinking with Command (Combat) leaders.

The potential of a unified enterprise is incredible:

  • Unmatched Reach: In 2-3 years, a unified message delivered at NLEC and SEA can reach every single triad leader in the entire Navy – a feat that even the War College’s current student body load alone cannot achieve.
  • Strategic Hedge: A unified entity serves as a strategic hedge, reducing operational risk by investing in the People who address high-consequence contingencies.
  • Single Point of Accountability: Command is an action, not a position. Reintegration ensures that every leader, from the deckplates to the Pentagon, is forged in the same “Foundry” of leadership excellence.

Figure: Enterprise Alignment of Leadership Education

Conclusion: A Warfighting Imperative

Reintegrating NLEC under the U.S. Naval War College is not merely a structural change; it is a strategic and cognitive realignment of how the Navy forges the mind of the warfighter. For too long, the Service has treated leader development as a bureaucratic checklist of skills to be trained rather than a professional capacity to be forged. By unifying the organizational reins, the Navy will achieve a philosophical unity – A Service of Thought – that ensures the Warrior Ethos and the CNO’s warfighting priorities are messaged with one voice from the deckplates to the Pentagon.

As Admiral Caudle reminds us, the Fleet must be built in the foundry. A true foundry does not merely assemble parts; it applies heat and pressure to change the fundamental properties of the material. This is the essence of our new approach: moving beyond the horizontal, skills-based learning of technical facts (better left to the Type Command (TYCOM) schoolhouses) to the vertical development of the mind. This is the work of education, and it requires a unified foundry – one standard, one discipline, and one leader development continuum from the deckplates to the Pentagon.

To build this foundry, the Navy must act with the same decisiveness it expects of its commanders. We must stop fragmenting the development of our most decisive asymmetric advantage – our people. By aligning development under the U.S. Naval War College, we move from a mechanistic model of compliance to a dynamic model of professional excellence. We ensure that every Naval leader is trained for the weapon station and educated for the command.

We build the Leader(ship) not just to float, but to fight and win in the most complex and unpredictable waters ahead – Forged to fight, Tempered in the Fleet.

Captain Paul Nickell recently completed his tour as a Military Professor at the College of Leadership and Ethics within the Naval War College, and before that as an Instructor at the Navy Leadership and Ethics Command, where he facilitated learning of Major Commanders and Commanding Officers, and developed tomorrow’s Joint Force Leaders. Flying the P-3C, P-3SPA, and the P-8A, he has commanded a P-8A squadron and was the Battle Director for CENTCOM Air Operations. He is currently the Prospective Major Commander for Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas. He holds advanced degrees from both the Naval War College and the Naval Postgraduate School, where his thesis explored “How the Navy Can Become A Learning Organization,” and his subsequent research at the Naval War College has focused on learning as it applies to leadership development.

References

1 “Chief of Naval Operations,” January 2026, https://www.navy.mil/Leadership/Chief-of-Naval-Operations/.

2 Paul Nickell, To Win the Fight, We Must First Win the Mind: Create NDP-1.1 Naval Warfighting | Center for International Maritime Security, September 30, 2025, https://cimsec.org/to-win-the-fight-we-must-first-win-the-mind-create-ndp-1-1-naval-warfighting/.

3  Paul Nickell & Arthur Valeri, “How the Navy Can Become a Learning Organization, Again.” 2024. https://hdl.handle.net/10945/73501

4 Sailors First and the Ideal Navy: Inside the Pentagon with the New CNO, directed by Fed Gov Today, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKaV0iiQ_c0.

5 Martin L. Cook et al., “The Navy Profession,” U.S. Naval War College, April 2, 2016.

6 Cook et al., “The Navy Profession.”

7 P. Gardner Howe, Professionalism, Leader Development Key to Future, May 19, 2015, https://usnwc.edu/News-and-Events/News/Rear-Adm-Howe-Professionalism-leader-development-key-to-future.

8 Walter E. Carter Jr., “President’s Forum,” Article 2, Naval War College Review 67, no. 1 (2014); James Kelly, “Strengthening Our Naval Profession through a Culture of Leader Development,” Article 3, Naval War College Review 67, no. 1 (2014).

