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The Heritage Foundation published a factsheet this month that does something rare in this space: it lays out, in plain language, exactly where the nation’s maritime revival stands and exactly what Congress needs to decide next [1]. We want to highlight one recommendation in particular, because we think it’s the single most important structural fix available to Congress right now and because it’s the kind of nonpartisan, process-focused idea a nonpartisan organization like ours can endorse without reservation.
Heritage recommends that, whether or not the Senate consolidates the current maritime bills into one, congressional leadership should create a Select Committee for Maritime Industrial Revival to coordinate across the committees that currently have jurisdiction [1]. We think that recommendation deserves support from anyone who has watched this effort unfold over the past three years.
The Problem the Committee Would Solve
The maritime revival effort is not lacking for good bills. The April 2025 version of the SHIPS for America Act carries genuine bipartisan support — 29 Senate cosponsors (15 Republican, 14 Democrat) and 140 House cosponsors (75 Democrat, 65 Republican) as of its last recorded action [1]. Alongside it sit the Shipbuilding Investment and Workforce Act, the FLEETS Now Act, and the Ready Reserve Force Modernization Accountability Act — each addressing a different piece of the same problem, each sponsored by different members, and each currently routed through different committees [1].
That’s not a failure of ideas. It’s a failure of coordination. A House amendment to the FY27 NDAA passed with two of these maritime provisions attached, and the whole package is now headed to House-Senate conference in September [2]. Conference is exactly the moment when overlapping, uncoordinated bills either get reconciled into something workable or get quietly dropped in the scramble to close out a defense authorization. A Select Committee — standing up now, ahead of that conference — is the difference between these bills arriving as a coordinated package and arriving as competing claims on the same limited floor time.
Why This Matters Beyond the Bills Themselves
We’ve spent three years arguing that naval readiness is fundamentally a “who pays” problem — allied burden-sharing through the Gulf Act, and a debt-neutral corporate demand signal through the SEAS Act’s Strategic Technology Responsibility Contribution [3]. Neither of those mechanisms competes with what’s already in SHIPS for America. Heritage’s own factsheet shows SHIPS for America’s funding model leans on shipping-side fees — non-U.S.-flagged vessel fees and Section 301 penalties tied to Chinese-built ships feeding a self-sustaining Maritime Trust Fund [1]. That’s a shipping-side answer to “who pays.” The SEAS Act is a corporate-side answer. The Gulf Act is an allied-side answer. None of these ideas need to compete for the same dollars or the same bill number — but they do need a body capable of seeing all of them at once, which is precisely what a Select Committee would provide.
What We’re Asking
We’re not asking Congress to adopt any specific funding mechanism in this post — ours or anyone else’s. We’re asking Congress to create the structure that would let good mechanisms be evaluated on the merits rather than lost to committee turf. A Select Committee for Maritime Industrial Revival, stood up before September conference, would let Congress treat this as the “generational task” Heritage rightly calls it [1], instead of a jurisdictional scramble.
The nation’s maritime revival has been, in Heritage’s words, a bipartisan, bicameral effort since its inception [1]. It should stay that way through conference. A Select Committee is how it does.
References
[1] The Heritage Foundation, “Maritime Legislation: Explainer and Next Steps,” Factsheet No. 285, August 12, 2026. [2] H.R. 8800 (FY27 NDAA), House passage with maritime amendments, 2026; expected House-Senate conference, September 2026. [3] Americans for a Stronger Navy / Center for Maritime Strategy, “Defense Reinvestment as Naval Strategy,” March 2026.
A recent C-SPAN clip of President Trump discussing South Korea has been circulating, and it’s worth pausing on — not for the politics, but for the arithmetic. Trump described renegotiating South Korea’s cost-sharing agreement for U.S. troop protection, contrasting the roughly $3 billion Seoul agreed to pay against an initial ask of $10 billion, and questioning why the U.S. maintains 39,000 troops defending a wealthy ally that declined to assist with a related Middle East operation [1]. He extended the same complaint to NATO, noting the hundreds of billions the U.S. spends defending Europe from Russia [1].
Set aside whether you think that negotiation was handled well. The underlying question — who pays for the protection America provides? — is one we’ve been asking about naval power for three years, and it’s one the country can no longer afford to leave unanswered.
The Number That Changes the Conversation
As of this month, the U.S. gross national debt stands at roughly $40 trillion — up more than $2.8 trillion in the past year alone, or about $7.9 billion in new borrowing every single day [2]. Net interest now consumes nearly 14 percent of federal outlays, a share the Congressional Budget Office expects to keep climbing [2]. Debt held by the public is already above 100 percent of GDP, and CBO’s own long-term outlook shows that ratio climbing toward 120 percent by the mid-2030s absent reform [3].
That’s the fiscal backdrop against which every naval modernization request, every shipbuilding appropriation, and every forward-deployed carrier strike group now has to be justified. Taxpayers are not wrong to push back on open-ended commitments funded by more borrowing. As Washington debates spending, the Navy’s own leadership has been blunt that this is fundamentally a resource issue, with the Chief of Naval Operations citing a Congressional Budget Office estimate that an adequate fleet requires something on the order of $38 billion a year in shipbuilding funding alone [4] — funding that has to come from somewhere.
The Gulf Act: Burden-Sharing Where It Belongs
This is exactly the gap the Gulf Maritime Protection and Burden-Sharing Act is built to close. The Strait of Hormuz example is almost too on-the-nose: the U.S. Navy underwrites the security of a chokepoint that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil, much of it bound for nations that are not proportionally sharing the cost of keeping that lane open. China alone receives well over a third of the crude that transits the Strait, with India, Japan, and South Korea rounding out the bulk of the remainder — while the United States itself, thanks to domestic shale production and a supply chain built on Canada and Mexico, takes in only a small fraction of that flow [5].
The Iran war earlier this year gave us a live test of what happens when that lane actually closes, and the results make the case for burden-sharing sharper, not weaker. China and Japan largely rode out the closure on strategic reserves and pipeline diversification; India surprisingly weathered it too, on the strength of a decade of stockpile-building [6]. But none of that resilience came free. It meant months of elevated prices, emergency reserve drawdowns, and — for economies like Vietnam with thin buffers — real shortages and rationing [6]. Self-insuring against a closed strait is expensive and imperfect. A functioning U.S. Navy presence that keeps the strait open in the first place is the far cheaper alternative — which is precisely why it’s in these nations’ own economic interest to help fund it, not simply a matter of fairness to the American taxpayer. Trump’s complaint about allies who “don’t want to get involved” in guarding their own energy lifeline is, functionally, the same diagnosis the Gulf Act was written to fix. The Act doesn’t ask American taxpayers to absorb more debt to police a chokepoint for other nations’ benefit — it asks the beneficiaries to pay a proportional share for a service that is, by their own recent experience, worth far more to them than its cost.
