Author: Robert Luster

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Captain John Konrad Just Proved Our Point—From the Logistics Side

Bill Cullifer, Founder
Bill Cullifer, Founder

A few days ago, we published a piece about rust on Navy ships. Not because rust is the problem, but because rust is the symptom of something deeper: a governance system that doesn’t fund the unglamorous, essential work of maintaining a ready fleet.

Now Captain John Konrad has walked through the 2025 Military Sealift Command handbook page by page in a detailed podcast, and he’s telling the exact same story—from the other side of the hull.

What Konrad Found

Captain Konrad, founder of gCaptain and a licensed Master Mariner with decades at sea, attended the Surface Navy Association’s National Symposium and picked up what he calls “the most important book the Navy publishes every year”—the MSC handbook.

His conclusion after reviewing it: “We are completely unprepared for a war in the Pacific.”

Here’s what the handbook reveals:

$5 billion annual budget for Military Sealift Command—the organization responsible for 90% of everything the military moves overseas, including fuel, ammunition, food, and equipment for all services across all theaters worldwide.

As Konrad puts it bluntly: “Ships are expensive, people. Crewing ships are expensive. Maintaining ships are expensive. And you just can’t do it with a $5 billion budget.” That’s less than 0.5% of the $1.1 trillion defense budget to sustain the logistics backbone that enables everything else.

17 ships laid up—not because they’re broken, but because there aren’t enough licensed merchant mariners to crew them. The workforce crisis isn’t theoretical. It’s operational right now.

A command authority mismatch: MSC is a one or two-star command trying to support operations across all numbered fleets, which are three and four-star commands. When they compete for resources in Congress, they get outranked by everyone.

The Single Point of Failure Inventory

Konrad methodically documents what “running on fumes” actually looks like:

  • 1 Missile Range Instrumentation Ship (to track adversary weapons development)
  • 1 Advanced towed array surveillance ship
  • 1 Cable repair ship (for undersea cables carrying secure communications)
  • 1 Ballistic missile tracking ship
  • 1 Navigation test support ship
  • 4 Ocean surveillance ships (we had dozens during the Cold War to track Soviet submarines)
  • 4 Submarine support ships (submarines can’t safely enter or leave port without them)
  • 4 New John Lewis-class replenishment oilers—with only one or two actually deployed due to environmental scrubber requirements making them too tall to fit under 70% of bridges

The oiler situation is particularly critical. As Konrad notes, a former Commandant of the Merchant Marine wrote that we’re 100 tankers short of minimum requirements to fuel the fleet in a Pacific campaign.

This Is the Same Story We’ve Been Telling

In our earlier post on rust, we made a simple point: rust isn’t a Navy problem. It’s an American one.

We showed this governance chain:

National will → budgets → priorities → behavior → readiness

When that chain breaks down, you get rust on deckplates. But as Konrad’s breakdown proves, you also get:

  • Ships that can’t deploy because bureaucracy matters more than mission
  • Mariners overworked to the point of tragedy (he references the officer who died by suicide aboard the USNS Amelia Earhart from stress and overwork)
  • Single ships doing missions that require dozens
  • A logistics fleet averaging 40 years old with no replacement plan adequate to requirements

The Governance Failure at Every LevelKonrad’s evidence maps directly to our framework:

National will: Americans support the Navy—surveys prove it. But they picture aircraft carriers and destroyers, not oilers and cable repair ships. They don’t know Military Sealift Command exists. They don’t understand that 90% of military logistics moves by ship, or that the Air Force’s entire airlift capacity is less than what China can fit on one modern container ship.

Budgets: When the public doesn’t understand what naval power requires, Congress doesn’t fund it. MSC gets 0.5% of the defense budget to do what Konrad calls “the most important mission” because logistics wins wars.

Priorities: MSC is outranked by every other command. When it’s time to fight for resources, they lose. The result is predictable: deferred maintenance, aging ships, no replacement pipeline, and a workforce crisis.

Behavior: With inadequate funding and low command priority, you get exactly what Konrad documents—ships laid up, mariners burned out, critical capabilities down to single digits, and new ships stuck pier-side because nobody fixed the bureaucratic tangles.

Readiness: We can move the fleet to the Pacific. But we can’t sustain them there. We can win the first battle, but we can’t win the campaign.

What “Lack of Support” Actually Means

This isn’t about public indifference. It’s about invisibility.

The American public sees:

  • Carriers launching jets (thrilling)
  • Destroyers shooting missiles (dramatic)
  • Submarines running silent (mysterious)

They don’t see:

  • The oiler keeping the carrier’s air wing flying
  • The dry cargo ship bringing ammunition to the destroyers
  • The cable repair ship maintaining secure communications
  • The ocean surveillance ship tracking enemy submarines before they become threats
  • The submarine tender ensuring boats can safely enter and leave port

What’s invisible doesn’t get funded.

This is why the governance failure at the top of the chain matters so much. If national will doesn’t include understanding what naval power actually requires, budgets will never prioritize the systems that make it work.

Naval Power Is Systems, Not Platforms

We’ve been making this point for months: naval power isn’t platforms. It’s systems.

You can have the most advanced destroyers and carriers in the world, but if you can’t fuel them at sea, resupply them with ammunition, track enemy submarines approaching your bases, repair undersea cables when they’re cut, or crew the ships you already have—then you don’t have naval power. You have expensive hulls that can’t sustain operations.