9 Howe, Professionalism, Leader Development Key to Future; Daryl Caudle, “Chief of Naval Operations,” https://www.navy.mil/Leadership/Chief-of-Naval-Operations/.

10 Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, 3rd ed (Crown/Archetype, 2010).

11 Carter Jr., “President’s Forum.”

12 Cook et al., “The Navy Profession.”

13 Howe, Professionalism, Leader Development Key to Future.

14 Howe, Professionalism, Leader Development Key to Future; “CNO’s Navy Leader Development Strategy Advances at Naval War College,” United States Navy, https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/display-news/Article/2265556/cnos-navy-leader-development-strategy-advances-at-naval-war-college/.

Featured Image: The Naval War College, RI. (U.S. Navy photo)

Industrial Base

The United States Can’t Deter China Without Allied Shipyards

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By Patrick M. Cronin and David Glick

Introduction

Industrial endurance and allied integration are indispensable to making deterrence-by-denial against China credible under the 2026 National Defense Strategy. The Trump administration’s Maritime Action Plan rightly elevates cooperation with South Korea and Japan. But viewing these allies as a temporary bridge to U.S. revitalization understates the scale and longevity of the China challenge. What is needed is a fully integrated, long-term allied shipbuilding ecosystem, that can generate surge capacity, distributed production, and wartime repair across the Indo-Pacific. Without that durable industrial architecture, denial remains declaratory rather than operational. This essay makes that case.

If a war erupts over Taiwan, what will sink the U.S. Navy first: Chinese missiles or American shipyards? Analysts have catalogued the widening gap between China’s defense industrial base and America’s. Shipbuilding sits at the center of that imbalance. What began the decade as a pacing challenge has become a structural industrial advantage for Beijing. In the Indo-Pacific, deterrence now depends less on the number of hulls afloat than on the ability to replace, repair, and regenerate them under fire. On that measure of industrial endurance, the United States is dangerously behind. 

The U.S. fleet lacks the scale, resilience, and regenerative capacity to compete with China’s expanding navy and the industrial base behind it. Even with higher funding and domestic reform, the United States alone cannot build the fleet required to match–let alone “overmatch”–China’s output. The U.S. Navy fleet currently stands at 290 ships compared to China’s 331. That gap, by itself, is not decisive. But Beijing can draw on a vast coast guard, merchant marine, and dual-use civilian fleet that allows Beijing to surge up to 5,500 hulls for support, refueling, and transport. The United States has roughly 80 comparable auxiliary and sealift vessels. This disparity reflects more than fleet size; it exposes structural constraints in American industrial capacity.

America’s defense industrial base, and shipbuilding in particular, has become structurally brittle after the collapse of commercial shipbuilding, decades of consolidation and specialization, workforce attrition, and highly inconsistent demand signals. Today, a remarkable degree of U.S. Navy major combatants are constructed at a handful of specialized yards run by two defense juggernauts: Huntington Ingalls Industries and General Dynamics.

These structural limitations matter because deterrence against Beijing now requires maritime power at a level the U.S. industrial base cannot produce independently. Attempts at domestic reform including President Trump’s ambition to build a “Golden Fleet” reflect a correct diagnosis of the problem, and executing the Maritime Action Plan may be key to reviving America’s claim to be a maritime nation. But execution is far from guaranteed. Previous U.S. efforts to slow China’s seapower ascendancy, including during Trump’s first term, have focused on massive increases in defense spending, radical policy changes, or both and many of these plans have stalled out.

As one of America’s top naval analysts, Ronald O’Rourke, argues, U.S. shipbuilding shortfalls reflect a systemic, self-reinforcing failure in which unaffordable plans, industrial limits, workforce bottlenecks, and flawed acquisition processes have collectively undermined capacity. The bottom line is that no amount of additional spending on ships or marginal policy reform within the United States alone can resolve the problem, especially as China’s larger, dual-use shipbuilding ecosystem turns American naval production capacity into a strategic liability.

“America First” rightly underscores the imperative to rebuild U.S. industrial capability, including its shipbuilding. But America alone, or cooperation limited to full onshoring, is insufficient. Unless Washington fully leverages the capabilities of allied seapowers, China’s maritime edge will grow. As Brent Sadler notes in Naval Power in Action, China has managed to “out-Mahan” the United States through an “aggressive and focused prioritization of a powerful civil-military national maritime sector.” His proposed remedy of a G-7-like consortium of maritime nations to meet the challenge is sound, but the foundational starting point must be to better harness the collective shipbuilding capabilities of the United States, South Korea, and Japan.

