Peace Through Strength – Community Driven – Membership Supported
Category: Charting the Course
Charting the Course: Navigating the Future of American Naval Power’ a podcast series that dives into the past, present, and future of the U.S. Navy and its impact on the world.
I want to give a huge shout-out to CDR Salamander for consistently providing the “intel” that helps advocates like us stay informed. We are all part of this maritime endeavor, and the more we learn, the stronger our Navy becomes.
A recent post of his was just a simple image: a map of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Two words above it: “America’s superpower.”
No explanation. No thread. Just a map.
But for anyone who understands naval logistics, industrial capacity, and how wars are actually sustained, that image says more than a thousand white papers.
This is not a river map. This is a national supply chain diagram.
The Bench That Wins Wars
Wars are not won by the best starting lineup. They are won by the deepest bench.
The Mississippi River system connects:
Farms to factories
Mines to mills
Rail to ports
The American heartland to the sea
From Minnesota to Louisiana, from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, this inland waterway network moves grain, steel, coal, petroleum, chemicals, machinery, and countless other goods at a scale and efficiency no rail or highway system can match.
Long before most Americans ever think about ships, fleets, or carriers, this river system is quietly doing the work that makes naval power possible.
This is the bench.
Why This Matters to Naval Power
The U.S. Navy does not exist in isolation. It is supported by a vast civilian industrial ecosystem that begins far inland.
Shipyards require steel. Steel requires ore and energy. Factories require raw materials and transport. Ports require cargo to move.
That cargo comes from here.
This river system is why the United States was able to mobilize so rapidly during World War II. It is why American industry could surge production. It is why America became a maritime power before most Americans even realized we were one.
You cannot understand American sea power without understanding this map.
Geography Is Destiny
Other nations build ports. America inherited a continent designed for logistics.
The Mississippi and its tributaries create a natural internal highway system that feeds directly into the Gulf of Mexico and global sea lanes. It is an unmatched geographic advantage that has quietly powered American prosperity and military capability for over a century.
This is strategic geography in its purest form.
Why Americans Should Care
Most Americans think naval strength begins with ships and sailors.
It doesn’t.
It begins with rivers, rail, roads, ports, trades, factories, and supply chains. It begins with civilian infrastructure that allows the Navy to exist at scale.
If this system weakens, naval power weakens. If this system thrives, naval power thrives.
Understanding this connection is essential if Americans are to understand what it really means to support a Stronger Navy.
Implications for the Navy
The Navy’s strength is tied directly to the health of:
Inland logistics networks
Industrial capacity
Shipbuilding trades
Port infrastructure
Maritime commerce
When we talk about the industrial base, we are talking about this map.
When we talk about sealift, replenishment, and sustainment, we are talking about this map.
When we talk about readiness, we are talking about this map.
Implications for Our Allies
America’s ability to project power and keep sea lanes open for our allies is made possible by this inland capacity. Our partners rely on the stability created by U.S. naval presence, and that presence is supported by the economic engine that flows down these waterways.
This is not just an American advantage. It underwrites global stability.
Seeing the Whole System
CDR Salamander’s simple post is a reminder that naval power is a system, not a platform.
A fleet is the visible tip. This river system is the foundation beneath it.
The more Americans understand this connection, the more clearly they can see why supporting maritime infrastructure, shipbuilding, and industrial resilience is not optional—it is essential.
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.
Why a narrow stretch of ocean between three landmasses has shaped 80 years of naval strategy — and why Americans need to understand it now
Introduction
A recent debate centered on whether China or Russia pose an imminent military threat to Greenland. The answer from intelligence sources appears to be no. But that answer, while technically correct, misses the deeper strategic point that has guided U.S. thinking for over two centuries.
The real issue is not invasion. The real issue is strategic positioning in geography that matters to naval power.
Greenland sits in one of the most important pieces of maritime real estate on the planet. And the United States has understood that for a very long time.
The GIUK Gap: A Naval Choke Point Since World War II
Greenland forms the western anchor of what naval strategists call the GIUK Gap — the sea space between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom.
This is not a modern concept. During World War II and throughout the Cold War, this gap was the primary maritime passage between the Russian Northern Fleet and the Atlantic Ocean. Soviet submarines had to pass through this space to threaten U.S. and NATO shipping lanes.
The U.S. and NATO built an entire system of surveillance, patrols, air bases, and anti-submarine warfare doctrine around this geography. This was one of the most heavily monitored naval regions on earth for decades.
That geography has not changed.
What has changed is public memory of why it mattered.
Greenland and the U.S. Military Presence
The United States has maintained a military presence in Greenland since World War II. Today, Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) remains a critical U.S. installation for:
Missile warning
Space surveillance
Arctic operations
Early warning radar coverage of the North Atlantic and polar approaches
This is not symbolic. It is operationally significant to U.S. homeland defense and NATO maritime awareness.
