Editor’s Note: This essay is part two of a three-part series based on a report by the author. Read part one or download the full report here.
Part II
The United States Navy
Recent examples of gross mismanagement highlight the Navy’s plight. The lead ship of the Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers, which is the foundation of our surface fleet, was launched in 1989. This class was to have been replaced or augmented by thirty-two Zumwalt-class destroyers. The Navy, however, built only three stealth vessels of the Zumwalt class, for their combined price almost approaches what had been the projected procurement cost for all thirty-two ships.
The Zumwalt class, in addition to its other tasks, was to fulfill the role of shore bombardment, a capability the Marine Corps desperately seeks. The Advanced Gun System, which cost a fortune to develop, is, however, being ripped out of the Zumwalt class without ever being used. Why? The price of the ammunition skyrocketed to more than $800,000 for each shell, due to the reduced number of guns deployed.
A full, one-time, loadout of ammunition for the three Zumwalt-class destroyers would cost almost $4 billion, and though the guns are of a common size, they cannot chamber other available 155-millimeter rounds. It is unconscionable that our Navy developed and deployed a shipborne artillery system without creating a backup plan for the affordable supply of its ammunition. This is inimical to the creation and maintenance of integrated fire support to suppress enemy emplacements while reinforcing our combatant forces.
The near abandonment of the Zumwalt class, which was to be the core of our Navy’s surface fleet, is not management but the relinquishment of leadership and insight. In recognition of the mistakes made, the spaces on the ships, which held its ditched guns, are now planned to be used to house hypersonic missiles, currently being placed on the first ship of this class.
The littoral combat ship (LCS) program, which comprises two types, is itself a fiasco—with vessels retired after just a few years of service. Many combatants are planned to be decommissioned and mothballed, though some ships were commissioned just several years ago.
These catastrophes are due to botched shipbuilding programs, a lack of forethought, and an absence of accountability in any meaningful form. This is unacceptable in a period in which the People’s Republic of China will have at least half-again as many vessels as our Navy, though China has never been a naval power.
The entry into service of the HMS Dreadnaught in 1906, employing a uniform main battery of twelve-inch guns, revolutionized battleship design and the conduct of naval operations. In 1942, the Battle of Midway solidified the aircraft carrier as the central weapon of naval warfare.
Systems that will employ robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, metamaterials, directed energy weapons, drone swarms, unmanned submersibles, hypersonic missiles, and new informational domains presage a third great point of change in naval warfare. We must be prepared if we are to attack, defend, and control future air, surface, subsurface, digital, and cyber domains, thereby ensuring victory.
changes of tactics have not only taken place after changes in weapons, which necessarily is the case, but that the interval between such changes has been unduly long. This doubtless arises from the fact that an improvement of weapons is due to the energy. . . while changes in tactics have to overcome the inertia of a conservative class. . . . It can be remedied only by a candid recognition of each change, by careful study of the powers and limitations of the new ship or weapon, and by a consequent adaptation of the method of using it to the qualities it possesses, which will constitute its tactics.
The Department of the Navy seems dominated by concern for resource allocation and not the formulation and articulation of a consonant strategy for this decade and beyond. Our conception of naval warfare, however, must keep pace with the revolution in weapon types and their fusion with information and battlespace intelligence. We must invest the Navy’s current planning with Mahan’s wisdom.
The serial construction of unmanned surface and subsurface combatants, the deployment of drones made from common materials, and the 3D printing of devices and spare parts undertaken on underway replenishment ships and expeditionary mobile base vessels could add exceptional fortitude to our Navy’s persistent combat potential. Such innovations must be pursued expeditiously.
Nuclear Forces
The preservation of the sea-based leg of America’s strategic nuclear triad, through concerted programmatic actions to build a force of at least twelve Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), is imperative, but the lead ship is behind schedule. According to the Naval Sea Systems Command, our submarine production base “has shrunk to just one-third of its capacity from 30 years ago”. According to the command, “submarine production must nearly double, requiring an additional 3.5 to 4.5 million submarine module production and outfitting hours annually” to support the construction of the Columbia class and the Virginia class of attack submarines (SSN), which also carry cruise missiles.
If the planned expansion in our submarine production base falters, our undersea strategic forces will be at risk. Immediate measures must also be taken to secure components or production capacities for the Columbia class and the fleet of nuclear attack submarines to be procured by Australia within the framework of its trilateral security partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom, which is known as AUKUS.
Actions specified in the unclassified version of the Biden Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, released in October 2022, raise additional concerns. In the field of tactical nuclear weapons, the Biden administration’s proposed cancellation of the nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) would not only threaten America’s tactical nuclear deterrent, the termination of this vital program would increase the chances that misinterpretation will occur during hostilities. The Biden administration took actions to terminate the SLCM-N, thus making our nation potentially dependent on low-yield W76-2 nuclear warheads, which will be carried by Trident D5 missiles aboard ballistic missile submarines.