Although President Trump may instinctively support integrating allied shipbuilding capacity, current policy concentrates on comprehensive onshoring. The Maritime Action Plan, for all its strengths, largely confines allies to providing foreign direct investment in U.S. shipyards and maritime infrastructure. That contribution is important but insufficient.

A politically sustainable solution requires durable mutual benefit. Deterring China at scale will demand the systematic integration of allied shipbuilding capacity, especially from South Korea and Japan, into U.S. naval force planning. Capital that flows into American docks from threats of tariffs and placing conditionality on security alliances will undermine the alliance bonds on which our strategy depends. Without deep industrial cooperation, the United States will lack the industrial and thus operational resilience needed for credible Indo-Pacific deterrence. Absent complementary reforms, such as targeted modifications to the Jones Act and related statutes that tether shipbuilding exclusively to domestic yards, Washington will struggle to erect a shipbuilding defense industrial base that is both politically acceptable at home and economically sustainable for South Korea and Japan.

But let us start by briefly considering the strategic objective of deterrence by denial of China, because that is at the heart of calls for reviving shipbuilding capacity in the first place.

The Deterrence Challenge: Responding to Pressure with Endurance

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy identifies China’s bid for dominance within and beyond the First Island Chain as a direct challenge to regional stability, while the National Defense Strategy prioritizes a defense-by-denial approach anchored along that same geography. This framework highlights that successful deterrence must operate not only against invasion, but across the subtler and more pervasive forms of coercion that Beijing prefers. Xi Jinping appears to recognize that a forcible seizure of Taiwan would carry extraordinary risks, yet his purging of senior generals heightens the danger of miscalculation and reinforces the need for full-spectrum deterrence.

A central danger is that Beijing seeks to exhaust Taiwan psychologically, economically, and militarily rather than gamble on an all-out invasion. China commands a broad menu of coercive options, ranging from gray-zone harassment and maritime quarantine to incremental blockade or amphibious assault, all designed to impose cumulative pressure while exploiting gaps in allied endurance and logistics rather than inducing a single decisive battle. For example, China has recently rehearsed navigating some 1,400 fishing vessels to form a 200-mile-long sea barrier that could support a blockade of Taiwan. This, alongside other graduated options, allows Beijing to vary pace and intensity, steadily degrading Taiwan’s resilience while testing allied political will.

China’s sprawling military-industrial complex further broadens its operational choices. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can field large quantities of long-range anti-ship missiles, submarines, and other systems designed to deny U.S. forces freedom of action at increasing distances. Operating close to home, Chinese forces benefit from interior lines of communication, proximate shipyards, and rapid repair and replacement capacity. These advantages allow the PLA to absorb losses and continue operations in ways that impose disproportionate strains on allied forces. In this context, deterrence erodes not through dramatic battlefield defeat, but through persistent pressure that gradually constrains Taiwan’s strategic breathing room.

China’s approach is reinforced by Xi’s “Overall National Security Outlook” and military-civil fusion, which together harness military, economic, technological, and political instruments into an integrated system for applying sustained pressure. The PLA Navy has increasingly revealed strategies of exhaustion, strangulation, and decapitation, all of which hinge on wearing down an opponent’s ability to regenerate combat power. These concepts can only be countered by adversaries whose own industrial and logistical systems can absorb shocks, reconstitute forces, and continue operating under demanding wartime conditions.

The human reality of protracted conflict underscores this requirement. Carl von Clausewitz reminded strategists that war is a “dangerous business” defined by fear, friction, and the grinding down of human will. E. B. Sledge’s graphic portrait of amphibious warfare at Peleliu and Okinawa captures how terror and attrition consume both personnel and equipment. Deterrence, therefore, fails not only when forces are defeated in battle, but when political will, logistics networks, and industrial capacity collapse under constant pressure. Industrial sustainment is not an afterthought but the oft-neglected backbone of strategic endurance.