The Monroe Doctrine and Western Hemisphere Strategy
In 1823, the Monroe Doctrine established a foundational principle of U.S. strategy:
Foreign powers establishing strategic footholds in the Western Hemisphere is a U.S. security concern — even if that presence appears commercial or political rather than military.
This was never about invasion. It was about presence.
Because presence becomes leverage.
That thinking has guided U.S. behavior for 200 years across the Caribbean, South America, Central America, and the Arctic.
Greenland fits squarely into that tradition.
China’s Pattern of Strategic Positioning
There is no evidence China plans to invade Greenland. But there is extensive documentation of China’s interest in:
Arctic shipping routes as ice recedes
Rare earth and mineral projects in Greenland
Financing infrastructure projects, including attempted airport construction
Expanding its presence in Arctic research and commercial ventures
This pattern is not unique to Greenland. Similar approaches have been seen in Africa, the Pacific Islands, South America, and Australia.
The pattern is not military. It is long-term positioning.
That is what concerns strategists, not headlines.
Why This Matters to Naval Strategy
Naval strategy is built around geography, choke points, and access.
Greenland is not important because of its population or economy. It is important because of where it sits on the map.
Control and awareness of the GIUK Gap means control and awareness of submarine movement between the Arctic and the Atlantic. That has been true for 80 years.
It is still true today.
Why This Is Urgent Now
Three developments make Greenland’s strategic position more critical today than at any point since the Cold War:
1. Arctic ice recession is opening new shipping routes and resource access, increasing activity in waters the U.S. has monitored for decades.
2. Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic has returned to Cold War levels, but U.S. anti-submarine warfare capabilities have atrophied.
3. China’s systematic positioning in Arctic governance, research, and commercial ventures is establishing presence before the U.S. fully recognizes the competition.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy faces its smallest fleet since 1916 and readiness challenges that limit sustained presence in multiple regions simultaneously.
The stake is not hypothetical: If the U.S. cannot maintain awareness and presence in the GIUK Gap, it cannot guarantee:
Protection of transatlantic commerce that underpins the American economy
Early warning of submarine-launched threats to the homeland
Credible deterrence that prevents crises from starting
Why Americans Should Care
Most Americans think of naval strength as ships and aircraft carriers. Few think about the map.
But naval power is first and foremost about geography.
The sea lanes that carry global trade, energy supplies, and military movement pass through predictable choke points. Greenland anchors one of them.
Understanding this is key to understanding why the United States watches foreign interest in Greenland closely — not because of paranoia, but because of history.
Implications for the Navy
For the U.S. Navy and NATO maritime forces, Greenland and the GIUK Gap remain central to:
Monitoring Russian submarine activity
Securing North Atlantic shipping lanes
Maintaining Arctic awareness as access increases
Supporting homeland and allied defense from the maritime domain
This is classic naval statecraft.
Implications for Our Allies
Denmark, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Canada, and NATO partners all share an interest in maintaining control and awareness of this region.
Greenland is not just a U.S. concern. It is a NATO maritime concern.
The Real Debate
The debate is not about whether China or Russia plan to invade Greenland.
It is about whether we recognize the long pattern of strategic positioning that great powers use long before conflict.
Geography doesn’t change. Neither does its importance to naval strategy.
Understanding Geography Is Just The Beginning
Greenland matters because of where it sits on the map. But knowing why geography matters doesn’t answer the harder questions:
How did the U.S. Navy — which once dominated these waters without question — reach a point where we’re debating our ability to maintain presence in strategically vital regions?
What decisions, what budget choices, what policy shifts brought us here?
And most importantly: what must happen next?
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. We connect the dots between geography, strategy, budgets, readiness, and national will. Our goal is simple: educate the public on the fundamentals of naval power so Americans understand what’s at stake — and what it will take to close the readiness gap before it’s too late.
USS Zumwalt has returned to sea after one of the most radical ship conversions in modern naval history. Its guns are gone. In their place: the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic weapon system. On the surface, this looks like a story about cutting-edge weapons and futuristic warfare. But the deeper story is about something far more important for Americans to understand: how naval power is evolving from platforms to systems—and how design decisions, industrial capacity, and national alignment determine whether innovation becomes usable combat power.
This is not just a story about a destroyer. It is a story about whether the United States can adapt fast enough to a changing era of warfare.
What Actually Happened
After entering the yard in 2023, Zumwalt was taken out of the water, structurally modified on land, stripped of its twin 155mm Advanced Gun Systems, and rebuilt to host large-diameter launch infrastructure for hypersonic missiles. Builder’s sea trials in January 2026 validated propulsion, power generation, hull integrity, and ship systems after this extraordinary redesign.
This was not a maintenance period. This was a repurposing of a warship’s entire combat identity.
The Navy took a class originally built for precision naval gunfire support and turned it into the first surface ship designed to deliver hypersonic strike.
That decision tells us a lot.