The launch of a Trident missile equipped with low-yield warheads of tactical value may not be differentiated by an adversary from our launch of an otherwise identical missile that carries multiple, high-yield, strategic reentry vehicles. This increases the chances of unintended nuclear escalation, for a single D5 carrying a loadout of twelve W88 warheads, each with a 475-kiloton yield, would represent 400 times the explosive power of the same missile if armed with two W76-2 warheads.
The firing of a single Trident missile that carries one or two low-yield reentry vehicles may expose the position of one of a small number of American ballistic missile submarines, thereby engendering another avenue for escalation by a belligerent force. Trident missiles carrying low-yield warheads were intended to supplement the SLCM-N, which would be carried by attack submarines or surface ships; the W76-2, carried by the Trident, was not designed to replace the SLCM-N.
The Trident/W76-2 system should prove most valuable in dissuading a belligerent with few nuclear warheads and constrained anti-submarine warfare capabilities from escalating to the employment of nuclear weapons. The SLCM-N has broader applications over a range of scenarios involving all adversarial, nuclear states.
The SLCM-N upon launch would be recognizable as a tactical system, for the weapon’s non-ballistic course would not be subject to misinterpretation during a crisis; the flight profile and speed of this cancelled cruise missile is completely unlike that of a ballistic missile. The termination of this program could increase the chances of an initial nuclear exchange—involving several weapons—becoming a global nuclear war.
By cancelling the SLCM-N, the Biden administration unilaterally renounced a system with global reach and flexibility in its staging, applications, and capabilities that was to have been obtained at a relatively low cost. By focusing on appearances and misleading narratives rather than facts, the Biden administration, through this action, made nuclear escalation a more conspicuous threat. Thankfully, Congress has taken steps to restore this crucial program: the SLCM-N must be funded and deployed.
Marine Corps
Marines project power ashore. As a single service, it, alone, has held the capacity to field an unconquerable, combined-arms force.
During the height of the Korean War, Congress stated that the Marines must be “most ready when the nation is least ready”. In 1952, the 82nd Congress directed that the Corps must be able “to provide a balanced force in readiness for a naval campaign and, at the same time, a ground and air striking force ready to suppress or contain international disturbances short of large-scale war.” These axioms are still true but are being subverted through maladministration.
Our nation’s capability to respond with great urgency to military emergencies that extend into multiple combatant realms is in danger of being lost. The Marine Corps has relinquished all its M1 tanks, its military bridging equipment, and most of its artillery capabilities.
Tanks are required to sustain infantry operations and to hold territory; artillery is paramount in reducing adversarial capabilities in any land engagement. The Marine Corps is now all but stripped of this fighting potential. Naval gunfire platforms and amphibious support ships are dwindling in numbers to the point that they do not match our nation’s security requirements. If these trends continue, this brave service will be a memory.
The decision to discard Corps armor and artillery components must be reversed. Lessons from the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza must inform America’s leadership as to the composition of new weapons families that will permit the Corps to perform its missions.
No other military force can match the unified combat potential of the Marines, but the Corps has been harmed by a dereliction of leadership and the abjuration of needed classes of weapons. Technology is of determinative military value only when it is properly deployed.
The birth of Marine Corps aviation took place on May 22, 1912. Today, this legacy stands in peril due to a lack of investment in fixed-wing and vertical-lift assets for the Corps. As a result, the ability of the Corps to provide combatant commanders throughout the world with integrated, appropriately sized Marine Air-Ground Task Forces (MAGTF) has been compromised. Balanced combined-arms operations to perform specific missions under the operational control of a designated commander, within a single service, are imperiled.
The Marine Corps has focused on specialized missions and assets for coastal defense within a continuum of escalation in and around areas threatened by China. The Corps has thus made littoral mobility a priority. While this is meritorious, this vision must not be exclusionary, for the service’s capabilities must exceed this scope of action as well as this province of potential conflict.
Goals for future Marine operations require new logistics ships to be able to execute intensely dynamic operations involving force delivery, replenishment, support for forces ashore, and littoral control within highly contested environments. These capacities do not exist at the scale necessary to overwhelm the constellation of adversaries we may face: they must be built.
To rapidly improve the Corps’ ability to engage on land, the new M10 armored combat vehicle, which mounts the M35 105-millimeter tank gun, can serve as a suitable high-mobility tank for the Corps. Therefore, production of the M10 earmarked for the Army should be diverted to Marine Air-Ground Task Forces.