Konrad’s handbook walkthrough proves this from the logistics side. The platforms get the attention and the funding. The systems that enable them get $5 billion and a two-star admiral.

A Call to Action: DOD and Congress Must Act

We know from surveys that Americans support a strong Navy. They want us to be ready. But readiness isn’t just about how many ships we have—it’s about whether those ships can operate, sustain, and prevail in extended campaigns.

The Department of Defense must:

  • Elevate MSC to a three-star command so it has the authority to compete for resources
  • Fix bureaucratic tangles keeping new capabilities pier-side
  • Properly recognize civilian mariners to improve recruitment and retention
  • Stop treating logistics as an afterthought in force structure decisions

Congress must:

  • Fund MSC and the maritime industrial base at levels that match strategic requirements, not political convenience
  • Expand the Maritime Security Program, especially tankers
  • Invest in the mariner training pipeline and Strategic Sealift Officer program
  • Demand readiness reporting that focuses on systems and sustainability, not just platform counts

Acknowledging Captain Konrad’s Work

Captain Konrad has been a persistent, credible voice highlighting America’s maritime readiness crisis. Through gCaptain, his podcasts, and media appearances on NPR, BBC, the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, he’s documented the decline of our merchant marine, the shipbuilding crisis, and strategic sealift challenges.

His latest breakdown of the MSC handbook is a public service. He’s showing Americans what their Navy actually depends on—and how fragile that foundation has become.

At Americans for a Stronger Navy, we’ve been making the case that rust is a symptom and the system is the cause. Konrad just proved it from the logistics side. His work validates our concerns and strengthens the case for urgent action.

The Bottom Line

Rust isn’t a deckplate problem. It’s a governance one.

Ships laid up for lack of crews isn’t a manning problem. It’s a governance one.

Oilers stuck pier-side because nobody fixed the bureaucracy isn’t a maintenance problem. It’s a governance one.

And a $5 billion budget for the logistics backbone that enables 90% of military power projection isn’t a budget problem—it’s a national priority failure.

Captain Konrad is right: we’re not ready for a sustained fight in the Pacific.

But the solution isn’t just to build more ships. It’s to fix the governance chain that determines whether we fund, crew, maintain, and deploy the capabilities we already need.

The American people support a strong Navy. Now we need DOD and Congress to match that support with the resources, priorities, and leadership that readiness actually requires.

Let’s roll.

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Why Battleships Still Matter—Even If We Never Build One Again

Bill Cullifer, Founder
Bill Cullifer, Founder

Naval historian Trent Hone recently published a thoughtful piece explaining why the U.S. Navy no longer builds battleships—and why, from a warfighting standpoint, it probably shouldn’t.

Hone’s argument is straightforward: the operational logic that once justified battleships has been obsolete for decades. Big guns gave way to aircraft. Aircraft gave way to missiles. Today’s naval combat rewards dispersion, networking, and numbers—not massive armored hulls.

That assessment is widely shared among naval professionals.

But Hone makes a second, more subtle point that deserves more attention: battleships have always carried symbolic power far beyond their military utility. They were never just weapons. They were national statements—about strength, reach, prestige, and ambition.

That symbolic role has not disappeared.

And that’s where the conversation gets interesting.

Two Serious Perspectives, One Shared Conclusion

Hone is a respected scholar and strategist. He holds the Marine Corps University Foundation Chair of Strategic Studies and has written extensively about how naval doctrine evolves with technology and threat environments. His view is clear: building a new battleship today would produce a smaller, less resilient, less lethal fleet than the alternatives.

Others, however, approach the issue from a different angle.

Defense analyst Brent Sadler, for example, has argued that what matters most is not any specific platform but the urgent need to rebuild American sea power at scale. His emphasis is on fleet size, industrial capacity, and the ability to sustain combat operations over time. For Sadler, bold ideas—even controversial ones—are useful if they force the public to confront how far the Navy has fallen behind its global responsibilities.

These two views may differ on specifics, but they converge on something essential:

America needs a stronger Navy.

Not symbolically. Not nostalgically. Structurally.

The Real Problem Isn’t Battleships—It’s Public Understanding

The deeper issue raised by this debate is not whether we should build a new class of battleships. It’s that the American public has lost touch with what sea power actually means.

Most Americans don’t see the Navy at work.
They don’t see trade routes.
They don’t see chokepoints.
They don’t see logistics.
They don’t see undersea cables.
They don’t see maintenance backlogs.
They don’t see shipyard fragility.
They don’t see attrition math.

But they do recognize symbols.

Battleships, like aircraft carriers, are easy to understand. They look powerful. They feel powerful. They communicate strength in a way spreadsheets and logistics diagrams do not.

That doesn’t make them good warfighting solutions—but it does make them powerful communication tools.

And the Navy has a communication problem.

A stronger Navy is not only a military challenge. It is a civic one—requiring public understanding, long-term commitment, and new thinking about how we fund and sustain national security.

Why Americans Should Care

The U.S. Navy is not just a military force. It is the invisible foundation of modern American life.

It protects global trade.
It stabilizes energy flows.
It keeps shipping lanes open.
It reassures allies.
It deters coercion.
It underwrites economic stability.

When the Navy weakens, these systems become fragile.

That fragility doesn’t show up overnight—but it shows up eventually.

Implications for the Navy

Modern naval power is no longer about a few dominant platforms. It is about:

Numbers
Redundancy
Repairability
Sustainment
Resilience
Industrial depth
Networked operations

A stronger Navy is not just a bigger Navy—it is a Navy that can take losses and keep fighting.