Why This Matters Beyond the Headlines
Hypersonic weapons are impressive. Speeds above Mach 5. Maneuverability. Minimal warning time. Ability to penetrate advanced defenses.
But the more important question is this:
What does it take to put a weapon like this to sea?
The answer is uncomfortable.
It required removing the original mission. It required structural redesign. It required years in the yard. It required extraordinary industrial effort. It required a ship with unusual power capacity and internal space.
In other words:
You can’t just bolt hypersonics onto any ship.
You need design margin. You need electrical power. You need internal volume. You need shipyards capable of radical modification. You need a Navy and an industrial base that can adapt.
That is the real story.
A Ship as a System, Not a Platform
For years, Americans have been taught to think of naval strength as “how many ships we have.”
Zumwalt shows the flaw in that thinking.
Naval power is not a hull count. It is whether your ships can evolve when the fight changes.
This ship was able to change because of how it was originally designed:
Integrated electric propulsion
Excess power generation
Internal growth space
Signature management for survivability
Most of our fleet does not have that kind of design margin.
And that is where this story becomes national.
The Hidden Constraint No One Talks About
Hypersonic missiles are huge.
The launchers are huge.
Magazine depth is limited.
This is not a “volume of fire” weapon. It is a high-impact, precision, strategic signaling weapon.
Which means the value of Zumwalt is not how many missiles it carries.
The value is what it does to an adversary’s planning.
A mobile, hard-to-target, forward-deployed ship that can strike time-sensitive targets with almost no warning from unpredictable sea locations forces an adversary to defend everything.
That is naval maneuver used as a weapon.
And that is a concept most Americans have never been taught.
What Others Will Focus On
Many analysts will talk about:
The cost of the Zumwalt program
The failure of the original gun system
Whether hypersonics belong at sea
Magazine limitations
Strategic signaling risks
All valid discussions.
But they miss the bigger lesson.
The question is not whether Zumwalt was worth it.
The question is whether we are designing today’s ships so they can adapt tomorrow.
Because wars between major powers are not decided by what we start with.
They are decided by what we can modify, replace, and evolve after the fighting begins.
Why Americans Should Care
This story is about far more than a destroyer.
It is about:
Shipyard capacity
Industrial skill
Design philosophy
Electrical power margins in ships
Flexibility in fleet architecture
The ability to change missions without building a new class of ship
That is national strength.
That is governance.
That is whether budgets, priorities, and industry are aligned with the realities of modern warfare.
Most Americans think innovation happens in labs.
Zumwalt shows that innovation must be built into the steel of ships years before it is needed.
Implications for the Navy
The Navy now has proof that:
Large-scale mission conversion is possible
Integrated electric ships have enormous future value
Hypersonic strike can be distributed across surface platforms
Ship design margin is not a luxury—it is a warfighting requirement
The remaining two Zumwalts will follow.
But the real question is whether future ship classes are being designed with this lesson in mind.
Implications for Our Allies
Allies watching this are learning something important:
The U.S. Navy is not just adding new weapons.
It is learning how to adapt existing platforms into new roles.
That flexibility is a form of deterrence.
Because it signals that the fleet they see today is not the fleet they will face tomorrow.
The Governance Lesson Hiding in Plain Sight
This did not happen because of a single weapon.
This happened because: National will → budgets Budgets → priorities Priorities → ship design Ship design → adaptability Adaptability → readiness
That chain is what turns technology into combat power.
Break that chain anywhere, and innovation stays on paper.
The Bigger Takeaway
USS Zumwalt is no longer a story about a controversial ship.
It is now a case study in how naval power must be built for change.
And that is a lesson Americans need to understand if we want a Navy that can fight—and adapt—in the decades ahead.
Because the future of naval warfare will not be decided by what ships were built to do.
It will be decided by what they can become.
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.
As I continue to learn from naval professionals, analysts, and thoughtful voices like CDR Salamander, Brent Sadler, and Steven Wills, one reality keeps coming into sharper focus: wars between major powers are not decided by what we start with, but by what we can replace after the fighting begins. Many of our most advanced systems today are designed in ways that make rapid replacement, repair, and adaptation extremely difficult. This is not simply a funding or acquisition issue — it is a design, industrial, and national alignment issue. Understanding this is essential if Americans are to understand what true naval power requires in the 21st century.
Bill Cullifer, Founder
Introduction
As I continue this journey with Americans for a Stronger Navy, I find myself learning as much as I am advocating.
One of the most valuable parts of this work has been listening to and reading professionals like CDR Salamander, retired U.S. Navy Commander and widely read naval commentator; Brent Sadler, Senior Research Fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology at The Heritage Foundation and former U.S. Navy submariner; and Dr. Steven Wills, naval historian and former U.S. Navy officer, who are describing a reality that should concern every American — not just those in uniform or working in the defense industry.