The Marines are the means to effect combat objectives expeditiously in situations that require a ready combined-arms force, which exists within a single service. A president will be hobbled in the array of military options available if this indispensable service is not immediately bolstered.
Crisis
In 2017, the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62), an Aegis destroyer, collided with a foreign container ship in the Pacific, killing seven of the warship’s crew. Several months later, the Fitzgerald’s sistership, the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) collided with a Liberian-flagged tanker, killing ten of the destroyer’s complement. In 2020, the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) burned because of inadequate training. Today, our Navy is outpaced by China in ship construction and in the introduction of new weapons.
Command of a combatant vessel in conflict or in peace is an immensely difficult job; it demands leadership, management, stewardship, technological prowess, and mastery of many fields of highly specialized knowledge. It has been said that a ship’s captain must manifest the attributes of a mayor, city planner, engineer, sheriff, fire chief, judge, and pastor. These traits cannot be obtained by genuflecting to current social fashion. If we worship diversity, equity, and inclusion as an idol, our sea services will be forever lost. We do not have the time or the resources for this jejune diversion of command.
The reformation of our Navy is required to reattain initiative. This resurgence will constitute a daunting challenge to a new administration. America, however, has no choice but to succeed. To do so, we must concentrate on our missions, our maritime industrial base, potential belligerents and their actions, and a renewed veneration of the nautical precepts created at our Founding.
Part of the reason for the Zumwalt class’s failure was the incorporation of too many untested technologies into a new ship. A warship is composed of a hull and superstructure, its propulsion plant, electronics, weapons, and its plan for crewing, maintainability, and support.
Electronics comprise a vast array of systems, including those that support the ship directly as well as means of defense, sensing, acquisition, and information management. New classes of vessels will necessarily include advancements in many of these systems. What is unwise is the incorporation of cutting-edge technologies across all constituent elements: entirely new suites of electronics coupled with new hull forms, means of propulsion, and weapons, stress naval architecture, budgeting, and maintenance past acceptable limits. Risk factors must be assigned to all new systems or vessel attributes; composite scores should be rendered through the application of advanced forms of multi-attribute utility theory.
Matrices of challenges presented by unproven ship designs must be kept within appropriate limits. A revitalization of the Naval Sea Systems Command is required, for uniformed red teams must assess total system risks before the keel laying of any lead vessel of a new class. This task cannot be left to contractors.
To reduce the challenges incurred, the design and construction of neoteric warships, which will serve beginning in the 2030s and 2040s, must mark a new era of international cooperation between allies. There is no reason the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Republic of Korea should not agree on three common hull forms, with one nation taking the lead or sharing the lead in the development of a particular type. Such classes could encompass a new multi-mission destroyer, an advanced cruiser armed with railguns, and a next-generation amphibious vessel optimized for drone warfare.
These vessels could be equipped with common propulsion plants based on small modular reactors (SMR) or be conceived to be powered by nuclear or conventional plants as is the case with France’s Barracuda submarine design, which is a diesel-electric derivative of the nuclear Suffren class. Each of the four allied nations could thus concentrate on ship sensor and weapon development and integration, thereby reducing total ship complexity and risk. While international programs involving tanks, fighters, and other weapons have had a checkered past, uninterrupted advances in computational power and the means to share information must mark a new period of cooperation in the creation of new weapons platforms.
Greater commonality in warship design will permit vessels to be repaired and maintained in yards that stretch around the globe. The first steps toward this end have been taken, for the Department of the Navy has signaled its intent to work with shipbuilding companies headquartered in Japan and in the Republic of Korea.
The recent arrival of the USNS Wally Schirra at Hanwha Ocean’s Geoje shipyard for its overhaul, and the decision of the shipbuilder’s parent company to purchase Philly Shipyard, are noteworthy. In 2024, Japan and South Korea will build a combined total of 703 oceangoing vessels; the United States will have completed 107. Though the total of these numbers is still dwarfed by China’s construction of 1,287 large vessels in 2024, by combining our allies’ capacities with our own, this gap may be narrowed appreciably.
Weapons
With the retirement of the four Iowa-class battleships, the Navy has been greatly diminished in its capacity to support its missions of bombardment and the support of Marines ashore. This capacity was supposed to be met by the guns of the Zumwalt class, but this came to nothing after billions were spent.
A new paradigm is necessary to answer these associated missions. Missiles, including new classes of hypersonic weapons, permit deep strikes against enemy shipping or territorial positions.
The present conundrum does not concern technology but sufficiency. Guns are capable of firing hundreds or thousands of rounds; missile quantities are limited. The ubiquitous destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class are armed with up to ninety-six vertical launching system (VLS) cells per ship. VLS cells not only hold missiles designed for anti-surface roles, but also Standard missiles employed primarily for air defense.