That requires more ships, more shipyards, more trained sailors, and more public support.

Implications for Our Allies

Allies do not just look at U.S. statements. They look at U.S. capacity.

They ask:
Can America show up?
Can America stay?
Can America sustain?
Can America adapt?

A strong Navy reassures allies.
A hollow Navy invites testing.

Where We Stand

At Americans for a Stronger Navy, we are not here to pick winners in platform debates. Reasonable people will disagree about hulls, missiles, drones, and fleet composition.

But most serious voices agree on one thing:

The Navy is stretched too thin.
The industrial base is fragile.
The fleet is too small for its mission set.
And the public does not understand what’s at stake.

That is the gap we exist to close.

Not through nostalgia.
Not through fear.
But through education.

Because a democracy cannot sustain a strong Navy if it does not understand why it needs one.

That’s why we launched Charting the Course: Voices That Matter — a 24-part educational series breaking down how we got here, what went wrong, and what must happen next. Our goal is simple: educate the public, connect the dots, and build the support needed to close the readiness gap before it’s too late.

Let’s roll.

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Venezuela Isn’t a Humanitarian Story. It’s a Power Story.

When Americans hear about Venezuela, they tend to think in humanitarian terms—migration, political repression, economic collapse. But that framing misses the point. Venezuela is not just a tragedy. It’s a test case for how power works in the modern world.

And power today is not primarily exercised by invading countries. It is exercised by controlling access.

Naval strategist Brent Sadler calls this naval statecraft: the use of maritime power not to occupy territory, but to shape outcomes by controlling sea lanes, ports, trade routes, and strategic flows.

That may sound academic. It isn’t.

Oil moves by tanker. Food moves by ship. Weapons move by ship. Data moves across undersea cables. Whoever controls maritime access controls leverage over markets, pricing, and political behavior.

That is why Venezuela matters.

The country holds the largest proven oil reserves on earth. Those reserves don’t just sit in the ground—they move through ports, shipping routes, refineries, and insurance markets. If you influence those arteries, you influence global energy prices.

This is how power works now.

China, Russia, and Iran understand this. That’s why they don’t primarily project influence through armies anymore. They do it through ports, infrastructure loans, logistics hubs, shipping contracts, and maritime footholds.

This isn’t ideological. It’s commercial.

It’s about controlling the plumbing of globalization.

Most Americans still think about war in 20th-century terms: tanks crossing borders, armies seizing capitals, long occupations. Iraq and Afghanistan showed us the limits of that model—astronomical cost, endless entanglement, poor return on investment.

Naval power offers a different approach.

You don’t need to own the house to control the driveway.

Naval statecraft lets a country shape outcomes without rebuilding foreign societies, policing local politics, or stationing troops for decades. It raises the cost of destabilizing behavior. It disrupts illicit flows. It protects trade. It limits rivals’ reach.

No nation-building.
No permanent occupation.
No trillion-dollar quagmires.

Just leverage.

That matters to Americans because the modern economy is maritime. Roughly 90% of global trade moves by sea. Energy markets are maritime. Supply chains are maritime. Even the internet relies on undersea cables.

When those systems destabilize, Americans feel it—in fuel prices, grocery bills, insurance costs, and lost jobs.

The Navy doesn’t just protect territory. It protects flows.

And flows are what modern economies run on.

The public debate still frames U.S. foreign policy as a binary choice: invade or disengage. But the events in Venezuela show that this is a false choice.

Naval statecraft offers a third option.

It allows the U.S. to protect its interests without trying to govern other nations. It shapes incentives instead of regimes. It deters without occupying.

It is not warmongering. It is cost control.

It is not militarism. It is market stability.

And it has domestic benefits.

A credible naval presence requires ships, ports, dry docks, logistics networks, and skilled labor. That means long-term industrial jobs, capital investment, and manufacturing capacity—things America has been hollowing out for decades.

Naval power is not just a security asset. It is an economic one.

When rival powers build ports in the Western Hemisphere, they aren’t doing charity work. They’re building leverage. They’re shaping future trade behavior. They’re embedding themselves into supply chains.

Naval statecraft is how you counter that without turning every dispute into a war.

It is power with restraint. It is influence without occupation. It is competition without catastrophe.

And it may be the most important strategic concept Americans have never been taught.

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When Sanctions Need Ships: How Two U.S. Destroyers Chased a Dark Fleet Tanker Across the Atlantic

Introduction

Two U.S. Navy destroyers just spent weeks tracking, shadowing, and supporting the seizure of a runaway oil tanker in the North Atlantic.

This was not a combat mission.
It was not a press event.
It was not symbolic.

It was enforcement.

USS Bulkeley (DDG-84) and USS Paul Ignatius (DDG-117) helped support an operation that ultimately boarded and seized a Russian-flagged tanker that had been actively evading authorities across thousands of miles of open ocean.

This is what maritime power looks like in 2026. And most Americans never see it.

What Happened
The vessel—initially named Bella 1—was operating as part of what U.S. officials describe as a “dark fleet,” a network of tankers designed to evade sanctions through deceptive practices.

Over the course of its escape, the tanker:
• Changed its name
• Reflagged as Russian
• Painted a new national tricolor on its hull
• Altered its identity
• Evaded a U.S. naval blockade
• Attempted to disappear into the Atlantic

After weeks of pursuit, U.S. forces—supported by Navy destroyers, Coast Guard assets, special operations forces, and allied surveillance—seized the vessel in waters between the UK and Iceland.