History underscores this lesson. The high watermark of American shipbuilding came in World War II, when the rapid production of Essex-class carriers transformed U.S. naval power and reshaped the global maritime balance. This capacity for rapid regeneration was a strategic capability in its own right, enabling the United States to outlast a determined adversary in a prolonged contest of endurance.

The same logic applies today. Against a peer competitor prepared for protracted conflict, deterrence requires a fleet designed not only for initial advantage but for the ability to fight, absorb blows, and regenerate combat power over time. This demands a large, balanced, and modern force supported by industrial capacity for rapid maintenance, repair, and replacement. Such depth must underpin a “hedge force” emphasizing quantity, distribution, and survivability across manned and unmanned platforms, and avoiding over-reliance on a small number of exquisite, vulnerable assets.

Ultimately, regeneration becomes a deterrent mechanism. A force that can endure is a force that can deny, dissuade, and defeat an opponent.

United States Constraints

The U.S. Navy’s strengths are not well matched to the challenges of a conflict with China. Although American platforms may possess momentarily superior individual capability, a fight in the South China Sea would unfold inside a dense Chinese A2/AD envelope, sustained by large inventories of land-based anti-ship missiles. In a missile-saturated battlespace, deterrence cannot rest on qualitative superiority alone. It requires layered capability, what the Hudson Institute defense team has conceptualized as “edge,” “pulsed,” and “core” forces, all supported by critical enablers. Industrial endurance is indispensable to field such layers while retaining the capacity to absorb and regenerate losses. Combat experience and alliance exercises enhance readiness, but qualitative advantages cannot offset numerical and industrial imbalance in a protracted war fought in China’s near seas.

Countering Beijing’s coercive strategy therefore demands endurance as much as lethality. Taiwan must demonstrate the political will, societal resilience, and frontline resistance to withstand sustained pressure. The United States and Japan, supported by South Korea as a rear-area sustainment, repair, and replacement hub, must present a unified posture that undercuts Chinese confidence across the spectrum of coercion. Any visible alliance seams will be exploited, perhaps as suggested by a recent U.S.-China air encounter in the Yellow or West Sea.

A credible deterrence-by-denial strategy integrates these elements: resilient frontline forces at the edge; long-range strike forces that can be surged or “pulsed” into theater; sufficient “core” forces to sustain operations over time; and the enabling architecture of ISR, logistics, command and control, and industrial capacity, that binds them together. Without this layered military and industrial integration, the United States military will display significant operational gaps and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific will remain vulnerable.

The United States currently lacks the industrial foundation required to meet this challenge. While the PLA Navy has been built primarily for high-intensity regional conflict, much of the U.S. fleet reflects decades of emphasis on power projection and presence missions in permissive environments. At the same time, as China’s shipbuilding capacity has swelled, the U.S. Navy has struggled merely to sustain a large and ready fleet to meet its global commitments.

The United States has particularly lagged behind China in the construction of platforms suited to navigate the South China Sea’s littoral and archipelagic geography. Fast, maneuverable frigates are likely to be central to distributed operations in the Indo-Pacific. China can now launch multiple modern frigates annually, with construction timelines measured in months. By contrast, the United States’ Constellation-class frigate program has yet to deliver a single operational hull after nearly a decade of effort amid design instability and cascading delays. At the same time, the United States has been upgrading cutters designed for the Coast Guard as stopgap naval vessels, despite their lack of vertical launch systems, even as China has shifted naval platforms into its formidable coast guard.

These and other difficulties stem from persistent structural weaknesses in domestic shipbuilding and maintenance infrastructure, as suggested at the outset of this essay. Consolidation has reduced competition and flexibility. Skilled labor shortages constrain manufacturing. Inconsistent procurement planning disrupts both workers’ lives and capital investment. Regulatory red tape slows production and increases cost. New construction routinely runs late and over budget, while maintenance backlogs keep operational ships tied to the pier. Industrial shortcomings sap U.S. naval credibility.

Civilian and military leaders alike acknowledge the shipbuilding gap with China. President Trump’s “Make Shipbuilding Great Again” initiative, calls for a Golden Fleet, and proposal for defense spending approaching $1.5 trillion, all of which preceded the Maritime Action Plan of February 2026, underscore growing recognition of the problem. These gestures matter, but slogans and topline numbers do not build ships. Reviving U.S. shipbuilding will require sustained political discipline, industrial reform, workforce development, and years of execution. For example, the idea of 100 maritime prosperity zones sounds appealing, but risks overreach without delivering serious production. None of this is guaranteed. Failure would leave the United States attempting to deter a maritime peer with an industrial base unfit for protracted competition.