The SEAS Act: A Demand Signal That Doesn’t Touch the Debt
The Strategic SEAS Act applies the identical logic domestically. Rather than asking Congress to appropriate still more borrowed dollars into shipbuilding, the Act’s Strategic Technology Responsibility Contribution draws a modest, offset-eligible assessment from U.S. companies with the deepest revenue dependence on China’s economy — the same offshoring era that hollowed out American shipyard capacity in the first place. It creates a dedicated, predictable demand signal for shipbuilders, which is the single thing industry has said it needs most to justify capital investment, without adding a dollar to the $40 trillion balance sheet [7].
That “no new debt” framing matters more today than it did when we first proposed it. Fiscal conservatives, China hawks, and taxpayers who are simply tired of watching the debt clock spin are, for once, aligned on the same conclusion: national defense funding mechanisms that don’t require more borrowing are worth building.
Builders, Not Critics
We’re not in the business of scoring political points off a South Korea negotiation. We’re in the business of pointing out that the underlying math — protection without proportional payment — shows up everywhere, from allied burden-sharing to Wall Street’s China exposure to a shipbuilding budget the Navy itself says is underfunded by billions a year. The Gulf Act and the SEAS Act are the constructive answer: mechanisms that ask the actual beneficiaries of American sea power, foreign and domestic, to help sustain it — instead of asking an already over-leveraged taxpayer to do it alone.
References
[1] C-SPAN, “Trump says Kim Jong Un has responded to overtures,” transcript, 2026. [2] Joint Economic Committee (Republicans), Monthly Debt Update, August 2026. [3] Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036, February 2026. [4] Remarks by Adm. Daryl Caudle, CNO, West 2026 conference, San Diego, February 12, 2026, as reported by Janes. [5] International Energy Agency, “Strait of Hormuz Factsheet,” February 2026; U.S. Energy Information Administration, Q1 2025 destination data. [6] Gulf International Forum, “Hormuz Disruptions and Asia’s Energy Resilience,” March 2026; The National Interest, “How China Turned the Strait of Hormuz Crisis into an Advantage,” June 2026; India Narrative, “The Strait That Didn’t Break India,” July 2026. [7] Americans for a Stronger Navy / Center for Maritime Strategy, “Defense Reinvestment as Naval Strategy,” March 2026.
In a conversation with CDR Salamander, I explore allied readiness, the Strait of Hormuz, burden-sharing and the Navy’s structural crisis.
America’s allies often say the right things about maritime security. The harder question is whether they can still do them.
That “say versus do” gap sits at the center of my conversation with CDR Salamander — a retired U.S. Navy officer, former NATO staff officer, and one of the most respected independent voices in naval commentary for nearly two decades.
We discussed Europe’s shrinking naval capacity, the Strait of Hormuz, burden-sharing, the industrial base, and the structural failures that have brought the U.S. Navy to a readiness crisis that many veterans recognize all too well.
I came to the conversation as a student. I left it convinced that Americans need a wider, more honest debate about sea power, allied obligations, and the real cost of keeping global trade moving. His explanation of the global economy is one of the most important parts of the interview.
Why I Asked These Questions
I started Americans for a Stronger Navy about two and a half years ago. Before that, I spent over three decades in telecommunications and web technologies — building and leading organizations at the intersection of global internet infrastructure, international business, and nonprofit professional management. I traveled to China and Russia during the early 2000s tech transfer era — and to other emerging markets in between — and watched, firsthand, how economic integration and strategic naivety can compound into serious long-term risk. That ground-level view of how these economies operate, and how they think about America, shapes everything I do at StrongerNavy.org.
I am not a think tank fellow. I am not a defense contractor. I am not a retired flag officer. I am a former blue water destroyer sailor who stood watches aboard USS Henry B. Wilson in the 1970s during the original hollow Navy era.
That outsider status used to feel like a liability. I’ve come to think it’s an asset. Fresh eyes — from someone who has managed global organizations, tracked technology transfer across borders, and spent thirty years watching how interconnected systems succeed and fail — can sometimes see patterns that are harder to spot from inside a specialized community. That’s not a criticism. It’s an argument for a bigger tent.
My goal has never been to be the loudest voice in the room. It has been to listen carefully, learn honestly, connect what we learn to concrete legislative action — and help build the coalition this moment requires.
Which is why I reached out to CDR Salamander. If you want to understand where the naval community’s thinking actually is, you start there.
What follows is that conversation. I hope you’ll read it the same way I tried to have it.
Europe’s Readiness Gap
Q: The Royal Navy was significantly larger in 1982 than it is today, and they barely scraped together a task force to retake the Falkland Islands. The RAF was making the case that carriers were obsolete and land-based air could handle everything — they were months away from not having that carrier in the South Atlantic at all. France, the Netherlands, Denmark — Europe had a real, robust military then. Fast forward to 2026. Is that capability still there?
We find ourselves in a situation where there’s a certain inertia to assumptions — we just assume our allies can do something. You see announcements like the French carrier getting underway with a European strike group to help defend Cyprus because the British can’t get a single destroyer underway. And that’s great. But the French have one carrier. Some of their allied units are genuinely impressive — the Spanish F-100 Aegis destroyer is a fine piece of kit — but there just aren’t that many of them. They can do this one deployment. They have no follow-on. They have no endurance.
Even they themselves still carry this inertia of a memory of a military that could do things. And it’s simply not there anymore.
CDR Salamander: You have to be very careful what you take from Europe at face value, because a lot of what they’re proposing isn’t what’s best — it’s what they’re capable of. We make fun of the “strongly worded letter,” but if that’s all you have, that’s what you lean on. If you need things to delay, to push to the right, to wait for a UN or EU meeting — that’s what you’re going to do, because you don’t have the military capability to do anything else.
And even as NATO allies approach that 2% GDP threshold — which is laudable — you have to ask: what can they actually do with that? A lot of our assumptions, everything from mine sweeping to escort ships to underway replenishment, don’t hold up when you look at the actual order of battle. Mike Mullen’s “Thousand-Ship Navy” concept still echoes, but do we really have allies who can fill those billets?
Even in the Red Sea the operational experience has been revealing. CDR Salamander noted that one allied navy’s top-line unit deployed and discovered its hardware couldn’t communicate with a partner nation’s radar systems. And on the British Type 45 destroyers — everybody loves those ships — CDR Salamander observed that at least one was unable to use its main gun against air targets in the Red Sea because of a software capability that had not been purchased, a cost-saving decision that reflected years of accumulated underinvestment.
That’s the “say versus do” problem. A lot of what Europeans are saying cannot be backed up because they have so under-resourced their militaries. They can posture, protest, and stand at sight. That’s it.
Politics and NATO
Q: Is this primarily a capability problem, or is politics a bigger factor in why allies haven’t stepped up?
CDR Salamander: It depends on the nation. I say this as a former NATO staff officer who genuinely loves the alliance. I loved who I served with. In Afghanistan, I spent more time with NATO partner nations than with Americans. But out of respect — because they speak clearly to us — we should speak clearly back.
There are a couple of powerful undercurrents in Europe. One is a latent anti-Americanism that’s part of the political landscape. The other — especially in France and to a lesser degree Germany — is a desire for EU primacy over NATO. They resent American influence in the alliance. Any opportunity to position the EU as an alternative to NATO is taken, because if they can detach European security from the American relationship, the EU becomes more powerful.