The UK provided support. NATO was not involved.

This was a multinational, multi-domain enforcement operation.

Not war. Not peace. Enforcement.

Why This Matters
Sanctions do not enforce themselves.

Every time a government announces new sanctions, it implies something most people never think about:

Someone has to physically enforce them.

That means:
• Ships
• Crews
• Surveillance
• Boarding teams
• Legal frameworks
• Sustainment
• Allies
• Weeks of continuous presence

Sanctions without maritime power are just words on paper.

The Rise of the Dark Fleet
So-called “dark fleet” vessels use identity laundering to move oil, weapons, and sanctioned goods across the world.

They:
• Reflag repeatedly
• Change names
• Operate under shell companies
• Transmit false data
• Disable tracking systems
• Exploit legal gray zones

This is modern maritime gray-zone warfare.

And the U.S. Navy is now its primary counterforce.

Attrition Isn’t Just Combat
A Navy captain once wrote: “Wars at sea are wars of attrition.”

What most people miss is that attrition doesn’t only happen during wars.

It happens during:
• Blockades
• Sanctions enforcement
• Freedom of navigation patrols
• Counter-smuggling missions
• Persistent surveillance
• Shadowing operations

Weeks of pursuit burn:
• Fuel
• Maintenance cycles
• Crew endurance
• Parts
• Readiness margins

Every ship tied up on one mission is unavailable for another. Presence has a cost.

Why Americans Should Care
This mission protected more than a legal principle.

It protected:
• The credibility of sanctions
• The integrity of maritime law
• The security of global trade routes
• The idea that rules still matter

If the U.S. Navy cannot enforce order at sea, someone else will rewrite the rules. And they will not do it in our favor.

This Is What Presence Looks Like
Destroyers aren’t just warfighting platforms.

They are:
• Law enforcement tools
• Diplomatic signals
• Deterrence mechanisms
• Economic stabilizers
• Crisis responders

This mission never trended. But it kept the system from breaking.

The Bigger Picture
The Navy is being asked to do more:
• With fewer ships
• With aging hulls
• With shrinking margins
• With rising global demand

This operation was a success. But success should not blind us to strain.

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A Subscriber Asked: How Do the Jones Act, SHIPS Act, and Strategic Seas Act Actually Fit Together?

Bill Cullifer, Founder
Bill Cullifer, Founder

A reader recently reached out with a thoughtful question. After seeing renewed debate around the Jones Act — including critiques from respected analysts and commentators — they wanted to understand how that debate fits with our advocacy for the SHIPS Act and the recently proposed Strategic Seas Act.

It’s a fair question. And it reflects a broader challenge: America’s maritime conversation has become fragmented, emotional, and often disconnected from strategic reality.

Here’s the clearest way to understand it.

The Core Issue Isn’t One Law — It’s the System

America’s maritime problem did not emerge because of one bad law or one bad decision. It emerged because policy, industry, workforce, logistics, and security drifted out of alignment over decades.

The Jones Act, the SHIPS Act, and the Strategic Seas Act each address different layers of that system. Confusing them — or pitting them against one another — obscures the real challenge.

What the Jones Act Actually Does (and Does Not Do)

The Jones Act governs domestic coastwise and inland shipping — cargo moved between U.S. ports along rivers, coasts, and internal waterways.

Its intent is to preserve:

    • A U.S. maritime workforce
    • Domestic shipbuilding and repair capacity
    • U.S. control over domestic trade routes

It does not regulate international or blue-water shipping.

Critics are right about one thing: the Jones Act did not prevent the collapse of America’s international commercial fleet. That collapse happened outside its scope — driven by tax policy, financing disadvantages, flag-of-convenience practices, and long-term neglect.

That critique is legitimate. But it’s also incomplete.

Why the Jones Act Debate Isn’t Decisive

For years, serious naval professionals and analysts have debated whether the Jones Act is a national security asset or a liability. That debate is not new, and it has often been conducted in good faith.

What has changed is the strategic environment.

Recent analysis has reminded us of a hard truth: wars at sea are wars of attrition. Losses come fast. Ships, crews, and shipyards lost early in a conflict cannot be replaced in time to affect the outcome.

That means no maritime policy — Jones Act included — can be judged solely by cost or efficiency in peacetime. The real question is whether the overall system can absorb loss and sustain combat before a war begins.

What the SHIPS Act Is Designed to Fix

The SHIPS Act addresses a failure the Jones Act was never designed to solve: the collapse of U.S.-flag international shipping and sealift capacity.

Its focus includes:

    • Rebuilding a viable U.S.-flag fleet in international trade
    • Expanding and stabilizing the pool of credentialed U.S. mariners
    • Strengthening sealift capacity the Navy depends on in wartim
    • Restoring American relevance in global maritime commerce

This is where America’s absence has become a strategic vulnerability — and where reform is long overdue.

Why We Proposed the Strategic Seas Act

Even rebuilding ships and mariners is no longer enough.

Modern global commerce and advanced technologies create maritime security risks at scale — from congested sea lanes and port dependencies to undersea cables and logistics chokepoints. When those risks materialize, the burden falls almost entirely on the U.S. Navy and the American taxpayer.

The Strategic Seas Act starts from a simple principle: strategic risk should be managed and shared, not externalized.