The reality is that U.S. domestic shipbuilding capacity cannot expand fast enough to match Chinese production rates within the timeframe deterrence demands. Building new shipyards or dramatically expanding existing ones requires time, secure supply chains, and skilled labor that the United States currently lacks. The Trump administration has recognized this constraint and begun to pursue serious allied cooperation. Agreements with Australia, Japan, and South Korea are steps in the right direction, but they remain insufficient. Incremental progress will not produce the fleet needed to compete with China.

Allied Shipbuilding Capacity

Integrating allied industrial capacity into U.S. naval force planning offers several advantages.

First, allied shipyards represent an immediate force multiplier by bolstering collective shipbuilding. South Korea and Japan possess advanced shipbuilding industries with available capacity, skilled workforces, and resilient supply chains. Leveraging these yards would allow the United States to accelerate production without waiting years for domestic capacity to mature. In key areas such as automated manufacturing and AI-enabled shipbuilding, allied firms already lead global best practices.

Second, forward-deployed repair and maintenance capacity in allied countries would provide crucial operational benefits during a Taiwan or South China Sea contingency. Damaged ships could reach allied yards in days rather than weeks, preserving combat power and reducing exposure during trans-Pacific transits. This distributed sustainment architecture materially enhances fleet readiness and resilience.

Third, allied cooperation can modernize the combined naval industrial base. Different engineering traditions and production methods can complement U.S. designs and spur innovation. Key U.S. allies remain leaders in advanced manufacturing and high-tech shipbuilding. Collaborative development will spread research and development costs while expanding the menu of available platforms, particularly for modular and unmanned systems.

Fourth, integrated allied production strengthens deterrence by signaling coalition resolve. When allies invest directly in building U.S. naval power, they demonstrate commitment to collective defense and complicate Chinese strategic calculations by expanding the scale and durability of any potential response.

The accompanying graphic demonstrates not only scale but trajectory. While U.S. naval tonnage has remained stagnant over the last 15 years, China’s has more than doubled. South Korea and Japan’s rates of growth make it clear that their shipbuilding ecosystems have remained dynamic, making them key partners in an American shipbuilding resurgence.

South Korea

South Korea hosts some of the world’s most capable and efficient shipyards and is second only to China. Firms such as Hanwha Ocean, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, and Samsung Heavy Industries routinely deliver complex naval vessels at lower costs and faster timelines than U.S. yards. Their success rests on a comprehensive industrial ecosystem encompassing regional steel production, automation, lifecycle sustainment, and a deep pool of trained shipbuilding engineers.

Korea’s advantage is not only in cost and speed, but also in their advanced technical shipbuilding ecosystem. Seoul’s leading yards operate cutting-edge digitally integrated production systems that use 3D modeling and advanced simulation tools to improve workflow and enhance efficiency. Korea is prioritizing developing their technological advantage and government officials have pledged to spend over 320 billion won ($240 million) on artificial intelligence driven shipbuilding, a 23% increase from the previous year.

Cooperation is already expanding. Shipbuilding is a core element of South Korea’s strategic investment in the United States. Hanwha Ocean is investing heavily in its Philadelphia shipyard and exploring additional U.S. facilities, even as it pursues contracts with Canada that might help strengthen Hanwha’s massive Geoje shipyard that produces about 45 commercial and naval ships a year. Seoul’s decision to develop a nuclear-powered submarine represents a political breakthrough made politically conceivable by signals of greater U.S. flexibility on nuclear cooperation; with sustained U.S. support and a willingness to allow submarine production in South Korea, the SSN could deepen alliance industrial integration while advancing shared maritime capabilities.

Strategic alignment reinforces the case for cooperation. Both Washington and Seoul view China’s military modernization with concern and share an interest in stability in the Taiwan Strait. South Korea’s geography and industrial capacity make it a pivotal partner in any strategy to expand U.S. naval power, particularly given the strategic aim of defending the First Island Chain.