The recent test of the Transferrable Rearming Mechanism (TRAM) on the USS Chosin (CG-65) is an important milestone. This new rearming system will potentially permit destroyers and cruisers to stay in the fight and be able to replenish spent missile cells while remaining on station, though periods of at-sea rearmament will leave our vessels vulnerable to a measurable degree that must be determined.
Although the TRAM system should augment our offensive and defensive capacities, American naval dominance demands that we find an answer to the requirement to place more loaded cells on station. This problem will become acute with the retirement of the four Ohio-class cruise missile submarines, which can launch up to 154 Tomahawk missiles each. These four submarines are due to be retired between 2026 and 2028. Block V Virginia-class SSNs, armed with cruise missiles, constitute only a partial answer to this impending deficiency.
To fill the requirement to place offensive, conventional missiles on station, attention should be given to nontraditional approaches, which could include the creation of semi-submergible barges or platforms that could either be self-propelled or towed into position. Rapid augmentation of our Navy’s persistent, offensive strength should be our goal.
This mission needs to be accomplished at the lowest possible cost, rather than assigning this capability solely within the spaces of multi-billion-dollar destroyers or submarines. Options should include transferable missile cells that can be placed on the decks of amphibious warfare ships or National Defense Reserve Fleet assets.
Resolve
As the Nimitz class of large deck carriers was being designed and alternatives considered by the CVNX Study Group report and other inquiries, Chief of Naval Operations James L. Holloway III stated, “Twelve deployable carriers are required in order to fulfill two main roles of U.S. naval forces: providing overseas deployed forces and security of the sea lines of communication.” Admiral Holloway adamantly believed that to reduce this force level was tantamount to a patent abdication of naval capacity and strategic commitment. Although 10 U.S.C. 8062(b) reduced the number of operational carriers, as required by law, from twelve to eleven, the future maintenance of this constricted force, given projected procurement plans, is questionable. Indeed, the baseline number of large deck carriers should be maintained at twelve, not ten, which is the contemplated number of Ford-class carriers to be built.
Reduction from a baseline of twelve carriers results in an inadequate number of carriers available for forward deployment, thereby signaling the paucity of our promises. A combined force of ten Ford-class carriers and a new type of ship could, however, convey to our nation greater combat capabilities than would twelve large-deck carriers alone.
China has recently constructed and launched the world’s largest amphibious assault ship. The Type 076 warship exceeds the displacement of our America-class vessels. The Type 076 is the first ship of its type to employ an electromagnetic aircraft launch system, seemingly dedicated to unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV). This launch technology was first installed on the USS Gerald R. Ford, our most capable aircraft carrier. The Type 076 is also expected to deploy with a dedicated unmanned combat aircraft deck to facilitate air operations.
Although the CVNX Study Group on vessel characteristics declared that “Carriers significantly smaller than the Nimitz class cannot support the practical minimum number of types of aircraft required to perform missions alone in the presence of an air threat,” advances in technology provide us with alternatives in the form of unmanned or optionally crewed platforms. Unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which include collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) endowed with advanced forms of artificial intelligence and autonomy, may play a decisive role in future air warfare.
Advanced derivatives of the General Atomics XQ-67A, the Boeing MQ-28, or the Kratos XQ-58 may be teamed with F-35 fighters on our carriers or amphibious assault ships, deployed by our nation or our allies. This dispersal of airpower may finally fulfil the vision of distributed airpower that was proposed by Chief of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt in the design of the cancelled Sea Control Ship in the 1970s.
Although many of our amphibious assault ships can deploy with F-35B fighters that can land vertically, the Chinese Type 076 vessel represents a new capability that the United States should strive to exceed. There is a need for a new type of aircraft carrier, larger than the America class of amphibious warfare ships but smaller than the Ford class.
Such new carriers, which should displace no more than 50,000 tons, should embark our most capable UCAVs, tiltrotor aircraft, helicopters, periodic deployments of American and allied F-35B fighters, and batteries of hypersonic missiles. High energy lasers could provide shipborne air defense.
UCAV carriers should be powered by SMRs and feature angled flight decks. Supplementing the ten, planned Ford-class carriers, a force of eight or more UCAV carriers is necessary to offset China’s burgeoning naval power.
Through the continuous modernization of America’s Navy and Marine Corps, a force for peace is assured. Any alternative will inevitably invite conflict and war.
Richard B. Levine served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy in charge of the Department of the Navy’s technology transfer and security assistance organization during the Reagan administration. Richard also served on the National Security Council staff, in the White House, as Director, International Economic Affairs, and as Director, Policy Development.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Richard B. Levine
Editor’s Note: This essay is part two of a three-part series based on a report by the author. Read part one or download the full report here.