You also have national habits. Some allies are simply accustomed to the US carrying the load — and then commenting from the sidelines in ways that play well domestically. And the Israel dimension cannot be discounted. The fact that the US is operating alongside Israel has triggered large portions of the European electorate in ways that make allied political leaders unwilling to be seen as part of this operation — even when it’s clearly in their own economic interest.
This was true under Carter, Clinton, and Obama as much as under Reagan, Bush, and Trump. The Europeans just don’t map their political spectrum onto ours, and right now that disconnect is making things worse.
Why Hormuz Still Matters
A note before this next section: whether you follow naval policy closely or you’re coming to this conversation for the first time, what follows is the most important part of this interview. CDR Salamander explains, in plain language, why the Strait of Hormuz matters to Americans who don’t buy a drop of Gulf oil — and why the global economy is far more fragile than most people understand. It deserves close attention.
Q: What’s the one thing Americans aren’t getting from traditional news coverage about the Strait of Hormuz?
CDR Salamander: The hardest thing to explain — but the most important — is that the US hasn’t relied on Hormuz hydrocarbons for a long time. We’re energy self-sufficient. So when people ask why this matters to Americans, the answer isn’t about our gas prices. It’s about the entire architecture of the global economy.
After the Cold War, decisions were made across North America and Europe to de-industrialize. That doesn’t mean you stop needing manufactured goods — it means you offshore the manufacturing to Asia, and you don’t have to see any of it. That works until it doesn’t. And it doesn’t work when the energy supply chain feeding Asian manufacturing gets disrupted.
The vast majority of hydrocarbons moving through the Strait of Hormuz are going to China, Japan, India, Thailand, Australia. If that energy supply is disrupted, the cost of hard industrial manufacturing in Asia rises to the point where supply chains feeding Western industries start to collapse. The whole system wavers.
And it’s not just oil. It’s fertilizer derived from natural gas — the feedstock that made the Green Revolution possible and held back mass starvation. It’s helium, a byproduct of natural gas production, essential for semiconductor manufacturing and fuel cell development. People don’t see those connections.
What they really don’t understand is that if you want to stop economic migration, you need strong economies in Southeast Asia. If you want a buffer against an expansionist China — and a Russia probing NATO’s eastern flank and an Iran that has spent forty years treating the Gulf as its own private lake — you need viable economies in Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia. That can’t happen if those nations can’t access hydrocarbons at market prices.
Burden-Sharing Without Mercenaries
Q: Asian economies receive the overwhelming share of crude moving through the Strait of Hormuz — China, India, Japan and South Korea among the largest exposed markets. We’re backstopping maritime insurance, deploying carrier strike groups, burning through hardware and personnel. What’s the value proposition for the American taxpayer?
CDR Salamander: Too many people in positions of political power don’t know how money works. They don’t understand interconnected economic systems. And they’re operating in a political environment where maintaining their coalition comes before strategic clarity.
Some of them genuinely believe that contributing to an escort operation in the Strait of Hormuz means being part of the conflict. We saw that when Italy and Spain withdrew base access for operations involving Israel. They’re making decisions out of spite and domestic political calculation — even though the disruption will hurt their own economies far more than it hurts ours.
The argument that the beneficiaries of American naval protection should contribute more is legitimate. But how you structure that contribution matters enormously.
Q: We’ve had financial models before where countries paid for protection. Kuwait in 1987. Japan in 1991. Is there a precedent for a more formal burden-sharing arrangement?
CDR Salamander: I guess in theory it could work, but I’m not a fan of the concept as it’s usually framed. America has a voluntary military. These are the sons and daughters of American citizens who chose to serve their country. If we do anything that even smacks of being somebody else’s mercenary force, I don’t want to be the one explaining to a mother why her kid came home in a box because someone was cutting us a check to do their job for them.
Now — contributing nations don’t have to contribute forces. If Iceland doesn’t have a military but will buy diesel fuel for the operation, that counts. Resources and services in lieu of forces — that’s legitimate burden sharing. That’s the Daughters of the American Revolution model: you don’t need an ancestor who fought at Yorktown. Someone who drove a supply wagon qualifies too.
But pure payment for services rendered? That leaves a bad taste. Why is Bangladesh so active in UN peacekeeping? Because they like the money. I don’t want the United States Navy in that equation.
What the Navy Commission Must Confront
Q: The National Commission on the Future of the Navy has begun its work. If you were advising the commission — not on ship counts, but on structural questions — what are the two or three things they absolutely cannot afford to skip?
CDR Salamander: First, back up and ask why this commission exists at all. It exists because the institutions given stewardship over American sea power have done a poor enough job over the last three decades that Congress felt compelled to create external oversight. So the question isn’t “what ships do we need” — it’s “what structural dysfunctions produced this situation?”
My answers are unsexy. But the foundations of a house are unsexy. Plumbing is unsexy. You can’t have a functioning structure without them.
The first thing is industrial base. The only reason we won World War II is our industrial capacity — including our maritime industrial capacity. Right now we have submarines waiting over a year for repairs. We have dry dock capacity so constrained that ships are receiving depot-level maintenance in 2026 at a rate that would have gotten people fired in 1986. We need incentives and disincentives that grow, support, and sustain a geographically and institutionally diverse shipbuilding and maintenance industry. That will take a decade to fix. Start now.
Second: officer corps incentives. How we promote people and why. The current system is not fit for purpose. If it were, we wouldn’t be where we are.
Third: geographic presence. The Navy has disappeared from the view of too many Americans. San Francisco Bay is geographically ideal for naval facilities and sits at the center of American technology and influence — and we BRAC’d our way out of it. The “Master Base” concept — concentrating everything in San Diego, Jacksonville, and Norfolk — only makes sense to an accountant. It certainly doesn’t make sense in an era of drone swarms that can take out entire airfields. We need a distributed presence.
And underneath all of this: we need a national understanding of maritime power, not just a maritime strategy document. By geography and economy, we are a maritime and aerospace nation. Our budgetary priorities don’t reflect that. Changing them will require taking resources from what is not our comparative advantage as a non-continental land power. We have to be willing to make that fight. We need more Vice Admiral Tom Connollys and fewer officers who can’t get through a sentence without the word “joint.”
The Case for Sea and Air Power
Q: Final question. What’s the key takeaway — for Navy professionals and for civilians who might be listening?
CDR Salamander: There’s an opportunity here, and it’s being missed.
Every carrier deployed for nine, ten, eleven months is proof we don’t have a large enough navy. Every static airfield attacked ashore is an argument for sea-based power projection. Every Houthi missile fired at a merchant ship is a demonstration that the only answer is at sea. Every Chinese fishing fleet strip-mining the territorial waters of a South American coastal nation is a mission for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. Every Russian submarine probing undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic is a reminder of who owns the depths. Every Iranian fast boat swarming a merchant vessel in the Gulf is a test of resolve we cannot afford to fail.
