Procurement: Origins Of The US Naval Crisis
January 1, 2026: New ship building programs remain behind schedule and over budget. That’s because American shipyards lack the capacity and skilled workforce to build the ships needed. The solution is to retire obsolete ships, modernize shipyards and adopt realistic shipbuilding efforts. Spending more money on shipbuilding won’t work if you don’t have the shipyards and skilled workers. The United States must adopt a program of shipyard modernization workforce recruiting and training. Implementing rational shipbuilding goals will mean fewer ships for a while. That won’t encourage China to attack as they realize that this new American program will put more ships in service on a sustained basis. Meanwhile a half dozen Virginia class SSNs could shut down most Chinese imports and exports.
There are also lessons to be learned from our allies. South Korea and Japan use a modular approach, with components of ships built in many different shipyards and land based facilities. These components are brought to shipyards and rapidly reassembled into new ships.
Then there are important lessons from the past. In the early 1990s, with the Cold War over, and the mighty Soviet fleet rapidly falling apart, only about 25 percent of American warships were at sea at any one time. Since September 11, 2001, there's been a lot more to do, and about half the fleet has been at sea at any one time. Most of this has to do with counter-terrorism operations, and support of operations in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and keeping an eye on China’s growing naval forces.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htproc/articles/2026010151041.aspx#gsc.tab=0
