America’s Navy Is Falling Behind. This Plan Could Fix It
July 3, 2025
By: Brent D. Sadler
To deter China’s growing naval power, the US must rapidly expand its fleet through a modern Naval Act, embracing large block buys and innovative shipbuilding reforms to boost capacity and speed.
A significant amount of money could be spent on ordering warships this coming year. Still, we also need to work on reversing the retirement of many warships that occurred under President Biden.
This reversal is all the more necessary when you consider what has been proposed for fiscal year 2026: the procurement of just 19 warships. That’s wholly inadequate given the growing dangers we face from our adversaries.
America Needs More Warships to Defend Itself
Think China is a good neighbor? So far this year, it has tested a massive mobile pier for invasion of Taiwan, landed forces on the Philippines’ Sandy Cay, and sustained large-scale provocative military operations in the Taiwan Strait. As its decades-long military modernization and expansion proceed at a rapid pace, from 395 warships today to a fleet of 435 modern warships by 2030, there is little reason for Beijing not to push boundaries.
When our nation was confronted with revanchist foes in the 1930s, the President and Congress implemented the Naval Act, which set conditions for industrial expansion, enabling the arsenal of democracy to win World War II. As in the 1930s, we again need a Naval Act to revive our naval shipbuilding before it is too late.
Today, our Navy musters 293 warships, according to the most recent Index of Military Strength, which is rapidly aging and nearing retirement for a fleet that is currently assessed as too weak. Moreover, according to its most recent 2023 fleet plan, the Navy is short one aircraft carrier, 19 attack submarines, two cruisers destroyers, and 47 frigates. There is a risk in maintaining the status quo.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-navy-is-falling-behind-this-plan-could-fix-it