The Western Pacific threat is maritime and aerospace. What Australia, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand need most is help securing their maritime connections and their airspace. That is our lane.
All the argument points have been delivered to us on a plate. We have the receipts. And I’ve been frustrated for a while that the stars are aligned, the case is right there, but too much of our senior leadership would rather talk about “joint” — or worse, say nothing at all.
This isn’t parochial. It’s about the security of the Republic. We have secure land borders. Europe has the population and economy to handle most of its own land and air requirements. We don’t need to find ourselves in another land war in Asia. But we do have a unique, irreplaceable role at sea and in the air.
If conflict comes — something like what we’re watching off Iran right now — the best outcome for America is one where we limit our involvement to sea power and air power. That’s not isolationism. That’s strategy. It’s the argument we should be making every day, because it’s an easy argument to make — and right now, the world is making it for us.
Bill’s Takeaway
A few honest reflections after sitting with this conversation.
CDR Salamander is an exceptional teacher. His ability to move from a 1982 carrier nearly decommissioned by RAF budget politics to a 2026 British destroyer unable to use its main gun in the Red Sea — and have both illuminate the same structural failure — is a gift. I’d encourage every reader to go back through his answers on the global economy section slowly.
What he makes clear — and what most people never connect — is that we do not live in silos. The fertilizer derived from natural gas that feeds billions also underpins the modern technology supply chain. The strong economies in Southeast Asia that buffer against Chinese expansionism are the same economies that prevent mass migration crises from landing on our doorstep. Freedom of navigation isn’t an abstraction. It is the load-bearing wall of the modern world. Remove it and everything above it comes down.
That lesson applies closer to home too. The naval advocacy community has its own silo problem. Veterans organizations, individual advocates, civic groups, and policy voices are all making versions of the same argument — but separately, in parallel, without a unified message. A trade association of defense contractors speaks for an industry. A coalition of veterans, citizens, and civic advocates speaks for the Republic. Those are not the same thing, and the difference matters.
I don’t agree with everything he said. I want to be straightforward about that, because intellectual honesty is the only foundation worth building on.
His objection to burden-sharing — the mercenary framing — is one I take seriously. He made it with conviction and genuine feeling for the men and women who serve. I respect that completely.
But here’s my honest position: The United States is not operating from a position of unlimited fiscal strength. Debt-service costs are rising, readiness needs are growing, and the nations benefiting most from open sea lanes — China, India, Japan and South Korea among the largest — have an obligation to contribute to the cost of keeping them open. That isn’t mercenary. That’s arithmetic.
And here’s where I think CDR Salamander and I are actually closer than it might appear. His own instinct — Iceland buying diesel fuel, basing access, logistics support, the wagon driver — is a barter framework. Contributions in kind rather than cash. I’ll take it. That’s a step in the right direction. The principle that beneficiaries contribute is the thing that matters. The mechanism is a conversation worth having.
We will have more to say about the legislative path forward at StrongerNavy.org in the weeks ahead. Watch this space.
CDR Salamander and I share the core conviction: the United States is a maritime and aerospace power, the Navy is underfunded and structurally undermined, and the window to fix it is narrow. That is enough to work with.
Stronger together. Break the silos.
— Bill Cullifer Americans for a Stronger Navy | StrongerNavy.org
About CDR Salamander
CDR Salamander is a retired U.S. Navy officer and former NATO staff officer. He has written at CDRSalamander.com for nearly two decades and publishes regularly on Substack. His post “Europe’s Say v. Do Problem” served as the starting point for this conversation.
About Americans for a Stronger Navy
I founded Americans for a Stronger Navy (StrongerNavy.org) after serving as a Quartermaster/helmsman aboard USS Henry B. Wilson (DDG-7) in the 1970s. Our mission is simple: advocate for a properly funded, capable U.S. Navy as a cornerstone of American security and economic prosperity. Full audio of this interview is available at StrongerNavy.org.
The Questions Americans Deserve Answered (Part 1 of 8)
Bill Cullifer, Founder
I served as a blue-water destroyer sailor in the 1970s, and like many veterans, I’ve spent the years since trying to understand how America maintains the naval strength that protects our country, our allies, and the global sea lanes we all depend on.
The charts and analysis below help tell part of that story.
This article is part of Charting the Course: Voices That Matter, our ongoing educational series exploring the future of American sea power and the policies, people, and industrial strength that sustain the U.S. Navy.
This article also launches a focused 8-part series within Charting the Course examining some of the most important questions facing the Navy today — from shipbuilding capacity and fleet readiness to workforce challenges and the future of maritime deterrence.
We’re calling it The Questions Americans Deserve Answered.
For most Americans, the Navy is something we think about only in moments of crisis. A conflict erupts, a carrier group deploys, or a headline mentions tensions in the Pacific or the Middle East.
But the strength of the U.S. Navy is not decided during those moments. It is determined years — sometimes decades — earlier in shipyards, classrooms, industrial plants, research labs, and congressional hearings.
Today the United States faces serious questions about shipbuilding capacity, industrial readiness, and long-term naval strategy. China is building ships at a pace the world has not seen in generations. Russia continues to challenge Western stability at sea. Critical maritime infrastructure and supply chains are increasingly vulnerable to disruption.
And yet many Americans remain understandably disconnected from the decisions shaping the future of our fleet.
The strength of the U.S. Navy is determined long before ships sail into crisis—it is built in shipyards, sustained by skilled workers, and shaped by decisions made years earlier in industry, technology, and national policy.
Why Americans Should Care
America is, and has always been, a maritime nation.
Nearly 90 percent of global trade moves by sea. The global economy depends on secure shipping lanes. Energy markets, supply chains, and the stability of democratic alliances all rely on freedom of navigation.
The U.S. Navy has quietly safeguarded those sea lanes for generations.
But maintaining that advantage requires more than ships — it requires people, industry, technology, and public understanding.
Chart: Global Operational Demand on the U.S. Navy
This Heritage Foundation chart illustrates the geographic reach of U.S. naval operations across multiple regions. Carrier Strike Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups are routinely deployed worldwide, highlighting the constant global demand placed on the fleet.
The Questions Americans Deserve Answered
Over the coming weeks, this series will explore several critical questions about the future of U.S. sea power.
Can America rebuild the shipbuilding capacity required to compete in a new era of great power competition?
Do we have enough skilled workers — engineers, welders, and naval architects — to sustain fleet growth?
How serious is the maintenance backlog affecting submarines and surface ships?
Are current procurement processes helping or hurting the Navy’s ability to modernize?
How should the United States balance aircraft carriers, submarines, uncrewed systems, and logistics platforms?
What role do civilian shipyards and maritime infrastructure play in national security?
Can the United States scale submarine production fast enough to match emerging threats?
And perhaps most importantly: how do we ensure the American public remains engaged in decisions that affect the future of the fleet?
These are not partisan questions. They are national questions.
Understanding the Industrial Challenge
Much of the discussion about naval power focuses on ships already at sea. But the true story begins on land — in America’s shipyards and industrial base.
