Don't Build a Ghost Fleet

The Trump administration seems serious about resurrecting a domestic shipbuilding industry and increasing the size of the Navy. Both are admirable objectives, and neither is possible without the other – assuming that Congress could put aside partisan trench warfare long enough to agree on a multi-year Defense appropriation. There is broad agreement that the Navy needs about 85 additional ships to do the jobs the nation expects it to do. This will cost nearly $1 trillion. That is about $40 billion annually for 25 years – about double what Congress has appropriated annually for the last five years.

No discussion of Navy shipbuilding delays or cost-overruns could survive a smell test without upfront acknowledgement of the Navy’s complicity. Choose a construction program: the Ford, the LCS, the DG-1000, the new Constellation class frigate – and its history is replete with recurring mistakes: from failures to agree on capabilities, or design, or adequately proving new technologies or just changing direction midstream – the Navy’s track record is not impressive.  The 800-pound gorilla in the room, of course, is that there has been very little high-level accountability for such behavior.

Ever an optimist, I’m hoping that the Maritime Action Plan will rub off on the Navy. Whether it can evolve into a mini-Operation Warp Speed is unclear. But I believe the White House needs to take on one more challenge simultaneously, or the commitment to build more ships will be for naught: we must figure out how to man not only the new ships, but our existing fleet.

For years, the Navy has been unable to meet its recruiting goals. The Navy needs approximately 332,300 sailors and officers to man its current fleet of 295 ships. Because people retire and leave the service, the Navy needs 40,600 new recruits annually. And it has missed that target in two out of the last three years. In 2024, it hit its mark partly because it lowered its standards. Moreover, there is a shortfall of about 20,000 operational gaps at sea.  Moreover, if the Navy ever achieved a fleet size of 355 ships, it would need an additional 50,000 sailors.

Staffing quasi-Navy ships is a problem too. The Navy has 61 U.S. Naval Service ships oilers, supply ships, transports, pre-positioned support vessels, two hospital ships – operated by the Military Sealift Command. Although owned by the Navy, they are crewed by civilians. Last summer, thee MSC announced plans to temporarily mothball 17 Navy support ships  because it didn’t have crews to man them.

The Navy is not alone in its recruiting problems: the Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard have all been having trouble meeting their targets. So, while it is encouraging that the Navy has met its most recent recruiting numbers, lowering standards is not a smart nor sustainable strategy, especially for a fleet that continues to get more technologically complex.

Some observers argue that crewed ships and airplanes with actual pilots are a thing of the past; and given the difficulty in attracting young people to serve in the military, we should just go all-in on drones. But a larger number of unmanned aircraft and vessels are already part of mix for the fleet of the future, and that is not going to ameliorate the need for people to join the military.

Just as President Trump tasked his National Security Advisor to deliver a Maritime Action Plan within seven months, he (or Congress) should demand a similar plan on how we are going to get people to serve in the armed forces. Nothing should be off the table, beginning with whether we still want – and can deliver – an all-volunteer military.

One top newspaper editor I recently spoke with said his paper supports the return of the draft. A retired advertising executive complained to me about the inanity of the Navy’s recent ad campaigns – “Can anyone explain what ‘Forged by the Sea’ means?” – but doubted a new tag line would be enough to connect with Gen Z’ers or the younger Gen Alphas who follow. And last week, a freshman at Yale called me to brainstorm about how to get support for mandatory national service. (He had read several articles I had written arguing for a mandatory program of 18 months  where a voluntary option would be voluntary.)

We need to build more ships, and we need to do so smarter, faster, and cheaper. But if we don't also figure out how to man them, we will be building a ghost fleet.

Steve Cohen is an attorney at Pollock Cohen in New York, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the United States Naval Institute.