It focuses on:

    • Accountability for maritime risk creation
    • Protection of ports, shipyards, sea lanes, and undersea infrastructure
    • Aligning commercial innovation with maritime and naval security
    • Closing the gap between private gain and public security cost

  • This is not about shipping rates. It’s about national responsibility in a contested maritime world.

Why We Don’t Lead With the Jones Act Debate

The Jones Act debate often becomes ideological. The most urgent maritime failures today are strategic and systemic.

Our priority is:

    • Whether America can move and sustain forces at scale
    • Whether we have the mariners to crew ships in crisis
    • Whether our industrial base can repair and regenerate under pressure
    • Whether commercial success carries shared security responsibility

That doesn’t make the Jones Act irrelevant. It makes it one part of a much larger system.

Why Americans Should Care

Most Americans never see ships — but their food, fuel, medicine, data, and livelihoods move by sea. When maritime policy fails, the consequences show up quietly: fragile supply chains, higher prices, longer crises, and greater military risk.

Maritime strength is not abstract. It shapes daily life.

Implications for the Navy

The Navy cannot surge ships, mariners, or shipyards after a war starts. Civilian maritime capacity is not separate from naval readiness — it underpins it. Planning without industrial and workforce reality invites failure.

Implications for Our Allies

Allies measure credibility by endurance. A stronger U.S. maritime system reduces dangerous dependence on adversaries and turns alliances into real, usable capacity — not just promises.

Closing Thought

The real question isn’t whether one maritime law should be defended or repealed.

The question is whether the United States intends to remain a serious maritime nation — prepared before the first shot is fired, not scrambling after ships are lost.

That’s why we launched Charting the Course: Voices That Matter — a 24-part educational series breaking down how we got here, what went wrong, and what must happen next. Our goal is simple: educate the public, connect the dots, and build the support needed to close the readiness gap before it’s too late.

Let’s roll.

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Listening to Americans on Naval Power and the Industrial Base

Americans Support a Strong Navy — and Expect Readiness to Match

While public debate and media commentary continue, Americans for a Stronger Navy looks under the hood — at what Americans are actually saying and feeling when asked directly about naval strength and readiness.

The 2025 Reagan National Defense Survey offers a rare opportunity to move past headlines and examine public sentiment itself. Rather than reacting to daily news cycles, this analysis focuses on the underlying signals Americans are sending about national security, deterrence, and the role of naval power in an increasingly uncertain world.

What Americans Are Saying

The survey shows strong and durable support for military strength. Eighty-seven percent of Americans believe military superiority matters, and seventy-one percent believe global peace depends on American strength. A majority believe the United States maintains superiority at sea.

Naval power remains central to how Americans think about deterrence, stability, and global leadership. This support is not tied to a single region or conflict. It reflects a broader expectation that the United States should retain the capability to protect its interests, allies, and maritime commerce.

The Confidence Gap

Alongside that support, the data reveals unease. Only forty-nine percent of Americans believe the U.S. military could win a major war overseas, and just forty-five percent believe it can effectively deter foreign aggression.

This gap does not reflect opposition to the military. It reflects concern about whether readiness, capacity, and sustainability are keeping pace with the responsibilities Americans expect the Navy to carry. The difference between support and confidence is one of the most important signals in the survey.

Capacity Matters — and Americans Know It

Two findings stand out. Sixty-eight percent of Americans support increased investment in shipbuilding and manufacturing. Ninety-four percent believe the United States needs greater domestic manufacturing capacity.

Americans appear to understand something fundamental: naval strength is not defined solely by ships at sea, but by the industrial systems that build, repair, crew, and sustain them over time. Shipyards, skilled workers, suppliers, dry docks, and logistics networks are not abstract concepts. They are the difference between plans on paper and forces that are ready when needed.

What the Survey Reveals About Deterrence

The survey also sheds light on how Americans view deterrence in practice, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.

When asked about Taiwan, seventy-seven percent of Americans say it is important for the United States to help defend the island against Chinese aggression. If China were to invade Taiwan, sixty percent say they would support committing U.S. forces to Taiwan’s defense, up from forty-eight percent the prior year. Majorities also support additional measures designed to deter aggression and strengthen regional stability, including deploying more U.S. military assets to the region, sending additional military equipment to Taiwan, imposing economic sanctions, and establishing air and maritime control measures.

These responses do not reflect a desire for conflict. They reflect an expectation that deterrence must be credible. Americans appear to understand that commitments only matter if the United States has the capacity to back them up.

Deterrence at sea is not abstract. It depends on available ships, trained crews, maintained platforms, secure logistics, and resilient industrial support. When Americans express support for defending allies and preserving stability in the Indo-Pacific, they are implicitly expressing expectations about readiness — and about whether U.S. sailors have the tools they need to do their jobs effectively and safely.

From Public Sentiment to Public Support

Americans for a Stronger Navy is politically neutral. We do not support parties or candidates. But we are not neutral on readiness.

Our role is to articulate what Americans are saying and feeling — and, when appropriate, to state clearly when legislation aligns with those expressed expectations.

Based on the survey data and the readiness challenges it highlights, Americans for a Stronger Navy supports the SHIPS for America Act. This support is grounded in alignment, not politics.

Why We Support the SHIPS Act

The SHIPS for America Act does not dictate naval strategy or force employment. Its relevance lies in strengthening the foundations naval readiness depends on.