Chart: Age Distribution of Chinese and U.S. Naval Fleets
This chart compares the age distribution of Chinese and U.S. naval fleets. China’s fleet contains a larger number of relatively new ships, reflecting rapid shipbuilding expansion in recent years.
China now possesses the world’s largest shipbuilding industry by a wide margin.
Meanwhile, American shipyards face workforce shortages, supply chain constraints, and unpredictable funding cycles.
Chart: U.S. Navy Ships Nearing or Exceeding Service Life
This chart shows the growing number of U.S. Navy ships approaching — or exceeding — their expected service life, placing additional strain on fleet readiness and modernization timelines.
The Human Factor
Ships and technology matter — but ultimately the Navy is built on people.
From sailors standing watch at sea tonight to the skilled workers building submarines and carriers at home, the strength of the fleet depends on the dedication and expertise of thousands of Americans.
Implications for Our Allies
America does not operate alone at sea.
Alliances with countries such as Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and NATO partners form a critical part of global maritime stability.
These partnerships reinforce an important truth: deterrence is strongest when democracies stand together.
Public Engagement Matters
The U.S. Navy ultimately belongs to the American people.
Yet the complexity of defense planning can make it difficult for citizens to understand how decisions about shipbuilding, budgets, and strategy affect national security.
That is one of the reasons we created StrongerNavy.org.
Our goal is simple: help Americans better understand the challenges facing the fleet, the industrial base that supports it, and the people who serve at sea and in shipyards across the country.
The Questions Americans Deserve Answered — Series Guide
Part 1 – Understanding the Industrial Challenge (this article)
Part 2 – Can America Rebuild Shipbuilding Capacity?
Part 3 – The Submarine Production Challenge
Part 4 – Maintenance and Fleet Readiness
Part 5 – Workforce and the Maritime Industrial Base
Part 6 – The Role of Allies in Sea Power
Part 7 – Procurement, Policy, and the Future Fleet
Part 8 – Why Public Engagement Matters
That’s why we launched Charting the Course: Voices That Matter — an ongoing 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.
Cutting through the noise on the world’s most critical waterway — and why this moment calls for resolve, not panic.
There is a lot of noise right now about the Strait of Hormuz. Some of it is accurate. Some of it is not. All of it is loud. Before you form an opinion about what this crisis means — and what America should do about it — you deserve the facts, stated plainly, without an agenda.
That is what we do at StrongerNavy.org. Plain language. Verified facts. No spin.
What Is Actually Happening
The Strait of Hormuz — a 21-mile-wide waterway on Iran’s southern border — is the single maritime exit for the Persian Gulf. Every barrel of oil produced in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Iran that leaves by sea passes through this one gap. It carries 20% of the world’s oil and a substantial share of global liquefied natural gas. There is no alternative route. Ships that cannot use the strait must sail around the southern tip of Africa — adding two to three weeks to every voyage.
Since February 28, that strait has been effectively closed to nearly all commercial shipping. Let’s be precise about what that means.
It is legally open. The U.S. Central Command has confirmed the strait “remains open to international navigation.” Iran has not formally closed an international waterway — it cannot under maritime law.
It is operationally closed. Ship traffic is down 94%, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center. The world’s largest shipping companies — Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, MSC, CMA CGM — have all suspended transits. Approximately 750 ships are caught in or around the strait, unable to move.
The reason ships stopped is not Iran’s navy. It is marine insurance. A European regulatory framework called Solvency 2 requires insurers to hold capital sufficient for a once-in-200-year loss event at all times. When conflict escalated, insurers recalculated their exposure overnight. Cancelling war risk coverage takes seven days. Raising new capital takes months. The math was simple — and 90% of the world’s commercial fleet lost its coverage. As maritime historian Sal Mercogliano put it plainly on March 4: “It’s not the Iranians closing the strait. The decision was made by the shipping companies.”
Iran’s weapon is not its fleet. It is economic fear. And it has worked — for now.
What It Tells Us
None of this should be a surprise. The vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz has been documented for decades. Naval planners have war-gamed this scenario repeatedly. The question was never whether it could happen. The question was whether America would be ready when it did.
On March 3, President Trump ordered the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to provide government war risk insurance for all maritime trade in the Gulf — effective immediately, at what he described as “a very reasonable price.” It was the right instinct. Private insurers had fled the market overnight, and the insurance gap — not Iranian guns — was what stopped the ships.
Whether it moves the needle remains to be seen. The shipping industry has signaled the offer may not be sufficient to restore confidence on its own. And if vessels are damaged, American taxpayers could face a bill in the hundreds of millions — potentially billions. The commitment is real. The details are still emerging.
On March 4, President Trump pledged the U.S. Navy would escort commercial tankers through the strait. Within hours, Lloyd’s List reported the Navy had privately told shipping industry leaders it does not currently have sufficient assets to fulfill that commitment. Approximately 125 ships transit the strait daily under normal conditions. The U.S. has roughly eight guided-missile destroyers and three Littoral Combat Ships in the region. As Mercogliano noted: “This is nowhere near enough assets. They just do not have the assets to do it.”
There are no frigates available — because the U.S. has not yet built a replacement frigate. The Littoral Combat Ships present cannot reliably provide air defense against drones and missiles, as the Red Sea campaign demonstrated. And even as U.S. forces degrade Iran’s conventional navy — including the March 4 torpedo sinking of the Iranian corvette IRS Dena, the first U.S. submarine sinking of a warship since World War II — the asymmetric threat remains. Drones, mines, and fast boats do not require a functioning navy. The Houthis proved that. The Ukrainians proved that in the Black Sea.
We also do not know the full readiness picture of the ships operating in the Gulf tonight — because the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey readiness reports have been classified since 2008. The American public cannot independently verify whether those vessels are fully mission-capable. That is unacceptable. #FreeTheData
The gap between the President’s public commitment and the Navy’s private assessment is not a failure of this administration alone. It is the accumulated result of a generation of deferred shipbuilding, underfunded shipyards, and what we have long called seablindness — America’s institutional tendency to underinvest in naval power during periods of relative peace, then scramble when a crisis arrives.
You cannot build a destroyer in a crisis. The fleet available tonight was determined by decisions made — and deferred — over the past decade.
We Have Been Here Before
I want to say something that tends to get lost in the noise: America has fixed this before.
I served aboard USS Henry B. Wilson in the 1970s. That was the hollow Navy — undermanned, underfunded, demoralized after Vietnam, outpaced by a Soviet fleet that was growing faster than ours. The readiness gap then was real. The threat was real. The concern among those of us who served was real.
And then America came together and fixed it.
The Reagan-era naval buildup — driven by bipartisan recognition that sea power was not optional for a global superpower — took a Navy that could barely sustain itself and rebuilt it into the 600-ship force that helped end the Cold War without firing a single shot at its primary adversary. It did not happen because of panic. It happened because enough Americans, in and out of uniform, looked at the problem clearly and decided the answer was investment, not retreat.
That is the moment we are in again. The Strait of Hormuz crisis is not the end of the story. It is the alarm clock.