Here’s the light-bulb moment. Imagine two football teams. One starts the game with the best players in the league — faster, stronger, more skilled. The other starts with good players, but has a deep bench. When players get hurt, they substitute quickly. When equipment breaks, they replace it. When fatigue sets in, they rotate fresh players onto the field. By the fourth quarter, the first team is exhausted, short-handed, and can’t keep up. The second team wins.
Wars between major powers work the same way. It’s not the starting lineup that decides the outcome. It’s the depth of the bench.
Today, we have an impressive starting lineup. What professionals like Salamander, Sadler, and Wills are warning us about is the size of our bench.
That was true in World War II. It is proving true in Ukraine today. And it will be true in any future conflict in the Pacific.
Here’s the uncomfortable part: many of the systems we build today are extraordinarily capable — but they are not designed to be built, repaired, or replenished at wartime scale.
The Lesson We Forgot from World War II
In World War II, America did not win because our tanks, ships, and aircraft were perfect. We won because they were designed to be built in massive numbers by the factories we already had. Design matched industrial strength. Throughput, not elegance, won the war.
What CDR Salamander Is Warning Us About
“In a fight defined by attrition, adaptation, and industrial endurance, the winning systems will not be the perfect ones on paper but the ones that can be produced, replaced, and improved the fastest.”
Brent Sadler and Maritime Statecraft
Sadler calls this maritime statecraft — naval power tied directly to shipyards, logistics, trade, workforce, and industry.
Steven Wills and the Structural Slide
Wills shows this is a structural capacity problem, not a readiness statistic.
What This Means for Middle America
Factories, trades, ports, shipyards — naval power begins in American towns long before a ship leaves port.
How We Got Here — The Quiet Erosion of Industrial Depth
This didn’t happen overnight. Industrial redundancy gave way to efficiency. What was once economic change is now understood as national security fragility.
Maritime Commerce — The Part Most Americans Never See
Over 90 percent of global trade moves by sea. Naval strength protects American prosperity.
How the Country Benefits
Stable supply chains, energy security, jobs, reliable trade, and deterrence.
The Good News
The good news is this: America has solved this problem before. In the 1930s, we did not yet have the industrial capacity that would later win World War II. What we had first was understanding. Once Americans understood what was required, industry, workforce, and national focus followed. We are at a similar moment now.
Why Americans Should Care
If war comes in the Pacific, it will not be decided in the first month. It will be decided in month six by who can replace losses fastest.
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.
Diego Garcia represents the cornerstone of American naval power in the Indian Ocean—a facility that enables critical operations from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. The recently signed UK-Mauritius agreement transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, while intended to resolve a long-standing legal dispute, introduces serious security vulnerabilities that could compromise this vital base. After extensive review of the agreement, parliamentary documents, and expert analysis, Americans for a Stronger Navy has drafted an open letter to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer outlining our concerns and requesting strengthening of security provisions before final ratification. We publish this letter in the spirit of candid friendship that has always characterized the Special Relationship between our nations.
Key Concerns Raised:
Chinese Influence Risk: Mauritius maintains extensive economic ties with China, creating potential vectors for Beijing to establish surveillance capabilities on islands adjacent to Diego Garcia. The agreement’s prohibitions on foreign military presence may not cover civilian-flagged intelligence operations.
Weakened Control Structure: The transformation from British sovereign territory to a complex lease arrangement (UK leasing from Mauritius, US operating through UK) introduces political and legal vulnerabilities. American naval operations now depend on the stability of agreements between three parties rather than operating on secure sovereign territory.
Insufficient Security Guarantees: The agreement lacks robust enforcement mechanisms to prevent hostile powers from accessing outer islands for monitoring or influence operations. Ambiguities in defining prohibited activities could be exploited by adversaries operating under civilian cover.
Political Uncertainty: Changes in Mauritian government leadership create long-term risks. The current government has already ordered an independent review, and future administrations spanning the 99-year lease period may face economic pressure from China to renegotiate or modify terms.
What We Request:
Explicit provisions prohibiting Chinese presence, investment, or infrastructure on outer islands with clear enforcement
Joint UK-US monitoring and patrol authority across the archipelago
Automatic termination clauses if security provisions are violated
U.S. participation as a treaty party or guarantor for direct legal standing
Enhanced parliamentary scrutiny before final ratification
The Bottom Line: Diego Garcia’s strategic value has never been higher as great power competition intensifies in the Indo-Pacific. While we respect the UK’s efforts to address the historical injustice to the Chagossian people, justice and security need not be mutually exclusive. We urge strengthening this agreement before ratification to ensure this critical base remains secure for generations to come.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE KEIR STARMER MP PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM Concerning the Chagos Archipelago Agreement
From: Americans for a Stronger Navy January 21, 2026
Dear Prime Minister,
We write to you as fellow guardians of the free world, united by history, shared values, and an unbreakable commitment to democratic liberty. The Special Relationship between our nations has been forged in the crucible of two world wars, sustained through the Cold War, and renewed in our common struggle against terrorism and authoritarianism. It is precisely because of this deep bond that we feel compelled to address our serious concerns regarding the recently signed agreement transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius.