Japan

Japan, the world’s third-largest shipbuilder, offers complementary strengths. While its shipyards operate at a smaller scale than South Korea, they excel in precision manufacturing and systems integration. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries leads a group of seven major shipbuilders in Japan. Mitsubishi Shipbuilding was created in 2018 to bring cutting-edge technology and a new business model to building a wide variety of ships. Its shipyard at Nagasaki, founded in 1857 by the Tokugawa Shogunate, will build the first three Mogami-class frigates for Australia.  The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force operates sophisticated warships incorporating advanced sensors, propulsion, and weapons, and Japanese yards have proven adept at integrating complex systems to exacting standards.

Cooperation has moved from concept to execution. U.S. naval vessels have already undergone maintenance in Japanese yards, establishing technical interoperability and operational trust. Agreements reached in late 2024, reaffirmed and substantially enlarged by President Trump and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, outline frameworks for expanded joint shipbuilding capabilities and potential co-production.

Japan’s strategic incentives are strong. Chinese military activity near Japanese territory has intensified, prompting Tokyo to accelerate defense spending and once again revise and update key national security documents. This political commitment provides a durable foundation for long-term industrial partnership. Prime Minister Takaichi’s landslide LDP victory in the lower house enhances Tokyo’s determination to strengthen alliance cooperation in general and defense industrial cooperation in particular.

Other Regional Partners

Other Indo-Pacific allies can provide vital supporting capacity. Australia’s participation in AUKUS (the Australia, UK, U.S. defense partnership) demonstrates allied willingness to make substantial, generational investments. Canberra’s pledge to invest $3 billion in U.S. submarine shipyards is among the most concrete steps toward revitalizing American undersea production capacity, and Australian yards may eventually contribute more broadly.

Southeast Asian allies and partners also matter. The Philippines, as a treaty ally and frontline state facing persistent Chinese coercion, is also ranked among the world’s leading shipbuilding nations by commercial gross tonnage. Thus, Manila can contribute beyond providing critical access through implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Expanded development of Subic Bay could support forward maintenance and overhaul, especially as Manila grows its naval and coast guard forces. Korean investment has helped reopen the long-dormant Subic Bay shipyard, offering a potential hub for additional allied maintenance and repair. Japan is another critical source of maritime support and its acquisition and cross-servicing agreement with the Philippines thickens the web of cooperation among America’s key maritime allies.  

Together, these initiatives point to the emergence of an allied maritime industrial network across the Indo-Pacific, still uneven but increasingly consequential. While some leading regional analysts argue for formalizing this cooperation into a treaty-based Asian alliance, the more feasible and immediate task is to build the industrial sinews that would give any future alliance real weight in the form of shared production capacity, repair and regeneration capacity, and interchangeable shipbuilding and sustainment ecosystems. Industrial integration is not a substitute for alliance commitments, but it is the foundation that makes alliance commitments credible in crisis and resilient over time.

Current Partnerships and Their Limits

Existing initiatives underscore both promise and limitation. AUKUS is the most ambitious effort to date, while agreements with South Korea and Japan on repair, maintenance, and potential co-production reflect growing momentum. Yet these efforts remain fragmented and largely ad hoc. Many rely on waivers, pilot programs, or working groups without permanent institutional backing.

Even sanctioned initiatives face friction. The Korean-operated Philadelphia shipyard has encountered regulatory and workforce hurdles, illustrating the difficulty of scaling cooperation under current rules. Execution risk remains substantial. Regulatory friction, workforce constraints, and shifting political priorities on both sides of the Pacific could delay or derail even well-intentioned initiatives. Allies contemplating major capital investments remain uncertain whether U.S. policy will endure across administrations or whether cooperation will move beyond pilot programs and waivers. These risks do not weaken the case for allied shipbuilding integration; they strengthen it. Without early institutionalization, deterrence will rest on assumptions about capacity that may never materialize.

Areas for Cooperation: Destroyers

A U.S. fleet capable of countering China will require a strong destroyer fleet. Destroyers offer exceptional operational versatility through their anti-air, anti-ship, and anti-submarine capabilities. In describing the hedge force needed to confront China, Bryan Clark identifies the destroyer as a central element of the force mix because of its role in air and missile defense and in protecting other ships. As China expands its missile arsenals and extends their range, the United States must continue to build and expand its destroyer program to keep pace.