What America Does Now
The framework for action already exists. The President signed Executive Order 14269 restoring America’s maritime dominance. The Maritime Action Plan, released in February 2026, identified exactly the investments needed — shipbuilding capacity, workforce development, industrial base expansion, a Maritime Security Trust Fund with dedicated funding. The National Commission on the Future of the Navy is preparing public hearings in Q2 2026. The SHIPS for America Act has bipartisan support in Congress.
The architecture is there. What has been missing is national will — the public demand that elected representatives treat naval power as the non-negotiable strategic necessity it is.
That is what StrongerNavy.org exists to build. Not alarm. Not partisanship. Not finger-pointing. A clear-eyed, evidence-based, nonpartisan case that a strong Navy is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It is an American issue — as fundamental to our security and prosperity as any question before the country today.
The Strait of Hormuz will reopen. Insurance markets will recalibrate. Ships will move again. But the underlying readiness gap — the shipyard capacity shortfall, the escort deficit, the classified readiness reports, the two-theater question that nobody in Washington wants to answer plainly — will still be there the morning after.
The question is whether this crisis produces the national conversation that leads to real investment, or whether we absorb the shock, breathe a sigh of relief, and go back to sleep.
America does not have to choose seablindness. We chose our way into this. We can choose our way out.
“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” — John F. Kennedy
The sun is not shining right now. But when it does — and it will — let’s make sure we remember what this week felt like. And build accordingly.
Stay Informed. Stay Engaged.
StrongerNavy.org has been covering the naval readiness gap for over two years — plain language, verified facts, no spin. If this post was useful, share it with someone who needs to understand what is at stake. And follow our ongoing coverage as this crisis develops.
This is America’s wake-up call. What we do with it is up to us.
Sources: USNI News | Lloyd’s List | Bloomberg | CNBC | Axios | Breaking Defense | Navy Times | Seatrade Maritime | AAA | Kpler | S&P Global | Joint Maritime Information Center | U.S. Central Command | Rapidan Energy Group | U.S. Energy Information Administration | Sal Mercogliano, What’s Going On with Shipping (March 4, 2026)
As a former blue water sailor and founder of Americans for a Stronger Navy, I learned early that naval strength is not defined by speeches or strategies alone. It is defined by readiness—by ships that work, sailors who are trained, and shipyards that can sustain them.
Over the past two years, through Americans for a Stronger Navy and StrongerNavy.org, I have worked to better understand the forces shaping the future of our Navy. What I have discovered is both reassuring and sobering.
Reassuring because the Navy’s leadership clearly understands the changing threat environment. Sobering because serious professionals—inside and outside the Navy—are actively debating how best to prepare for it.
This series is designed to help Americans understand that debate.
A Navy in Transition
The United States Navy is undergoing one of its most significant strategic transitions since the end of the Cold War. For decades, our Navy operated in an environment where it could project power with relative freedom. That era is over.
China now operates the world’s largest navy by ship count and continues expanding its industrial capacity at a pace unmatched in modern times. Russia remains a capable undersea competitor. Meanwhile, unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and directed-energy weapons are changing how naval warfare may be conducted in the decades ahead.
The Navy’s leadership recognizes this reality. They are adapting strategy, exploring new technologies, and rethinking how naval forces will operate in the future. But within that effort, there are important and healthy debates—and Americans deserve to understand them.
Different Perspectives, Shared Purpose
Some leaders emphasize the continued importance of traditional crewed ships—destroyers, submarines, and aircraft carriers—as the backbone of naval power. Others emphasize the growing role unmanned systems may play in extending reach and enhancing survivability. Still others focus on the industrial foundation that makes both possible: shipyards, maintenance infrastructure, and workforce capacity.
These are not disagreements about the mission. They are discussions about how best to ensure the Navy remains ready, effective, and capable in a changing world. What unites these perspectives is a shared recognition that readiness requires sustained national support.
Ships must be built. Shipyards must be modernized. Sailors must be trained. Infrastructure must be maintained. None of this happens automatically.
Why Industrial Capacity Matters
One of the most important lessons from this work is that naval power is built on industrial strength. Strategy determines what the Navy needs to do. Industrial capacity determines whether it can do it.
Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), our public and private shipyards, and the skilled workforce that supports them form the foundation of naval readiness. Without their ability to build, maintain, and modernize ships, even the best strategy cannot succeed.
This is not a criticism. It is simply reality—and it is why public understanding matters. Americans deserve to know how their Navy works, what challenges it faces, and what is required to sustain it for future generations.
From Understanding to Sustained Support: The Strategic SEAS Act
Understanding the challenge is the first step. Sustaining readiness over time requires structural solutions.
That is why Americans for a Stronger Navy developed the Strategic SEAS Act—a framework designed to provide predictable, sustained funding for shipbuilding capacity, shipyard modernization, workforce development, and allied maritime infrastructure. Its purpose is straightforward: to help ensure that the Navy and the maritime industrial base have the long-term support necessary to meet national security requirements.
The Strategic SEAS Act complements legislative efforts like the SHIPS Act by addressing a critical question: how to provide sustained, reliable funding to support the Navy’s long-term readiness. Readiness is not built in a year. It is built over decades.
Why This Matters Now
The decisions being made today—about ships, shipyards, technology, workforce, and sustained funding—will define America’s naval strength for the next generation. These decisions are being made now, in budget cycles and legislative sessions that most Americans never see.
Meanwhile, serious questions are being raised by experienced naval professionals, defense analysts, and members of Congress about whether America’s shipbuilding capacity and industrial base can support the strategy at the pace required. Those questions deserve honest, public answers.
This series is intended to provide that clarity—directly, responsibly, and in plain English.
The Questions This Series Will Address
Among them:
• Are traditional ships like destroyers, submarines, and carriers still essential in the age of drones and autonomous systems?
• Can unmanned systems truly enhance naval power—or are they being asked to do too much, too soon?
• Is America’s shipbuilding and repair infrastructure strong enough to sustain the Navy the nation requires?
• What role does Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) play in ensuring readiness—and what challenges does it face?
• How does America’s shipbuilding capacity compare to China’s—and what does that mean strategically?
• Can the Navy realistically surge its fleet when needed?
• What role do Congress, industry, and the American people play in sustaining naval strength over time?
• And most importantly: what must be done—practically, responsibly, and sustainably—to ensure the United States Navy remains ready to protect American interests for decades to come?
These are not political questions. They are national questions. And Americans deserve clear, honest answers.
Why Americans Should Care
The U.S. Navy protects far more than military interests. It safeguards global commerce, deters conflict, reassures allies, and protects the economic system Americans depend on every day. When the Navy is ready, it helps preserve peace through strength. When industrial capacity declines, readiness becomes harder to sustain.
The decisions being made today will shape America’s naval strength for decades to come. Americans deserve to understand those decisions.
What This 8-Part Series Will Explore
In the weeks ahead, this series will examine why traditional naval ships remain essential, how unmanned systems are changing naval operations, the critical role of NAVSEA and America’s shipyards, the industrial and workforce foundation behind naval readiness, how China and other nations are approaching maritime power, how naval strength is sustained over time, and what must be done to ensure continued readiness.