This letter is written not in criticism, but in the spirit of candid friendship that has always characterized Anglo-American relations. We believe the current agreement, while well-intentioned, poses risks to our shared security interests that must be addressed before ratification becomes irreversible.
THE STAKES ARE HIGHER THAN EVER
Diego Garcia is not merely a military installation—it is the keystone of Western power projection in the Indian Ocean. From this small atoll, our nations have:
Defeated terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Iraq
Countered Iranian aggression and Houthi attacks on international shipping
Protected vital sea lanes carrying half the world’s containerized cargo
Maintained stability in a region increasingly contested by China’s expanding naval presence
Today, as China constructs military facilities across the South China Sea, as Russia threatens European security, and as Iran destabilizes the Middle East, the strategic value of Diego Garcia has never been greater. Yet at this critical juncture, the agreement with Mauritius introduces vulnerabilities that our adversaries will certainly seek to exploit.
OUR CONCERNS AS ALLIES
1. The Shadow of Chinese Influence
Mauritius, a small island nation, has become deeply economically dependent on China. Chinese investment pervades Mauritian infrastructure—ports, telecommunications, energy. This is not coincidence; it is the systematic implementation of Beijing’s strategy to gain leverage over nations along critical maritime routes.
We must ask: What guarantees exist that a future Mauritian government, facing economic pressure from Beijing, will not grant China “civilian” access to the outer islands? What prevents the establishment of “research stations,” “telecommunications facilities,” or “environmental monitoring posts” that serve as covers for signals intelligence operations?
The agreement’s language prohibiting foreign armed forces is insufficient. China has mastered the art of military operations under civilian guise. Islands merely miles from Diego Garcia could become surveillance platforms monitoring every ship, submarine, and aircraft movement—intelligence that would be instantly shared with Russia, Iran, and other adversaries.
2. From Sovereignty to Lease: A Dangerous Transformation
For decades, Diego Garcia operated on British sovereign territory. This provided legal certainty and operational security. Now, under the new arrangement, the United Kingdom must lease Diego Garcia from Mauritius at a cost of $136 million annually—and the United States operates at Diego Garcia under a further sublease arrangement with the UK.
This creates a cascading dependency. American naval operations now rest upon:
British adherence to the lease terms
Mauritian governments honoring their predecessors’ commitments
Both nations resisting external pressure to renegotiate or restrict operations
History teaches us that 99-year leases are not permanent. China’s 99-year lease of Hong Kong ended in humiliation for the West. We cannot allow Diego Garcia to follow the same path.
3. Political Instability and Long-Term Uncertainty
The current Mauritian government has already ordered an independent review of the agreement negotiated by its predecessor. Opposition parties criticize the deal. Future elections will bring new leaders with new priorities, new pressures, and potentially new patrons.
Over 99 years, Mauritius will see dozens of governments. Can we truly be confident that all of them will prioritize Western security interests over economic inducements from Beijing? The agreement provides insufficient mechanisms to prevent a future Mauritian government from effectively weaponizing the lease against Allied interests.
4. Legal and Historical Justice vs. Strategic Reality
We understand the moral arguments underlying this agreement. The forced removal of the Chagossians was a grave injustice that demands acknowledgment and remedy. The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion and UN General Assembly resolutions created legal and political pressure.
But we must also recognize that international law is not self-executing and that advisory opinions do not carry binding force. The United Kingdom acted under the legitimate belief that resolving this dispute was necessary—yet in doing so, it may have exchanged one set of problems for far graver ones.
Justice for the Chagossians and security for the free world are not mutually exclusive. Better solutions existed—and may still exist—that address historical wrongs without compromising the strategic foundation of Indo-Pacific security.
WHAT WE ASK OF YOUR GOVERNMENT
Prime Minister, we do not ask the United Kingdom to repudiate this agreement outright. We recognize that your government has acted in good faith, seeking to resolve a complex legal and moral situation. What we ask is that, before final ratification, you consider strengthening the agreement to address the security vulnerabilities we have identified.
Specifically, we respectfully urge:
For Your Government:
Negotiate explicit provisions prohibiting any Chinese presence, investment, or infrastructure on the outer islands, with clear enforcement mechanisms
Establish joint UK-US monitoring and patrol of the archipelago with authority to prevent unauthorized activities
Include automatic termination clauses if Mauritius violates security provisions or grants access to adversary nations
Secure American participation as a treaty party or guarantor, giving the United States direct legal standing
For Parliament:
Conduct thorough scrutiny of the agreement’s security implications before ratification
Demand full transparency regarding payment terms and any side agreements with Mauritius
Require regular reporting to Parliament on compliance with security provisions
For the British People:
Recognize that Diego Garcia represents not just American interests, but British interests and the interests of the entire free world. This is not a matter of American imperialism—it is a matter of collective defense of the international order that has brought unprecedented prosperity and peace.