The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer (DDG 51), first commissioned in the early 1990s, remains the vital pillar of the U.S. surface fleet.  The United States currently has 74 of these destroyers in service, with 23 more hulls in the planning pipeline. Yet frequent cost overruns and delays make relying on this program alone a precarious bet. The ship has been repeatedly updated to meet changing needs, but these modifications have been imposed on a deteriorating industrial base. The result has led the Congressional Budget Office to conclude that average construction delays for the ship class have worsened significantly in recent years, with new ships now taking more than eight years to build. Meanwhile, China reportedly takes roughly two years to build its 52D destroyer and approximately three years for its more advanced Type 055.

While destroyers are crucial in a conflict against China, Beijing has more capacity to build these ships, and its advantage is only increasing. South Korea, however, is one of the world’s leading builder of destroyers. The Korean Jeongjo the Great-class destroyer is approximately one-quarter larger than the Arleigh Burke-class. The Korean destroyer also features a mix of U.S. and Korean systems on board which allow it to fire both long- and short-range missiles. Most impressive is the speed and cost with which South Korea has been able to build this ship. The destroyer was built in about three years. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, noting the quick timeline, also observed that Korean shipyards can build this class at roughly a third of the cost of a comparable U.S. destroyer, attributing this performance to yard efficiency, workforce skill, and limited regulatory friction.

South Korea is thus a world leader in a military technology that the United States urgently needs. Working with Korea to reform U.S. yards, integrate Korean building techniques, expand co-production and licensing, and eventually purchase Korean-designed military technology will be key to developing the destroyer fleet that the United States requires.

Areas for Cooperation: Advanced Technologies

Another common criticism of U.S. shipbuilding is that the industry does not make sufficient use of advanced technologies to support the shipbuilding process. A report by the GAO found that naval shipyards have been slow to adopt digital modeling, planning tools, and other advanced technologies that can speed construction and reduce delays. Additionally, outdated equipment and reliance on labor-intensive processes rather than automation reduce U.S. efficiency. While there is a legitimate balance between preserving jobs and adopting new technology, both suffer if strategic objectives cannot be delivered on time and at scale.

Policymakers have identified increased automation as essential to improving shipbuilding effectiveness. Palantir Technologies has been working on a $448 million project to integrate AI into naval shipbuilding through the ShipOS initiative, and senior naval leaders have pledged to prioritize automation and digitalization in public and private yards. As the United States continues to develop these capabilities, South Korea and Japan should be treated not merely as investors or licensees, but as core partners.

Both South Korean and Japanese shipyards are renowned for leveraging cutting-edge technologies to improve efficiency. In South Korea, HD Hyundai is building a world-class digital shipyard that uses automation and digital modeling to enhance speed and precision; yards have begun using AI robots to weld, cutting down welding times by one-third in the process. Japanese shipbuilders employ similarly advanced 3D modeling and are investing in laser-arc hybrid welding and other techniques. South Korea and Japan have the tools and expertise to be key collaborators in identifying, developing, and deploying the technologies that will shape the future of naval shipbuilding.

As the war in Ukraine has shown, Soviet-era weapon systems and battle plans struggle to hold up in modern warfare shaped by cutting-edge technology, including AI-enabled systems and increasingly advanced requirements for speed, precision, and accuracy. In several of these areas, China faces limitations, while Korea and Japan possess notable strengths. For instance, China’s submarines have long faced criticism for acoustic noise. Meanwhile, Korean yards are building some of the most advanced conventional submarines, setting high standards for stealth and effectiveness. Working with allies to continue pushing the frontier of military technology is a valuable way to achieve economies of scale while leveraging some of the world’s most capable technical talent.

Naval shipbuilding integration would not be limited to destroyers or technology sharing. A U.S.-South Korean nuclear-powered submarine could ultimately be joined by Japan, too. Another project with lower hurdles would be an “Asian corvette” produced by the United States, Japan, and South Korea, with the aim of exporting the VLS-equipped, fast-attack vessel to help regional partners and ASEAN navies facing Chinese maritime coercion.