Part II
The United States Navy
Recent examples of gross mismanagement highlight the Navy’s plight. The lead ship of the Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers, which is the foundation of our surface fleet, was launched in 1989. This class was to have been replaced or augmented by thirty-two Zumwalt-class destroyers. The Navy, however, built only three stealth vessels of the Zumwalt class, for their combined price almost approaches what had been the projected procurement cost for all thirty-two ships.
The Zumwalt class, in addition to its other tasks, was to fulfill the role of shore bombardment, a capability the Marine Corps desperately seeks. The Advanced Gun System, which cost a fortune to develop, is, however, being ripped out of the Zumwalt class without ever being used. Why? The price of the ammunition skyrocketed to more than $800,000 for each shell, due to the reduced number of guns deployed.
A full, one-time, loadout of ammunition for the three Zumwalt-class destroyers would cost almost $4 billion, and though the guns are of a common size, they cannot chamber other available 155-millimeter rounds. It is unconscionable that our Navy developed and deployed a shipborne artillery system without creating a backup plan for the affordable supply of its ammunition. This is inimical to the creation and maintenance of integrated fire support to suppress enemy emplacements while reinforcing our combatant forces.
The near abandonment of the Zumwalt class, which was to be the core of our Navy’s surface fleet, is not management but the relinquishment of leadership and insight. In recognition of the mistakes made, the spaces on the ships, which held its ditched guns, are now planned to be used to house hypersonic missiles, currently being placed on the first ship of this class.
The littoral combat ship (LCS) program, which comprises two types, is itself a fiasco—with vessels retired after just a few years of service. Many combatants are planned to be decommissioned and mothballed, though some ships were commissioned just several years ago.
These catastrophes are due to botched shipbuilding programs, a lack of forethought, and an absence of accountability in any meaningful form. This is unacceptable in a period in which the People’s Republic of China will have at least half-again as many vessels as our Navy, though China has never been a naval power.
The entry into service of the HMS Dreadnaught in 1906, employing a uniform main battery of twelve-inch guns, revolutionized battleship design and the conduct of naval operations. In 1942, the Battle of Midway solidified the aircraft carrier as the central weapon of naval warfare.
Systems that will employ robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, metamaterials, directed energy weapons, drone swarms, unmanned submersibles, hypersonic missiles, and new informational domains presage a third great point of change in naval warfare. We must be prepared if we are to attack, defend, and control future air, surface, subsurface, digital, and cyber domains, thereby ensuring victory.
Alfred Thayer Mahan in his seminal work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783, asserted:
changes of tactics have not only taken place after changes in weapons, which necessarily is the case, but that the interval between such changes has been unduly long. This doubtless arises from the fact that an improvement of weapons is due to the energy. . . while changes in tactics have to overcome the inertia of a conservative class. . . . It can be remedied only by a candid recognition of each change, by careful study of the powers and limitations of the new ship or weapon, and by a consequent adaptation of the method of using it to the qualities it possesses, which will constitute its tactics.
The Department of the Navy seems dominated by concern for resource allocation and not the formulation and articulation of a consonant strategy for this decade and beyond. Our conception of naval warfare, however, must keep pace with the revolution in weapon types and their fusion with information and battlespace intelligence. We must invest the Navy’s current planning with Mahan’s wisdom.
The serial construction of unmanned surface and subsurface combatants, the deployment of drones made from common materials, and the 3D printing of devices and spare parts undertaken on underway replenishment ships and expeditionary mobile base vessels could add exceptional fortitude to our Navy’s persistent combat potential. Such innovations must be pursued expeditiously.
Nuclear Forces
The preservation of the sea-based leg of America’s strategic nuclear triad, through concerted programmatic actions to build a force of at least twelve Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), is imperative, but the lead ship is behind schedule. According to the Naval Sea Systems Command, our submarine production base “has shrunk to just one-third of its capacity from 30 years ago”. According to the command, “submarine production must nearly double, requiring an additional 3.5 to 4.5 million submarine module production and outfitting hours annually” to support the construction of the Columbia class and the Virginia class of attack submarines (SSN), which also carry cruise missiles.
If the planned expansion in our submarine production base falters, our undersea strategic forces will be at risk. Immediate measures must also be taken to secure components or production capacities for the Columbia class and the fleet of nuclear attack submarines to be procured by Australia within the framework of its trilateral security partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom, which is known as AUKUS.