It addresses shipbuilding and repair capacity by expanding and stabilizing the yards that build and maintain naval vessels. It supports maritime workforce development by growing the skilled labor base the Navy cannot surge in a crisis. It strengthens industrial resilience and surge capacity by reinforcing the commercial and auxiliary maritime sector that supports naval logistics and sealift. And it promotes long-term sustainability by reducing boom-and-bust cycles that drive cost overruns, schedule delays, and readiness shortfalls.

What This Endorsement Is — and Is Not

Our support for the SHIPS Act is not partisan. It does not imply endorsement of every provision, and it does not replace the need for oversight, accountability, or debate.

It reflects a judgment that strengthening the maritime industrial base aligns with what Americans are asking for — and is necessary to close the confidence gap the survey reveals. If Americans expect deterrence to be credible, then policy should strengthen the capacity that makes deterrence real.

The Signal Americans Are Sending

The survey does not prescribe policy, but it does define expectations.

Americans are saying they value naval strength, deterrence over conflict, readiness that matches responsibility, and domestic capacity that sustains credibility. When expectations and outcomes align, confidence grows. When they drift apart, trust erodes.

Our role is to surface that signal clearly. The data speaks. Alignment is the challenge.

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U.S. Navy on Track to Commission Only 2 Ships in 2025 — Lowest in Decades — While Silicon Valley Banks Billions from China Operations

Naval Advocacy Group Calls for “Strategic Seas Act” Requiring Tech Companies Profiting from China to Fund Fleet Modernization

December 31, 2025 — Americans for a Stronger Navy today released new data showing the U.S. Navy is projected to commission only 2 ships in 2025, marking the steepest decline in naval shipbuilding in modern history and creating a critical gap in America’s ability to counter China’s rapidly expanding fleet.

The analysis reveals a stark 10-year trend: from 2015 to 2025, the Navy averaged just 8 ships commissioned per year — falling far short of the 12 ships per year required to meet strategic goals. This represents a shortfall of approximately 40 fewer ships over the decade, occurring precisely as China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has become the world’s largest naval force.

“We’re watching American naval power erode in real time,” said Bill Cullifer, founder of Americans for a Stronger Navy. “The 2025 commissioning rate of just 2 ships isn’t a budget blip — it’s a strategic crisis that threatens our ability to maintain freedom of navigation in the Pacific and protect the very trade routes that make Silicon Valley’s global business model possible.”

The Taxpayer-Funded Tech Paradox

The organization notes a troubling disconnect: many of Silicon Valley’s most profitable companies were built on taxpayer-funded research from DARPA, the National Science Foundation, and Department of Defense programs — yet now generate billions in revenue from China while the Navy that protects their supply chains faces resource constraints.

“American taxpayers funded the fundamental research that created Google, GPS, the internet, smartphone AI, and semiconductor breakthroughs,” Cullifer said. “These companies now generate enormous profits from Chinese markets, yet contribute nothing directly to the naval forces that secure the Pacific shipping lanes their business depends on.”

The Strategic Seas Act: A Solution

Americans for a Stronger Navy is calling for Congress to pass a “Strategic Seas Act” that would require technology companies with significant China operations to contribute a modest percentage of those revenues to a dedicated Naval Modernization and Maintenance Fund.

Key provisions would include:

  • Companies with over $5 billion in annual China revenue contribute 2% to the fund
  • Revenues earmarked specifically for ship repair backlogs, shipyard modernization, and Pacific Fleet readiness
  • Projected to generate billions annually based on current tech sector China operations
  • Estimated to fund 4-6 additional ship commissionings per year, substantially closing the strategic gap

“This isn’t a tax — it’s a user fee,” Cullifer explained. “If you’re generating billions moving products and data across the Pacific, you should help pay for the destroyers and submarines that keep those sea lanes open. If you’re profiting from China’s market, you should help fund our ability to compete with China’s military.”

Bipartisan Issue Gaining Momentum

The proposal has gained interest across the political spectrum, appealing to defense hawks concerned about Chinese military expansion, economic populists focused on corporate responsibility, and fiscal conservatives seeking efficient solutions to readiness gaps.

“This issue transcends party politics,” said Cullifer. “Whether you’re concerned about China as a strategic competitor, frustrated by corporate tax avoidance, or worried about return on taxpayer investment in R&D, the answer is the same: those who profit most from the Pacific trade system should contribute to its protection.”

By The Numbers

U.S. Navy Ship Commissioning (2015-2025):

  • 2015: 11 ships
  • 2016: 11 ships
  • 2018: 10 ships
  • 2020: 8 ships
  • 2022: 6 ships
  • 2024: 3 ships
  • 2025: 2 ships (confirmed)

Strategic Requirement: 12 ships per year
10-Year Average: ~8 ships per year
Cumulative Shortfall: ~40 ships

Call to Action

Americans for a Stronger Navy is calling on Congress to:

  1. Hold hearings on the naval shipbuilding crisis and its implications for Pacific deterrence
  2. Commission a GAO study examining the relationship between taxpayer-funded tech R&D, corporate profits from China operations, and naval readiness gaps
  3. Introduce and pass the Strategic Seas Act in the 119th Congress
  4. Ensure 2026 defense authorization bills include dedicated funding to address the ship commissioning shortfall

“China is building a fleet designed to push the U.S. Navy out of the Western Pacific,” Cullifer concluded. “We built Silicon Valley with taxpayer dollars. Silicon Valley profits from Pacific trade. It’s time Silicon Valley helps us maintain the naval power that makes their business model possible. This isn’t just fair — it’s strategically essential.”

