Our world has become increasingly complex, as lines of respect and international order are challenged-not by just rouge nations and terrorist groups, but by near-peer competitors China and Russia-we as a nation have to accept and address this reality. We must have vision and the political courage to lead proactively, and continue to pursue the massive responsibility of maintaining international order and sharing that burden with our allies around the world. It is likely that a new presidential administration will confront this reality and bring with it a new U.S. Defense policy. It is crucial that this new policy address the complex challenges from U.S. near-peer competitors, align the DoD to those efforts and to safeguard the international status quo.

With Space as the ultimate, yet, internationally unacceptable sphere of power projection around the globe, it is the seas that cover 71% of the earth’s surface and remain a primary instrument of power projection to provide visible international order-as they have for thousands of years.

“We are a maritime nation. 90% of our trade flows by water, and 30% [travels] through the South China Sea. [This] demands our attention.” –CNO John Richardson May 16, 2016

For the last century, the United States has employed a powerful navy to uphold its international influence. At the beginning of the twentieth century, President Teddy Roosevelt deployed the Great White Fleet to project U.S. power and influence abroad. A half-century later During World War II, U.S. Navy Surface ships proved vital to the success of the United States in the Pacific theater and the Atlantic theater, since then, the aircraft carrier has become a primary vessel for U.S. power projection. Currently, the United States has 11 nuclear aircraft carriers floating around the world serving as visible symbols of United States power providing assurance to our allies and deterrence to our enemies.

Including the aircraft carriers, the United States supports a Navy today of 272 ships operated and supported by over 328,000 sailors-each being deployed for 6 months at a time and rotating a persistent deployment between three ships to support one ship always at sea. A good portion of these ships do not have regional sea-based weaponry for force projection, but instead are support ships and amphibious landing vessels.

To increase and secure global power projection in this growing complex world, a new U.S. Policy of a larger sea based surface presence must be employed to better deter our near-peers, rouge nations and defend our aircraft carriers against near peer advancing military technology. Moreover, increasing cost-effectiveness from applying “distributing lethality” to other existing ship platforms-such as amphibious and support ships-will allow the United States to globally distribute regional weapon systems and increase capacity at a much cheaper cost. Adding to the technology revolution of our Navy surface ships is a much needed innovation of power systems, long range powerful discriminating sea-based sensors, electromagnetic propagation, electric rail guns, solid state lasers, and a missile force of both offensive and defensive missiles that can be engaged by remote sensors and fired remotely from other ships. All these capabilities should and can coalesce on a single ship-based platform and existing hull for maximum effectiveness. This would be a sea based platform that “distributed lethality” could force multiply existing ship based platforms that had sensors and baseline 9 and above future processors through NIFCA.

A new type of ship should be considered by the upcoming President-elect that can be congruent with a new policy. This vessel would be the natural and more enhanced replacement of the soon-to-be-obsolete Ticonderoga class cruiser that is vital for the protection of all 11 U.S. aircraft carriers. A new integrated air and missile defense command ship is needed against the proliferation of sophisticated cruise missiles that can also provide multi mission capability and can float out of range of the second island chain in the Pacific having enhanced stand-off range with long-range Tomahawks, SM-6s, SM-3 IBs and upcoming new long-range SM-3 IIAs, which are enabled by engage and launch on remote sensors and a long range discrimination radar on this same ship. We need a new ship that can fill-in sensor gaps for the defense of the United States Homeland, NATO, the Asia Pacific and employ a variation on one platform of nearly 300 missiles for both offense and defense; a missile inventory which can be shared with existing and developing ship based sensors of navies of our allies. A new ship platform that can use the hull of our already existing Amphibious LPDs, which weights in excess of 20,000 tons.  To stay ahead of rogue threats and near-peer competitors in an evolving and complex world, our nation needs to relaunch a new heavy Armored Cruiser CA class ship to enhance and empower its Naval fleet.

American shipyards represent the starting line to modernize and increase capacity of the U.S. surface fleet. Shipbuilders at these ship yards hold the momentous responsibility of building the world’s most advanced warships for the U.S. Navy. Last week, MDAA visited the primary source of modern American sea-power, the ship yards of Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. It is there were the majority of the most advanced U.S. warships are constructed, such as Aegis BMD destroyers and the Amphibious LPCs, LHAs, and LPDs, the latter three being new littoral combat vessels designed for coastal warfare. MDAA had the honor to personally visit two brand spanking new ships built at this ship yard: the USS John Finn (DDG-113)-the first Aegis guided-missile destroyer built from the shipyards with baseline 9 and equipped with SPY-1 D(V) radar that has space kill assessment capability -as well as the state-of-the-art LPD 26-an ultra-light littoral transport vessel designed to deploy 800 Marines with all their mechanized equipment and ammunition for amphibious combat missions. At about a third of its capacity, this shipyard of 11,500 is producing one Aegis destroyer and one amphibious ship a year, each ship taking approximately four years to build.  In these times of budgetary constraint and increased demand, ship building for the United States Navy is all about the leadership of the Shipyards to increase efficiency,  who have the responsibility and capability of making our nation’s ships faster, cheaper and with more quality control.

In their vital mission to our nation of maintaining a persistent forward presence globally on the world seas, MDAA hosted the first ever “Breakfast of Champions” to recognize these unsung leaders of excellence in our ship yards. We recognized 4 Champions for their outstanding achievements over the past year:

Lieutenant Jordan Goff, USN

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Fire Control Technician Senior Chief Petty Officer (SW) Richard Johnson, USN

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Lieutenant Commander Brennan Blanchfield, Royal Canadian Navy

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Perry Haymon, Chairman of the Ship Warfare System Integration Panel, Huntington Ingalls

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Click here to see pictures from MDAA’s trip to Ingalls Ship Yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Click here to see pictures of the new LPD-26 and DDG-113.

Click here to see MDAA’s event page for the “Breakfast of Champions” in Pascagoula, Mississippi.