The US Navy's five roads to ruin
The establishment wants you to believe it's all about the number of ships but the rot runs much deeper, which can lead to delusional strategy
Michael Vlahos
Jun 03, 2025
“A Navy Second to None” has been the most enduring consensus in American national defense. For more than a century, the American people and their elected leaders — Restrainers and Warhawks alike — have agreed that the U.S. Navy is, and must remain, “The Shield of the Republic.”
Yet today the Navy is in trouble. The Navy and its boosters in Congress want us to believe the problem is all about too few ships and too few facilities.
In fact, the rot runs much deeper. Americans can see that something is wrong, especially when it is staring them in the face: Navy “bureaus” that cannot design ships, builders that cannot build, shipyards that cannot repair, depots running out of munitions, command failures and corruption, accidents at sea, and billion-dollar fires in port.
The disorder is in fact positioned in the heart of the Navy Ethos itself. The precise term-of-art — “Navy Ethos” — was first introduced in 1980, here. It signifies the core, or essence of the Navy’s sense of self: Its codification of meaning, belonging, and identity — as a society and culture.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-navy-crisis/