This is not about choosing sides in a debate. It is about understanding the full picture—because an informed public is essential to sustaining a strong Navy.
Protecting America’s Naval Edge Strategic competition, documented technology theft, and military-linked research highlight why protecting America’s technological advantage is essential to maintaining naval superiority.
Abstract
Naval power in the 21st century is shaped as much by technological innovation as by fleet size. Strategic competitors are investing heavily in research, industrial capacity, and military modernization to close the technological gap with the United States. This article analyzes the implications of documented research security concerns, the role of military-linked academic institutions, and the broader strategic environment, and argues that preserving America’s technological advantage requires informed public engagement, policy alignment, and sustained national awareness.
Introduction
For decades, America’s naval superiority rested on more than ships—it rested on technological advantage. That advantage was built in American shipyards, laboratories, universities, and research institutions. Today, that technological edge is being challenged by strategic competitors who have invested heavily in naval expansion, industrial capacity, and military-relevant technologies. Increasingly, naval professionals, policymakers, and national security experts are raising concerns about how technological competition is unfolding—and how little public awareness exists about its implications. Some documented cases involving technology theft, undisclosed foreign military-linked affiliations, and strategic research competition have received only limited public attention. Americans deserve to understand what is happening, why it matters, and what it means for the future strength of the United States Navy.
Naval Power Begins Long Before a Ship Is Built
Every modern U.S. Navy platform depends on breakthroughs in science and engineering:
Nuclear engineering enables submarine propulsion and carrier endurance
Advanced materials determine hull strength, stealth, and survivability
Semiconductors power radar, communications, and weapons systems
Artificial intelligence and autonomy are reshaping the future of naval warfare
The future DDG(X) destroyer, unmanned naval systems, and next-generation submarines will rely heavily on research happening today in American universities, national laboratories, and federally funded programs.
These institutions are essential to national strength.
But the knowledge they produce exists in a world defined by strategic competition.
Documented Cases Show the Risk Is Real
Concerns about research security are not theoretical. Federal investigations and criminal prosecutions have confirmed cases involving the theft of sensitive technology, undisclosed foreign affiliations, and illegal transfer of research with national security implications.
In January 2026, a U.S. federal jury convicted a former Google engineer of stealing more than 2,000 confidential artificial intelligence and supercomputing files and transferring them to entities linked to China. These technologies have direct military and intelligence applications.
In 2021, Harvard University professor Charles Lieber was convicted for failing to disclose his financial relationship with China’s Thousand Talents Program while receiving U.S. federal research funding. Federal authorities determined he had concealed foreign financial ties tied to a Chinese state-affiliated university.
U.S. authorities have also prosecuted multiple export control violations and research-related concealment cases involving sensitive technologies, including advanced materials, computing, and engineering fields directly relevant to military capability.
The FBI has warned repeatedly that China operates one of the most extensive technology acquisition efforts in modern history, targeting critical research sectors tied to national defense.
These are documented cases—not speculation.
What the “Seven Sons” Represent
U.S. government reports and independent research institutions have identified a group of Chinese universities known as the “Seven Sons of National Defense” as central to China’s military research and development ecosystem. These institutions maintain deep ties to China’s defense industry and serve as primary training grounds for engineers and scientists supporting naval, aerospace, and weapons development.
China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy explicitly integrates civilian research with military advancement, accelerating defense capability development.
This structural integration differs fundamentally from the decentralized American system and highlights the importance of protecting the technological advantage that underpins U.S. naval superiority.
Why Americans Are Only Beginning to Hear This Story
Many of these cases involving technology theft, undisclosed affiliations, and research security concerns have been publicly reported—but rarely remain in the national spotlight long enough for Americans to see the broader pattern.
Through our China Watch coverage, Americans for a Stronger Navy has documented the larger strategic picture: rapid Chinese naval expansion, sustained investment in military-relevant technologies, and long-term efforts to close the technological and industrial gap with the United States.
This is not a moment for panic—but it is a moment for awareness.
Naval superiority depends on technological leadership. And technological leadership depends on national awareness.
Congress Recognized the Challenge — But the Debate Continues
In 2025, Congress passed the SAFE Research Act in the House of Representatives to strengthen transparency and accountability in federally funded research involving foreign adversary-linked institutions.
However, the provision was removed from the final National Defense Authorization Act after opposition from major academic organizations.
Organizations raising concerns included:
Association of American Universities (AAU)
Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU)
American Physical Society (APS)
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF)
These organizations warned the legislation could harm scientific collaboration, innovation, and America’s ability to attract global talent.
Their concerns reflect legitimate interests in preserving America’s research leadership.
At the same time, the strategic competition affecting naval power continues to accelerate.
Both realities exist.
Why This Matters to the Future of the U.S. Navy
Naval superiority is no longer determined solely by fleet size.
It depends on maintaining technological leadership in:
Nuclear propulsion
Artificial intelligence
Advanced materials
Autonomous systems
Sensors, communications, and computing
These technologies determine whether future American ships remain dominant—or vulnerable.
Shipbuilding matters. Industrial capacity matters. But technological leadership remains decisive.
If America protects its technological edge, it protects its naval advantage.
If it does not, ship numbers alone will not be enough.
Why Americans Should Care
The U.S. Navy protects global trade, deters conflict, and secures the maritime foundation of the American economy.
Every American depends on maritime security.
But naval strength requires more than ships. It requires public awareness, industrial strength, and national alignment.
Americans cannot support what they do not understand.
That is why awareness matters.
Conclusion: A National Conversation Worth Having
America’s openness has fueled generations of innovation and built the most capable Navy in history.
But strategic competitors have studied our system, invested heavily, and worked deliberately to close the gap.
The question is not whether America should remain open.
The question is whether America will remain aware.
Naval superiority cannot be taken for granted. It must be protected—not just in shipyards, but in laboratories, in policy decisions, and in the national will of the American people.
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.
Bill Cullifer Founder, Americans for a Stronger Navy
Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) recently highlighted a critical shift in global geopolitics: the Arctic is no longer a distant, icy frontier—it is a burgeoning front line. As Russia and China actively challenge American interests in the High North, the urgency that Americans for a Stronger Navy has long advocated is now more apparent than ever.
A recent Wall Street Journal report detailed a chilling technological milestone: Chinese research submarines have successfully navigated thousands of feet beneath the Arctic ice for the first time. This is far more than a scientific expedition; it is a clear military and commercial signal. As Senator Sullivan warns, these “incursions” test our defenses. In the eyes of authoritarian regimes, the only language that resonates is power.
Projecting Power in the Arctic
Senator Sullivan identifies several pillars critical to securing our northern flank:
Accelerated Icebreaker Production: Our current fleet is woefully inadequate compared to Russia’s. Establishing a persistent presence requires homeporting new, capable icebreakers directly in Alaska.
Enhanced Missile Defense: Strengthening Alaska’s defense infrastructure is vital to protecting the homeland from trans-polar threats.