About Americans for a Stronger Navy

Americans for a Stronger Navy (StrongerNavy.org) is a non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring the United States maintains the naval capabilities required to protect American interests, support allies, and preserve freedom of navigation in an era of great power competition.

For full data, graphics, and supporting documentation, visit StrongerNavy.org/shipbuilding-crisis

EDITOR’S NOTE: High-resolution graphics showing ship commissioning trends, comparative data with Chinese naval expansion, and the taxpayer investment in Silicon Valley technologies are available upon request.

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The State of American Sea Power: A 2025 Year-End Review

Bill Cullifer, Founder
Bill Cullifer, Founder

Hello friends. Bill Cullifer here with Americans for a Stronger Navy.

As we close out this year and gather with the people we care about, I want to take a moment to share something important with you. We’ve just completed a comprehensive review of America’s naval and maritime posture in twenty twenty-five. What we found is complicated. There is good news, troubling news, and some revelations that demand attention.

This is not another white paper filled with jargon. It’s a clear-eyed assessment of where we actually stand, what our competitors are doing, and what stands in the way of American maritime renewal.

Watch our short video below for a visual recap of the key findings:

https://x.com/i/status/2003462404315987976

Let me start with the good news, because it matters.
Despite everything else, the U.S. Navy did what it always does. It showed up.

Our sailors and Marines maintained global presence across multiple theaters. They responded to crises in the Red Sea, deterred aggression in the Pacific, and supported allies worldwide. Ship captains and crews performed with the professionalism Americans expect, even while operating aging ships and dealing with stretched maintenance schedules.

Leadership also spoke with urgency.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan captured the crisis perfectly when he said, “A decade to deliver capability is the equivalent of fielding a twenty fifteen iPhone today, already obsolete.”

Navalists and key voices in Congress continued pushing for shipbuilding reform, the SHIPS Act, and workforce development. They have not given up — and neither should we.
So we still have talent, commitment, and awareness. But awareness alone is not a strategy.

That leads to the harder truth.
Twenty twenty-five left Americans and our allies asking the same question again and again: What is U.S. strategy?

For the first time in years, two congressionally mandated documents failed to appear.
The China Military Security Developments Report — missing.
The Navy Long-Range Shipbuilding Plan — missing.

Congress was left writing budgets without the strategic guidance it is legally entitled to receive. Allies grew uncertain. Adversaries grew bolder.

Policy signals also contradicted each other.
There were trial balloons about groupings that would include both the United States and China. Approvals of advanced AI chip sales to Beijing. Envoys sent to Moscow while tensions remained high. And a National Security Strategy that appeared to sideline Europe.

The result was strategic ambiguity. Friends worried. Competitors took notes.

At the same time, despite all the urgent rhetoric about industrial mobilization, America did not see new shipyards opening. We did not see expanded dry docks under construction. We did not see welding sparks flying from California to Virginia.

As one observer put it, “We talked about shipbuilding more than we did shipbuilding.”
China built more than two hundred ships this year. We built a handful.

Now here is what really changed the conversation in twenty twenty-five.
The most significant military development was not theoretical — it was operational.

China and Russia conducted coordinated naval and air operations in the Philippine Sea, the exact waters the U.S. Navy plans to defend in a future conflict. China surged a carrier group with real flight operations. Russian long-range bombers entered the same battlespace.

They are operating today the way we keep saying we will operate tomorrow.

And here is what surprised even us.
The biggest obstacle to American maritime renewal is not foreign competition — it is American corporate lobbying.

Bloomberg revealed that U.S. retail and shipping interests spent millions lobbying against funding our own shipyards. These corporations want U.S. Navy protection of the sea lanes, but they oppose investing in American shipbuilding because they profit from Chinese-built ships.

Let that sink in.

There is also a structural problem most Americans never hear about.
The Navy no longer fully controls its own future. Civilian budget offices and corporate lobbies now shape more naval policy than the uniformed Navy and Marine Corps.

One naval officer summarized it perfectly:
“We no longer build the Navy the Navy needs. We build the Navy the accountants will tolerate.”
That is not a recipe for maritime power.

So what do we do?
Naval expert Brent Sadler has identified a clear solution:
We need a Maritime Advisor to the President — one empowered official coordinating the Navy, MARAD, OMB, Commerce, and industry. Someone whose job is to think about American sea power every single day.

America is not outmatched. We are under-mobilized.

Our twenty-five page report explains how we got here, what twenty twenty-five revealed, and what must happen in twenty twenty-six if we’re serious about remaining a maritime power. You can request it at StrongerNavy.org by clicking Contact Us. We’ll send it to you right away.

The adversaries are watching. The allies are calculating. And the American people deserve to know what is at stake.

Let’s make twenty twenty-six the year we finally close the gap between words and action.
From all of us at Americans for a Stronger Navy, happy holidays — and fair winds.

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Year-End Message: The Pentagon’s China Report and What It Means for 2025

The 2027 Countdown: What the Pentagon’s Delayed China Report Reveals

2025 U.S. Navy Year in Review Report Cover
Bill Cullifer, Founder
Bill Cullifer, Founder

Hello friends, and fellow supporters of America’s Navy. Bill Cullifer here with Americans for a Stronger Navy.

On December 23rd, the Pentagon released its annual China Military Power Report. This assessment had been missing all year while Congress debated budgets. Now that it’s here, we understand the delay. The report contains the most direct warning yet: China expects to be able to fight and win a war over Taiwan by the end of 2027. That’s less than three years away.