Actions specified in the unclassified version of the Biden Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, released in October 2022, raise additional concerns. In the field of tactical nuclear weapons, the Biden administration’s proposed cancellation of the nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) would not only threaten America’s tactical nuclear deterrent, the termination of this vital program would increase the chances that misinterpretation will occur during hostilities. The Biden administration took actions to terminate the SLCM-N, thus making our nation potentially dependent on low-yield W76-2 nuclear warheads, which will be carried by Trident D5 missiles aboard ballistic missile submarines.
The launch of a Trident missile equipped with low-yield warheads of tactical value may not be differentiated by an adversary from our launch of an otherwise identical missile that carries multiple, high-yield, strategic reentry vehicles. This increases the chances of unintended nuclear escalation, for a single D5 carrying a loadout of twelve W88 warheads, each with a 475-kiloton yield, would represent 400 times the explosive power of the same missile if armed with two W76-2 warheads.
The firing of a single Trident missile that carries one or two low-yield reentry vehicles may expose the position of one of a small number of American ballistic missile submarines, thereby engendering another avenue for escalation by a belligerent force. Trident missiles carrying low-yield warheads were intended to supplement the SLCM-N, which would be carried by attack submarines or surface ships; the W76-2, carried by the Trident, was not designed to replace the SLCM-N.
The Trident/W76-2 system should prove most valuable in dissuading a belligerent with few nuclear warheads and constrained anti-submarine warfare capabilities from escalating to the employment of nuclear weapons. The SLCM-N has broader applications over a range of scenarios involving all adversarial, nuclear states.
The SLCM-N upon launch would be recognizable as a tactical system, for the weapon’s non-ballistic course would not be subject to misinterpretation during a crisis; the flight profile and speed of this cancelled cruise missile is completely unlike that of a ballistic missile. The termination of this program could increase the chances of an initial nuclear exchange—involving several weapons—becoming a global nuclear war.
By cancelling the SLCM-N, the Biden administration unilaterally renounced a system with global reach and flexibility in its staging, applications, and capabilities that was to have been obtained at a relatively low cost. By focusing on appearances and misleading narratives rather than facts, the Biden administration, through this action, made nuclear escalation a more conspicuous threat. Thankfully, Congress has taken steps to restore this crucial program: the SLCM-N must be funded and deployed.
Marine Corps
Marines project power ashore. As a single service, it, alone, has held the capacity to field an unconquerable, combined-arms force.
During the height of the Korean War, Congress stated that the Marines must be “most ready when the nation is least ready”. In 1952, the 82nd Congress directed that the Corps must be able “to provide a balanced force in readiness for a naval campaign and, at the same time, a ground and air striking force ready to suppress or contain international disturbances short of large-scale war.” These axioms are still true but are being subverted through maladministration.
Our nation’s capability to respond with great urgency to military emergencies that extend into multiple combatant realms is in danger of being lost. The Marine Corps has relinquished all its M1 tanks, its military bridging equipment, and most of its artillery capabilities.
Tanks are required to sustain infantry operations and to hold territory; artillery is paramount in reducing adversarial capabilities in any land engagement. The Marine Corps is now all but stripped of this fighting potential. Naval gunfire platforms and amphibious support ships are dwindling in numbers to the point that they do not match our nation’s security requirements. If these trends continue, this brave service will be a memory.
The decision to discard Corps armor and artillery components must be reversed. Lessons from the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza must inform America’s leadership as to the composition of new weapons families that will permit the Corps to perform its missions.
No other military force can match the unified combat potential of the Marines, but the Corps has been harmed by a dereliction of leadership and the abjuration of needed classes of weapons. Technology is of determinative military value only when it is properly deployed.
The birth of Marine Corps aviation took place on May 22, 1912. Today, this legacy stands in peril due to a lack of investment in fixed-wing and vertical-lift assets for the Corps. As a result, the ability of the Corps to provide combatant commanders throughout the world with integrated, appropriately sized Marine Air-Ground Task Forces (MAGTF) has been compromised. Balanced combined-arms operations to perform specific missions under the operational control of a designated commander, within a single service, are imperiled.
The Marine Corps has focused on specialized missions and assets for coastal defense within a continuum of escalation in and around areas threatened by China. The Corps has thus made littoral mobility a priority. While this is meritorious, this vision must not be exclusionary, for the service’s capabilities must exceed this scope of action as well as this province of potential conflict.
Goals for future Marine operations require new logistics ships to be able to execute intensely dynamic operations involving force delivery, replenishment, support for forces ashore, and littoral control within highly contested environments. These capacities do not exist at the scale necessary to overwhelm the constellation of adversaries we may face: they must be built.
To rapidly improve the Corps’ ability to engage on land, the new M10 armored combat vehicle, which mounts the M35 105-millimeter tank gun, can serve as a suitable high-mobility tank for the Corps. Therefore, production of the M10 earmarked for the Army should be diverted to Marine Air-Ground Task Forces.
