Brent Ramsey
President-elect Trump has made recent statements in favor of the need for a much stronger Navy. Here are recommendations for things he must consider.
- Provide full support to the Commission on the Future of the Navy. It is urgent to establish a current baseline requirement for the Navy to know what the mission is, what deficiencies we have, and what needs to be done to field the Navy needed to defend the nation. The Commission is to “undertake a comprehensive study of the structure of the Navy and policy assumptions related to the size and force mixture of the Navy, in order— (I) to make recommendations on the size and force mixture of ships; and (II) to make recommendations on the size and force mixture of naval aviation.” The Navy of 2025 is significantly smaller than it has been since the beginning of WWII at approximately 296 combat force ships. In contrast, at the end of the Cold War under Ronald Reagan the Navy had 592 combat force ships. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has massively increased the size of its People’s Liberation Army Navy to the extent that it now is larger than our Navy.
Due to worldwide commitments and shortfalls due to maintenance and industrial capacity, the US is now able to keep only 50-70 ships in the 7th Fleet of INDOPACOM versus the PRC’s 400 ships. The PRC has made clear its intent to dominate the INDO Pacific including all its neighbors including Taiwan and treaty allies like Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. It is expected that the Commission will strongly recommend a much larger Navy. The latest Congressional Research Service Report on the growth of the PLAN can be found at the link. The Trump Administration quickly must propose, and the Congress must fund a large increase in shipbuilding funds for combatants to build the ships the nation urgently needs.
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