Why Taiwan Matters to You

As Elbridge Colby, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, wrote in TIME Magazine:

“Defending far-off Taiwan and our allies… is rooted in a practical, hard-nosed assessment of what is in Americans’ concrete economic and political interests. It is about defending Americans’ security, liberties, and prosperity from a very real, and in terms of China’s gigantic scale, unprecedented danger.”

Your Phone. Your Car. Your Hospital Equipment.

Taiwan produces 60% of the world’s advanced semiconductors. A Chinese blockade or invasion would cost the global economy at least one trillion dollars per year.

What the Pentagon Report Reveals

  • Nuclear Expansion: Stockpile reached 600+ in 2024, on track to exceed 1,000 by 2030.
  • Space Surveillance: 359+ satellites now track U.S. ships in near real-time.
  • Cyber Weapons: Operations like Volt Typhoon have burrowed into U.S. power grids for wartime sabotage.
  • Taiwan Pressure: 3,067 air incursions in 2024—nearly double the previous year.

The Timeline Should Terrify You

The Western Pacific is becoming a “Kill Zone.” As one naval officer put it: “We no longer build the Navy the Navy needs. We build the Navy the accountants will tolerate.”

America is not outmatched; we are under-mobilized. The decisions we make in 2025 determine whether deterrence holds in 2027. Visit StrongerNavy.org to request your copy of our 2025 U.S. Navy Year in Review.

Thank you for caring about America’s maritime strength.

Fair winds and following seas,

Bill Cullifer
Founder, Americans for a Stronger Navy
StrongerNavy.org

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Six Frigates: Why America Chose Sea Power — and Why That Choice Still Matters

Six Frigates: Why America Chose Sea Power — and Why That Choice Still Matters

Ian W. Toll’s Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy should be required reading for anyone who believes America’s naval strength simply “happened” or that today’s debates about shipbuilding, cost, and purpose are somehow new.

They aren’t.

This book tells the story of how a young, divided, cash-strapped republic made a deliberate decision to build a Navy — not for glory, not for empire, but for survival, commerce, and credibility in a dangerous world.

Reading it today, the parallels are impossible to miss.

What the Book Is Really About

On the surface, Six Frigates recounts the creation of the first six capital ships authorized by the Naval Act of 1794. But at its core, the book is about civic will.

Toll shows that the U.S. Navy was born amid fierce political resistance, public skepticism, regional rivalries, and intense arguments over cost and necessity. Many Americans feared a standing Navy would drag the nation into foreign wars or empower a central government at the expense of liberty.

Nothing about this debate feels distant.

“The debate was never just about ships — it was about what kind of nation America would become.”
— Ian W. Toll

From the beginning, sea power was a choice — not a given.

Notable Quotes That Still Matter Today

Toll repeatedly underscores a truth early Americans learned the hard way:

“A nation that depended on commerce could not afford to remain defenseless at sea.”

American sailors were seized, trade was disrupted, and diplomacy without strength proved ineffective.

Another passage feels especially relevant now:

“Naval power was expensive, controversial — and delay was more dangerous still.”

That sentence could be written today about shipbuilding delays, fragile supply chains, and readiness gaps without changing a word.

And perhaps the most important civic reminder in the book:

“The frigates represented an investment not just in ships, but in skills, infrastructure, and national confidence.”

The founders weren’t just building hulls. They were building a maritime nation.

Why Americans Should Care

This book makes one thing unmistakably clear: the founders did not stumble into sea power. They argued their way into it.

They debated cost, foreign entanglements, corruption, and waste. And then they acted — because they understood that refusing to decide was itself a decision.

Today, Americans benefit daily from secure sea lanes, global trade, and deterrence at sea. Yet public understanding of how fragile that system is has faded.

Six Frigates reminds us that civic engagement is not optional when it comes to national security. The Navy exists because Americans once paid attention.

Implications for the Navy

One of the book’s strongest lessons is that shipbuilding takes time — and delay carries strategic risk.

The original frigates faced cost overruns, workforce shortages, material constraints, and political interference. None of that stopped the effort, because leaders understood that maritime strength could not be created on demand.

“Ships could not be conjured by urgency alone. They required patience, discipline, and sustained public support.”

That lesson applies directly to today’s challenges: a smaller fleet, stressed shipyards, and a public often disconnected from the maritime foundations of American power.

What Has Changed — and What Hasn’t

Technology has changed. The scale of global competition has changed. The oceans have not.

America remains a maritime nation, dependent on trade, energy flows, undersea cables, and allied sea lanes. Adversaries understand this and are building accordingly.

What has not changed is the central truth Six Frigates makes clear: sea power depends on informed citizens willing to support long-term decisions — even when they are politically uncomfortable.

Final Reflection

Six Frigates is not a call for militarism. It is a warning against complacency.

It shows that the U.S. Navy was born not from inevitability, but from hard choices made by leaders who understood the world as it was — not as they wished it to be.

As America approaches its 250th anniversary, this book offers a timely reminder: the Navy belongs to the American people, and its strength ultimately reflects public understanding, engagement, and resolve.

That responsibility didn’t end in 1794.

That’s why we launched Charting the Course: Voices That Matter — a 24-part educational series breaking down how we got here, what went wrong, and what must happen next. Our goal is simple: educate the public, connect the dots, and build the support needed to close the readiness gap before it’s too late.

Let’s roll.