THE WAY FORWARD: PARTNERSHIP, NOT DIVISION
Some will say we are being alarmist. They will argue that Mauritius is a democracy, that China’s influence is exaggerated, that the 99-year lease provides sufficient security. We respectfully but firmly disagree.
In 1997, many believed Hong Kong’s “One Country, Two Systems” would endure. In the early 2000s, few imagined China would militarize the South China Sea. In 2014, the West was shocked when Russia annexed Crimea. Again and again, we have learned that authoritarian powers exploit every opening, every ambiguity, every moment of Western inattention.
We cannot afford such complacency at Diego Garcia. The Indo-Pacific theater is where the fate of the 21st century will be decided. Chinese naval expansion, the militarization of artificial islands, aggressive territorial claims, and economic coercion of smaller nations—all of this points to a future where freedom of navigation and the rule of law are under assault.
Diego Garcia is our insurance policy against that future. It must remain invulnerable, legally secure, and operationally unrestricted. The current agreement, as written, does not provide these assurances.
A CALL TO ACTION
Prime Minister, we urge you to pause, reconsider, and strengthen this agreement before it becomes irreversible. History will not judge kindly those who prioritized legal formalism over strategic necessity at such a critical moment.
To the British people: Understand that your government is making a decision with consequences that will echo for generations. Diego Garcia is not a relic of empire to be shed in pursuit of moral absolution. It is a shield protecting your nation, our nation, and the free world from those who would overthrow the international order.
To our American leaders: Stand with our British allies, but make clear that we cannot accept an arrangement that compromises the security foundation of our Indo-Pacific strategy. If necessary, pursue alternative arrangements that preserve American access to Diego Garcia under conditions we can trust.
The United States and United Kingdom have stood together through our darkest hours. We fought side by side against fascism, communism, and terrorism. That partnership endures because we share not just interests but values—democracy, liberty, and the rule of law.
Today, we face new threats from authoritarian powers who respect only strength and exploit every weakness. The Chagos agreement, in its current form, creates weakness where we desperately need strength. We can do better. We must do better.
We write not as adversaries, but as friends. Not to divide, but to unite. Not to criticize, but to protect that which we have built together and must defend together.
The Special Relationship demands nothing less than total candor. In that spirit, we ask: strengthen this agreement, secure Diego Garcia, and ensure that the beacon of freedom in the Indian Ocean continues to shine brightly for generations to come.
Respectfully and in friendship,
Americans for a Stronger Navy
On behalf of Americans who cherish the Special Relationship and recognize that our security is inseparable from yours
Contact: Americans for a Stronger Navy StrongerNavy.org StrongerNavy.org/blog
As the founder of Americans for a Stronger Navy, my mission is to advocate for the naval power our nation needs to secure its interests, project influence, and deter aggression in an increasingly complex world. For too long, discussions about naval strength have focused almost exclusively on traditional, crewed warships. While these mighty vessels remain the backbone of our fleet, a silent revolution is underway—one that promises to redefine naval warfare as we know it.
More Than Just Boats: The Brains Behind the Brawn
What makes these vessels so transformative isn’t just their ability to operate without a crew, but the sophisticated artificial intelligence that empowers them. Both the Sea Hunter and Seahawk were designed and built by Leidos, and they are powered by an advanced software ecosystem called LAVA (Leidos Autonomous Vessel Architecture).
Self-Correction & Resilience: If a system fails or damage occurs, LAVA can reconfigure its mission in real-time. It’s like having a captain who can rewrite the playbook mid-battle without human intervention.
Intelligent Navigation: LAVA constantly processes data from radar, lidar, AIS, and cameras to execute collision avoidance maneuvers in full compliance with international “Rules of the Road” (COLREGS).
Modular Versatility: The same “brain” can be installed across a wide range of vessels, from high-speed interceptors to specialized sub-hunters.
A Fleet of Ghost Ships: The Strategic Advantages
Persistence & Endurance: Without a crew, these ships can operate for extended periods without the need for rotation or resupply.
Reduced Risk to Personnel: Deploying unmanned vessels for dangerous missions like anti-submarine warfare (ASW) preserves our most valuable asset: our sailors.
Cost-Effectiveness: Long-term operational costs are significantly lower than traditional warships, offering an affordable way to expand global presence.
Scalability & Swarming: LAVA enables “swarms” of USVs to coordinate and search vast ocean areas for threats simultaneously.
Looking Ahead: The Future is Unmanned
The US Navy’s commitment is clear. With an expansion from just four small USVs to hundreds projected within a single year, the shift is undeniable. The Seahawk and Sea Hunter have already logged over 140,000 autonomous nautical miles—more than five times the Earth’s circumference.