The Marines are the means to effect combat objectives expeditiously in situations that require a ready combined-arms force, which exists within a single service. A president will be hobbled in the array of military options available if this indispensable service is not immediately bolstered.
Crisis
In 2017, the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62), an Aegis destroyer, collided with a foreign container ship in the Pacific, killing seven of the warship’s crew. Several months later, the Fitzgerald’s sistership, the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) collided with a Liberian-flagged tanker, killing ten of the destroyer’s complement. In 2020, the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) burned because of inadequate training. Today, our Navy is outpaced by China in ship construction and in the introduction of new weapons.
Command of a combatant vessel in conflict or in peace is an immensely difficult job; it demands leadership, management, stewardship, technological prowess, and mastery of many fields of highly specialized knowledge. It has been said that a ship’s captain must manifest the attributes of a mayor, city planner, engineer, sheriff, fire chief, judge, and pastor. These traits cannot be obtained by genuflecting to current social fashion. If we worship diversity, equity, and inclusion as an idol, our sea services will be forever lost. We do not have the time or the resources for this jejune diversion of command.
The reformation of our Navy is required to reattain initiative. This resurgence will constitute a daunting challenge to a new administration. America, however, has no choice but to succeed. To do so, we must concentrate on our missions, our maritime industrial base, potential belligerents and their actions, and a renewed veneration of the nautical precepts created at our Founding.
Part of the reason for the Zumwalt class’s failure was the incorporation of too many untested technologies into a new ship. A warship is composed of a hull and superstructure, its propulsion plant, electronics, weapons, and its plan for crewing, maintainability, and support.
Electronics comprise a vast array of systems, including those that support the ship directly as well as means of defense, sensing, acquisition, and information management. New classes of vessels will necessarily include advancements in many of these systems. What is unwise is the incorporation of cutting-edge technologies across all constituent elements: entirely new suites of electronics coupled with new hull forms, means of propulsion, and weapons, stress naval architecture, budgeting, and maintenance past acceptable limits. Risk factors must be assigned to all new systems or vessel attributes; composite scores should be rendered through the application of advanced forms of multi-attribute utility theory.
Matrices of challenges presented by unproven ship designs must be kept within appropriate limits. A revitalization of the Naval Sea Systems Command is required, for uniformed red teams must assess total system risks before the keel laying of any lead vessel of a new class. This task cannot be left to contractors.
To reduce the challenges incurred, the design and construction of neoteric warships, which will serve beginning in the 2030s and 2040s, must mark a new era of international cooperation between allies. There is no reason the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Republic of Korea should not agree on three common hull forms, with one nation taking the lead or sharing the lead in the development of a particular type. Such classes could encompass a new multi-mission destroyer, an advanced cruiser armed with railguns, and a next-generation amphibious vessel optimized for drone warfare.
These vessels could be equipped with common propulsion plants based on small modular reactors (SMR) or be conceived to be powered by nuclear or conventional plants as is the case with France’s Barracuda submarine design, which is a diesel-electric derivative of the nuclear Suffren class. Each of the four allied nations could thus concentrate on ship sensor and weapon development and integration, thereby reducing total ship complexity and risk. While international programs involving tanks, fighters, and other weapons have had a checkered past, uninterrupted advances in computational power and the means to share information must mark a new period of cooperation in the creation of new weapons platforms.
Greater commonality in warship design will permit vessels to be repaired and maintained in yards that stretch around the globe. The first steps toward this end have been taken, for the Department of the Navy has signaled its intent to work with shipbuilding companies headquartered in Japan and in the Republic of Korea.
The recent arrival of the USNS Wally Schirra at Hanwha Ocean’s Geoje shipyard for its overhaul, and the decision of the shipbuilder’s parent company to purchase Philly Shipyard, are noteworthy. In 2024, Japan and South Korea will build a combined total of 703 oceangoing vessels; the United States will have completed 107. Though the total of these numbers is still dwarfed by China’s construction of 1,287 large vessels in 2024, by combining our allies’ capacities with our own, this gap may be narrowed appreciably.
Weapons
With the retirement of the four Iowa-class battleships, the Navy has been greatly diminished in its capacity to support its missions of bombardment and the support of Marines ashore. This capacity was supposed to be met by the guns of the Zumwalt class, but this came to nothing after billions were spent.
A new paradigm is necessary to answer these associated missions. Missiles, including new classes of hypersonic weapons, permit deep strikes against enemy shipping or territorial positions.
The present conundrum does not concern technology but sufficiency. Guns are capable of firing hundreds or thousands of rounds; missile quantities are limited. The ubiquitous destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class are armed with up to ninety-six vertical launching system (VLS) cells per ship. VLS cells not only hold missiles designed for anti-surface roles, but also Standard missiles employed primarily for air defense.
