Maritime Power Is Back on the National Agenda

In the past year, Washington has begun to treat maritime power as what it truly is: national security infrastructure.

The SHIPS for America Act, the Administration’s maritime executive order, the Maritime Action Plan, China-focused trade actions, and new funding proposals all point in the same direction. America has rediscovered that ships, shipyards, ports, and mariners are not niche transportation issues. They are the foundation of deterrence, supply-chain resilience, and wartime sealift.

As growing instability spreads around the globe, the United States is realizing something previous generations understood well: maritime power matters.

But there is still a critical gap in the national conversation: ships do not sail themselves.

For all the attention now being paid to shipyards and steel, far too little attention is being paid to the men and women who actually command the vessels America would rely upon in war. Without highly trained, militarily obligated American merchant marine officers, the nation’s strategic sealift capability simply does not function.

This reality is not widely understood outside maritime circles, but it needs to be.

More than 90 percent of the equipment, fuel, food, ammunition, and supplies needed to sustain the U.S. military overseas moves by sea. Tanks do not fly. Fighter squadrons cannot operate without parts and fuel. Armies cannot fight without constant resupply.

The scale of sealift is difficult to overstate. A single Fast Sealift Ship can carry the equivalent cargo of more than 200 C-5 aircraft loads, a reminder that airlift moves urgent cargo, but sealift moves armies.

Merchant mariners have been the mainstay of every major American conflict from World War II to Iraq and Afghanistan. In many ways, sealift succeeds so quietly that Americans rarely think about it until the stakes become impossible to ignore. 

Today, those stakes are rising.

The era of uncontested American logistics is over. Our adversaries understand that America’s ability to project power depends on its ability to move and sustain forces across oceans. As we are seeing in the current conflict with Iran, commercial shipping routes are increasingly vulnerable to disruption. Ports and logistics networks face cyber threats. In any prolonged conflict, the ability to sustain sealift operations becomes a decisive strategic advantage.

And yet America faces a serious shortage of qualified merchant mariners needed to sustain military sealift operations. Multiple analyses have warned that the United States lacks the manpower required to fully crew its surge sealift fleet during a major conflict.

That should concern every American, regardless of politics.

The United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) plays a uniquely important role in addressing this challenge. USMMA graduates – all of whom are service-obligated licensed merchant marine officers – make up the overwhelming majority of the Navy Reserve’s Strategic Sealift Officer (SSO) Force.

The USMMA’s mission critical Sea Year training program, which places cadets aboard working commercial vessels operating around the world, provides hands-on operational experience that cannot be replicated in a classroom. These commercial vessels serve as the backbone of the nation’s sealift in a war. 

Maritime Day is not simply an opportunity to celebrate America’s maritime heritage. It recognizes a strategic reality: military strength depends not only on ships, aircraft, and weapons systems, but also on the ability to move and sustain forces across the globe.

In a future great-power conflict, logistics may determine deterrence itself. An adversary that believes America cannot deploy and sustain forces at scale does not necessarily have to defeat the U.S. military; it only has to delay it.

America is finally beginning to rebuild its focus on maritime power. This is a necessary and welcome development, and we owe a round of applause to policymakers in Washington who are leading this charge. 

But maritime strength is not just measured in ships. It is also measured in the service-obligated American merchant marine officers willing to sail into harm’s way when their country calls.

Steel matters. Shipyards matter. Ports matter.

But ships don’t sail themselves.

Captain James F. Tobin is President and CEO of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Alumni Association and Foundation.