For Americans for a Stronger Navy, this represents a crucial step forward. Investing in these innovative, autonomous systems ensures that our Navy remains at the forefront of global naval power, ready to face the challenges of tomorrow’s maritime domain with unparalleled strength.
Join the Mission for a Modern Fleet
The transition to an autonomous-integrated fleet is a generational shift that requires steady advocacy and public support. At Americans for a Stronger Navy, we are dedicated to ensuring our sailors have the most advanced technology on the planet to keep our seas free and our nation secure.
Support our efforts today:
Stay Informed: Subscribe to our newsletter for deep dives into naval tech like LAVA and the Ghost Fleet.
Spread the Word: Share this article with your network to highlight the innovation happening in our shipyards.
Advocate: Join our community of maritime supporters and help us champion the 21st-century fleet.
Between January 11 and 15, 2026, China deployed three newly built Shuiqiao-class invasion barges to Nansan Island in the South China Sea. These are not ordinary ships. They are mobile, self-deploying logistics platforms designed to create instant docks, temporary ports, and heavy equipment offload points where no infrastructure exists.
Each barge can drive into shallow water, jack itself above the surface, and deploy roadway systems that turn open coastline into a functioning logistics hub.
This is not experimentation. This is rehearsal.
China is practicing how to build ports on demand.
Why This Is Different
Most people imagine amphibious invasions as waves of troops and armored vehicles storming beaches.
That image is outdated.
Modern war is won by logistics.
Fuel, food, ammunition, spare parts, medical care, maintenance, and the continuous movement of people and equipment matter more than the first landing. Whoever sustains operations longest wins.
These barges are not weapons. They are infrastructure.
And infrastructure is what makes everything else possible.
By deploying these platforms, China is demonstrating its ability to:
Create instant ports
Establish temporary logistics hubs
Sustain forces across islands
Operate without fixed bases
Support heavy equipment transfers
Expand control incrementally
This is how power is consolidated in the 21st century.
My Commentary
If you once doubted China’s intentions, think again.
This is not defensive infrastructure. This is not routine maritime development. This is not a commercial experiment.
This is about control.
This is about reach.
This is about being able to move, land, supply, reinforce, and sustain military forces wherever and whenever they choose.
You don’t build mobile ports unless you intend to use them.
This is not about one island. This is about a system.
Why Americans Should Care
Naval power is not a platform. It is a system.
Ships, ports, logistics, repair facilities, supply chains, workforce, industrial capacity, and governance all matter.
China understands this.
That’s why it is investing in portable infrastructure, modular logistics, and rapid deployment capabilities—while the United States struggles with:
Aging sealift
Fragile port security
Long shipyard delays
Limited surge capacity
Shrinking industrial depth
Vulnerable maritime infrastructure
Power today is not just about firepower.
It is about who can show up, stay, and sustain.
China is building that capability deliberately.
What This Signals About China’s Strategy
This development aligns with a broader pattern:
Artificial islands
Dual-use ports
Civil-military fusion
Expeditionary logistics
Rapid infrastructure construction
Maritime normalization
China is not just building ships.
It is building the scaffolding of dominance.
And it is doing so quietly, persistently, and methodically.
This is how territorial control is modernized.
This Is a Governance Issue, Not Just a Military One
Military capability does not appear by accident.
It is built through alignment:
National will → budgets → priorities → behavior → readiness
China is aligning all five.
The United States is not.
We debate platforms. They build systems.
We argue procurement. They build logistics.
We delay shipyards. They build mobile ports.
This is not about spending more. It is about thinking differently.
What Must Change
America must stop treating naval strength as a niche defense topic.
It is economic security. It is supply chain security. It is alliance credibility. It is deterrence. It is peace.
If we fail to understand how power is now constructed, we will lose it without a single dramatic moment.
That is the real danger.
Not invasion headlines. Not dramatic conflict.
But quiet displacement.
Closing
China just showed us something important.
Not with missiles. Not with warships. But with infrastructure.
And that should worry anyone who believes in a free, open, and stable maritime world.
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.
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)
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.
Why This Is Not a Navy Problem, but an American One
This essay explores why the current debate over rust and warfighting readiness is not an internal Navy issue, but a national one. The real problem is not cosmetic—it is systemic. Sailors are capable.The American public is supportive. What often fails is alignment upstream—where Congress, the Department of Defense, and senior leadership decide what gets funded, staffed, scheduled, and rewarded.
Bill Cullifer, Founder
From the Founder
I served on a U.S. Navy destroyer in the 1970s. Some of the hardest-working, most capable people I’ve ever known wore Navy uniforms—officers and enlisted, engineers and operators, deckplate sailors and watchstanders. They weren’t lazy. They weren’t careless. And they weren’t disconnected from the mission.
They were doing the best they could inside a system that constantly forced tradeoffs.
That experience is why I’m paying close attention to the public debate about rust, preservation, and warfighting readiness. Because this is not a Navy culture fight. It’s not a generational fight. And it’s not an internal matter.