Barriers to Cooperation

Despite the potential for cooperation, two constraints loom largest. First, U.S. ambitions remain too narrow. Outside AUKUS, cooperation focuses mainly on maintenance, with limited progress on new construction, technology co-development, or integrated force planning. Second, legal and regulatory barriers deter sustained partnership.

The U.S. defense establishment lacks a single, empowered senior official responsible for international defense industrial cooperation. The 2018 reorganization of acquisition leadership, while intended to sharpen innovation and procurement, had the effect of diffusing authority across multiple offices. Allies were left without a clear counterpart for industrial coordination.

Even as South Korea, Japan, Australia, and other partners increase investment in U.S. and allied dual-use and defense industrial capacity, cooperation remains managed through existing channels within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense/War for Acquisition and Sustainment. These mechanisms are functional but insufficiently empowered for the scale and strategic importance of emerging allied industrial integration. Expanding cooperation requires commensurate authority.

The Defense Innovation Board’s proposal to establish an Undersecretary of Defense for International Industrial Cooperation therefore merits urgent consideration. Shipbuilding may not be strategy, but a maritime strategy without a fleet will not sail. 

Statutory constraints–including the Jones Act and the Byrnes-Tollefson Amendment, which restrict foreign-built ships in U.S. domestic trade, and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which govern technology transfer–serve legitimate purposes but significantly hamper cooperation on hull construction, systems integration, and design data sharing. Case-by-case waivers, such as those granted under AUKUS, may suffice in the short-term, but they also create uncertainty and administrative burden that can hinder long-term success. Recent legislative proposals, including the SHIPS for America Act and the Ensuring Naval Readiness Act, offer partial relief and deserve prompt consideration.

Brent Sadler’s recommendations in Naval Power in Action rightly emphasize that restoring American sea power requires more than mere fleet modernization. He underscores the need to rebuild U.S. merchant shipping and shipyard capacity, while advancing a maritime alliance able to integrate industrial regeneration as deliberately as operational planning. This logic points toward a more comprehensive solution: establishing a “trusted shipbuilding partner” framework with allies such as South Korea and Japan, whose advanced shipyards, skilled workforces, and shared security standards make them natural anchors for allied naval production and sustainment. By streamlining contracting, enabling secure technology transfer, and aligning long-term production planning, such a framework would reduce friction, accelerate fleet regeneration, and transform allied shipbuilding capacity into a standing component of deterrence rather than an ad hoc supplement in crisis.

Conclusion

The United States faces a narrowing strategic choice. One path is to attempt to outbuild China domestically, but trends suggest that approach will fail. China’s shipbuilding dominance is the product of decades of focused policy and massive state-led investment. The United States cannot replicate that achievement on its own within the timeframe effective deterrence demands.

The alternative is to integrate allied shipbuilding more fully into American maritime power. The combined industrial capacity of the United States, South Korea, Japan, and other capable allies can match Chinese output while producing a force that is more resilient and adaptive over time.

Achieving this will require institutional reform, legal change, and sustained political commitment. Without such integration, however, the United States risks entering the 2030s with insufficient naval power to deter Chinese aggression, inviting the very conflict it seeks to prevent. With systematic allied integration, the United States can build the fleet required to maintain stability across the Indo-Pacific while strengthening alliances that are effective rather than entangling.

This is not about outsourcing responsibility. It is about aligning industrial reality with strategic necessity. Successful military alliances rest on shared goals, shared burdens, and shared decision-making. The purpose of integrated allied shipbuilding is not cooperation for its own sake, but the preservation of U.S. influence and therefore peace in the world’s most consequential region, what Nicholas Spykman famously described as the “Asiatic Mediterranean.”

A stronger homegrown U.S. shipbuilding and maritime industry remains essential. But domestic revitalization and allied integration are not alternatives; they are mutually reinforcing. A revitalized U.S. industrial base working closely with selected, capable, and willing maritime allies is indispensable to a strategy of deterrence along the First Island Chain. Understood in this light, allied shipbuilding is not optional. It is imperative.

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is Asia-Pacific Security Chair at the Hudson Institute and a Scholar in Residence at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Strategy and Technology (CMIST), where David Glick is a student.

Featured Image: Newport News, Virginia (Mar. 16, 2000) — The lower bow unit of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) is lowered into place at the Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding facility. (U.S. Navy photo)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.