The recent test of the Transferrable Rearming Mechanism (TRAM) on the USS Chosin (CG-65) is an important milestone. This new rearming system will potentially permit destroyers and cruisers to stay in the fight and be able to replenish spent missile cells while remaining on station, though periods of at-sea rearmament will leave our vessels vulnerable to a measurable degree that must be determined.
Although the TRAM system should augment our offensive and defensive capacities, American naval dominance demands that we find an answer to the requirement to place more loaded cells on station. This problem will become acute with the retirement of the four Ohio-class cruise missile submarines, which can launch up to 154 Tomahawk missiles each. These four submarines are due to be retired between 2026 and 2028. Block V Virginia-class SSNs, armed with cruise missiles, constitute only a partial answer to this impending deficiency.
To fill the requirement to place offensive, conventional missiles on station, attention should be given to nontraditional approaches, which could include the creation of semi-submergible barges or platforms that could either be self-propelled or towed into position. Rapid augmentation of our Navy’s persistent, offensive strength should be our goal.
This mission needs to be accomplished at the lowest possible cost, rather than assigning this capability solely within the spaces of multi-billion-dollar destroyers or submarines. Options should include transferable missile cells that can be placed on the decks of amphibious warfare ships or National Defense Reserve Fleet assets.
Resolve
As the Nimitz class of large deck carriers was being designed and alternatives considered by the CVNX Study Group report and other inquiries, Chief of Naval Operations James L. Holloway III stated, “Twelve deployable carriers are required in order to fulfill two main roles of U.S. naval forces: providing overseas deployed forces and security of the sea lines of communication.” Admiral Holloway adamantly believed that to reduce this force level was tantamount to a patent abdication of naval capacity and strategic commitment. Although 10 U.S.C. 8062(b) reduced the number of operational carriers, as required by law, from twelve to eleven, the future maintenance of this constricted force, given projected procurement plans, is questionable. Indeed, the baseline number of large deck carriers should be maintained at twelve, not ten, which is the contemplated number of Ford-class carriers to be built.
Reduction from a baseline of twelve carriers results in an inadequate number of carriers available for forward deployment, thereby signaling the paucity of our promises. A combined force of ten Ford-class carriers and a new type of ship could, however, convey to our nation greater combat capabilities than would twelve large-deck carriers alone.
China has recently constructed and launched the world’s largest amphibious assault ship. The Type 076 warship exceeds the displacement of our America-class vessels. The Type 076 is the first ship of its type to employ an electromagnetic aircraft launch system, seemingly dedicated to unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV). This launch technology was first installed on the USS Gerald R. Ford, our most capable aircraft carrier. The Type 076 is also expected to deploy with a dedicated unmanned combat aircraft deck to facilitate air operations.
Although the CVNX Study Group on vessel characteristics declared that “Carriers significantly smaller than the Nimitz class cannot support the practical minimum number of types of aircraft required to perform missions alone in the presence of an air threat,” advances in technology provide us with alternatives in the form of unmanned or optionally crewed platforms. Unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which include collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) endowed with advanced forms of artificial intelligence and autonomy, may play a decisive role in future air warfare.
Advanced derivatives of the General Atomics XQ-67A, the Boeing MQ-28, or the Kratos XQ-58 may be teamed with F-35 fighters on our carriers or amphibious assault ships, deployed by our nation or our allies. This dispersal of airpower may finally fulfil the vision of distributed airpower that was proposed by Chief of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt in the design of the cancelled Sea Control Ship in the 1970s.
Although many of our amphibious assault ships can deploy with F-35B fighters that can land vertically, the Chinese Type 076 vessel represents a new capability that the United States should strive to exceed. There is a need for a new type of aircraft carrier, larger than the America class of amphibious warfare ships but smaller than the Ford class.
Such new carriers, which should displace no more than 50,000 tons, should embark our most capable UCAVs, tiltrotor aircraft, helicopters, periodic deployments of American and allied F-35B fighters, and batteries of hypersonic missiles. High energy lasers could provide shipborne air defense.
UCAV carriers should be powered by SMRs and feature angled flight decks. Supplementing the ten, planned Ford-class carriers, a force of eight or more UCAV carriers is necessary to offset China’s burgeoning naval power.
Through the continuous modernization of America’s Navy and Marine Corps, a force for peace is assured. Any alternative will inevitably invite conflict and war.
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Richard B. Levine served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy in charge of the Department of the Navy’s technology transfer and security assistance organization during the Reagan administration. Richard also served on the National Security Council staff, in the White House, as Director, International Economic Affairs, and as Director, Policy Development.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.