It’s a national readiness issue.
What Sparked This Debate
A recent article by LT Spike Dearing, published on the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), argued that today’s surface fleet is being inspected more for preservation than for warfighting. His point was not that preservation doesn’t matter—it absolutely does—but that what leaders choose to inspect shapes what sailors prioritize.
His concern is simple and serious: if warfighting performance is rarely inspected, it will inevitably become secondary.
The article prompted multiple responses in the CIMSEC comment section, including from naval historian and analyst Steven Wills, and was later republished on other defense platforms—signaling that its themes are resonating beyond its initial posting.
This is not a closed-door conversation. This is a public one—because the consequences of readiness, or the lack of it, do not stay inside the Navy.
What Steven Wills Gets Right
Steven Wills made an important point: corrosion is not cosmetic. Rust is not superficial. Preservation reflects discipline. And visible neglect often signals deeper organizational decay.
He’s right.
Saltwater destroys steel. Systems fail. Neglect spreads. No serious warfighting force can afford to treat material condition as optional.
But this is where people often misframe the issue.
This is not a choice between paint and warfighting.
It is about whether the system enables both.
What LT Dearing Gets Right
LT Dearing is also right.
People respond rationally to what leaders inspect.
If leaders inspect surfaces, crews will optimize for surfaces. If leaders inspect tactics, crews will optimize for tactics.
That’s not laziness. That’s survival.
After the USS Bonhomme Richard fire, the Navy made fire safety non-negotiable. Inspections changed. Behavior changed. Training changed.
That’s how priorities shift.
Standards Matter — But Systems Decide Whether They Are Achievable
When defense analyst Brent Sadler says that a clean ship is a well-run ship and a combat-ready ship, he is pointing to something real: discipline, standards, and leadership signals matter. Order reflects process. Process reflects leadership. And leadership shapes behavior.
But that truth only holds when the system supporting those standards is aligned.
A ship can only be clean, disciplined, and well-run if crews are given the time, manpower, training windows, maintenance access, and parts availability needed to meet those standards. Without that support, expectations become performative instead of operational.
This is where the problem becomes systemic.
When standards are enforced without the resources to meet them, discipline turns into distortion. Crews are not failing — they are adapting. And adaptation is not weakness. It is rational behavior inside a misaligned system.
This is why this is not a deckplate problem.
This is a governance problem.
Who sets the priorities? Who controls the budgets? Who defines the metrics? Who decides what gets inspected, rewarded, and penalized? Readiness is not free. It is built—or it is hollowed out—by budgets, manpower decisions, and time allocations.
Those decisions are made upstream.
Sadler’s point about cleanliness is not wrong — it is incomplete without a systems lens. A clean ship should reflect readiness. But that only works when leadership designs a system that makes real readiness possible, not just presentable.
This is why LT Spike Dearing’s argument about what leaders choose to inspect matters. And it is why Steven Wills is right to warn that visible neglect often signals deeper organizational decay. Both are describing the same thing from different angles: signals versus systems.
Signals matter. But systems decide outcomes.
My Experience
When I served, my shipmates worked relentlessly. We fought corrosion while underway. We knew what mattered. But we also knew what inspectors looked for.
So when inspections came, we painted.
Not because we didn’t care about readiness. But because we cared about protecting our command inside the system.
And a lot has changed since the 1970s. The Navy is smaller now and stretched even further. The systems are more complex, the demands are higher, and many of the sailors and officers carrying this load today could be my children. In many cases, they may not even have the time to paint over rust—because they are busy keeping the ship running, the systems online, and the mission moving.
That doesn’t weaken this argument. It strengthens it.
That’s not moral failure.
That’s a warning sign.
Hardworking people will always try to do everything. When they can’t, they triage based on what leadership rewards.
This Is Not a Navy-Internal Problem
This is not about sailors. This is not about pride. This is not about tradition.
This is about alignment.
Sailors are capable.Sailors are disciplined.Sailors are supported by the American people.
What they often lack is consistent backing from those who control resources, manpower, time, and priorities.
Readiness is not a slogan. It’s a system.
And when that system is misaligned, people adapt.
Why Americans Should Care
The Navy does not exist for the Navy. It exists for the American people.
If we want deterrence, we must prepare seriously. If we want peace, we must be credible. If we want stability, we must invest in real readiness—not performative readiness.
You cannot paint your way to warfighting competence.
Implications for the Navy
This debate exposes a dangerous risk: a force that looks ready but is not consistently evaluated for the conditions it will actually face.
War does not care about inspections. Adversaries do not grade on appearance. And there are no do-overs.
Implications for Our Allies
Our allies don’t just watch our ships. They watch our seriousness.
Credibility comes from demonstrated competence under stress—not polish.
The Bottom Line
Preservation matters.Warfighting matters more.Both must be enabled.
This is not about rust. It is about readiness design.
Real readiness cannot be painted on.
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.
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:
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.