Energy Dominance: Unleashing Alaskan energy resources is a matter of national security, reducing dependence on foreign adversaries.
Strategic Infrastructure: Developing Adak and Nome into robust operational hubs ensures our forces have the reach to project power throughout the Arctic.
Our Call to Action
We fully endorse the Senator’s call to “keep the pedal to the metal.” However, true Arctic security requires a Stronger Navy fully integrated with the Coast Guard’s mission. To secure the High North, we must:
Close the Icebreaker Gap: We need a sustained shipbuilding plan that delivers Polar Security Cutters on schedule while exploring advanced naval platforms for icy environments.
Invest in Undersea Domain Awareness: The breakthrough in Chinese submarine capabilities demands a sophisticated response in undersea surveillance and anti-submarine warfare (ASW).
Strengthen Arctic Logistics: Our fleet needs resilient, forward-operating bases like Nome to maintain a 24/7 deterrent posture.
The Arctic is a vital theater for global trade and strategic maneuver. Senator Sullivan is providing the leadership Alaska—and the nation—needs. Americans for a Stronger Navy stands ready to advocate for the maritime power necessary to ensure “Peace through Strength” extends to the High North.
This wasn’t a military drill. It was lawfare, logistics warfare, and supply-chain coercion in plain sight.
In late December and again in January, thousands of Chinese “fishing vessels” formed long, coordinated lines and rectangles across major shipping lanes in the East China Sea near Taiwan. Cargo ships were forced to zigzag through the formation. AIS signals were active. The message was visible to the world.
These were not fishing expeditions.
They were rehearsals.
And they revealed something most Americans never think about: control of sea lanes doesn’t require missiles or warships. It can be done with civilian hulls, legal ambiguity, and scale.
China’s maritime militia — civilian fishing vessels operating under military direction — just demonstrated how to create a floating wall across global commerce.
What Happened — And Why It Matters
China assembled formations of up to 2,000 vessels stretching for hundreds of miles. Analysts noted the precision, coordination, and positioning near critical routes. Many of these boats are part of a maritime militia that operates alongside the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Liberation Army Navy, often blurring the line between civilian and military activity.
Under international maritime law, warships must “give way” to vessels engaged in fishing. That legal protection becomes a weapon when the “fishing fleet” is massed, directed, and used for coercion.
This is lawfare at sea.
No shots fired. No war declared. But commercial traffic disrupted, insurance risk raised, and a Navy forced into hesitation by the rules it respects.
Why Americans Should Care
More than one-third of global trade transits the waters around Taiwan and the East and South China Seas. The goods on American shelves, the energy markets we depend on, the components in our technology supply chains all pass through sea lanes like these.
China just practiced how to slow shipping without firing a shot, raise costs for global commerce, create economic pressure on rivals, complicate lawful naval responses, and establish coercive control over maritime arteries.
This is not about Taiwan alone.
This is about the arteries of the global economy.
Implications for the Navy
The United States Navy is built to deter fleets, submarines, missiles, and aircraft. But this tactic targets something different: the legal and operational space between peace and war.
A destroyer captain facing 2,000 “fishing boats” cannot treat them like warships. A collision becomes an international incident. Determining which vessels are legitimate military targets becomes nearly impossible in real time.
China understands this.
And they are practicing it in daylight.
Implications for Our Allies
This tactic has already been used against the Philippines, Vietnam, and others in the South China Sea. It pressures smaller nations to back down without Beijing ever crossing the threshold into open conflict.
For allies who rely on these sea lanes such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and NATO partners, this is a preview of how maritime coercion can be applied gradually, persistently, and legally ambiguously.
The Industrial Reality Behind the Strategy
China can do this because it possesses the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, tens of thousands of industrial vessels that can be mobilized at scale.
The United States cannot.
This is not simply a Navy gap. It is an American maritime industrial gap.
Civilian maritime capacity, shipbuilding, port infrastructure, and merchant marine strength are not side issues. They are central to national security in an era where civilian hulls can be weaponized for state power.
The Real Headline
China just demonstrated it can interfere with the sea lanes that feed the American economy using fishing boats.
That should get our attention.
Because naval strength is not just about ships with guns. It is about protecting the lawful flow of commerce across oceans that most Americans never see but depend on every day.
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.
Over the past several years, hundreds — sometimes thousands — of Chinese fishing vessels have been observed assembling in concentrated groups across the South China Sea, the Western Pacific, and even far beyond Asia. At first glance, it looks like industrial fishing on a massive scale.
But this story isn’t really about fish.
It’s about state power, maritime control, and what happens when economic activity and national strategy blur at sea.
What’s Actually Happening
China operates the largest distant-water fishing fleet in the world, numbering in the thousands of vessels. Many of these ships operate far from China’s coast, often for months at a time, supported by at-sea logistics ships that refuel and resupply them.
Satellite imagery and maritime tracking data have repeatedly shown large numbers of Chinese fishing vessels assembling in coordinated formations, sometimes near disputed waters or critical sea lanes.
This isn’t random.
These fleets move, loiter, disperse, and regroup in ways that mirror organized maritime behavior, not independent commercial fishing.
Why Americans Should Care
Most Americans don’t think about fishing fleets as a national security issue — but they should.
These vessels strip global fish stocks, threatening food security for developing nations and destabilizing regional economies.
They operate in areas where the U.S. Navy and allied navies must already maintain freedom of navigation.
They complicate maritime awareness — overwhelming sensors, patrols, and coast guards simply by their sheer numbers.
When hundreds of ships show up in one place, they change the facts on the water without firing a shot.
That matters to global trade, stability, and ultimately American prosperity.
The Gray Zone at Sea
China’s fishing fleet often operates in what strategists call the “gray zone” — the space between peace and conflict.
These vessels are nominally civilian, but many:
Receive state subsidies
Share information with maritime authorities
Operate alongside coast guard and naval units
Assert presence in disputed waters without overt military force
This creates plausible deniability while advancing national objectives.
It’s influence without invasion.
Implications for the U.S. Navy
Every large-scale fleet operating overseas demands attention, monitoring, and resources.
That means:
More patrols
More intelligence collection
More strain on an already stretched Navy and Coast Guard
More coordination with allies who face the same challenge
The U.S. Navy isn’t just deterring warships anymore — it’s managing mass maritime pressure created by civilian fleets backed by state power.
This Isn’t About Hating China — It’s About Seeing Clearly
This isn’t anti-China rhetoric. It’s pro-reality.
If you ever doubted China’s long-term maritime intentions, the scale and coordination of these fishing fleets should give you pause. Nations don’t build and sustain fleets of this size accidentally. They do it because the sea matters — economically, strategically, and politically.
Ignoring that reality doesn’t make it go away.
What Comes Next
The real question isn’t whether China will continue expanding its maritime reach — it will.
The question is whether Americans understand:
Why the Navy matters beyond wartime
Why sea control protects everyday life
Why economic power and maritime power are inseparable
That understanding is what ultimately determines whether the U.S. can respond smartly, calmly, and effectively.
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.
