President Joe Biden’s latest defense budget request would decommission 11 ships while building just eight new ships. It doesn’t take a mathematician to realize that is a trend to get smaller, faster while demand for naval power continues to skyrocket. America’s Navy has averaged 100 ships forward for 30 years. Across the globe today, the Navy has 128 ships forward on patrol in the world’s many hot spots.

It is simply unsustainable to remain a global power with
global reach at this pace of operations with an ever-shrinking Navy.

The administration would continue to cut the fleet size—totaling
24 scrapped ships over the next five years. Written off by the administration
as “difficult decisions” that free up $3.6 billion for other priorities, these
early retirements would leave our Navy in rough seas.

Bipartisan congressional support for a 355-ship Navy continues to grow as more leaders understand the need for combat-ready, agile systems that can effectively counter the capabilities of China’s current and steadily growing 360-ship fleet. In a turn of phrase, one might say this administration’s tagline is “when they go high . . . we go low.”

Despite the claim that the early decommissioning “savings” will fund new ship construction, the Navy continues to shrink down to 280 ships by fiscal year 2027 under this plan. In the just-released 30-year Shipbuilding Plan, only one of three funding scenarios drafted by the Navy meets the 355-ship fleet size, but not until 2043 at the earliest. That is 20 years of naval capability gaps.

Nor are Pentagon leaders proposing to just retire the old dogs
who have reached their end-of-service life and are no longer operable. The administration’s
blade has fallen on crucial conventional platforms far ahead of their planned
retirements. Sixteen of the 24 ships slated for the guillotine have yet to
reach the end of their services lives.

For example, the budget plans to decommission nine
Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs), which serve as multipurpose
warships, small in size for enhanced speed and maneuverability. Because the
Constellation-class frigates will satisfy the anti-submarine warfare mission
(ASWM), the Navy scrapped the ASWM add-on to the Freedom-class and nine of the
ships overall—and a decade before their planned end-of-service date.

But the replacement for these platforms won’t reach operational status until 2030. That leaves seven years of declining combat power and critical vulnerabilities that overlap, almost exactly, with the “Davidson Window.” Decommissioning is not a dangerous effort on its own, but creating a capacity gap while surging ships forward is.

Congress would be wise to reject the early retirement
waivers, and instead fund platform maintenance to the end of their life cycle.
Imagine if every time you had to get an oil change in your car, you immediately
sold it instead; you can’t get to work until you find a new car and end up
spending more on the new purchase than the $50 oil change. Yes, ship fixes and maintenance
are costly but necessary. And they’re cheaper than buying a whole new ship.

Shortsighted savings and a net decline in fleet size paired
with rising threats and increased demands for US naval forces have the
potential to weaken our deterrent capabilities. The US Navy needs a bigger
fleet now, not the promise of one later.

America’s challengers will seize any opportunity to exploit gaps in our strength. Congress must not let this opportunity present itself by appropriately maintaining and urgently expanding the fleet.

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