Brent Sadler at The Heritage Foundation just published one of the most comprehensive naval shipbuilding blueprints in recent memory. The 40-page Special Report, To Build the Golden Fleet, released March 25, 2026, is required reading for anyone serious about what it will actually take to rebuild American sea power. We’ve read every page. Sadler gets it right.
But the report has a gap. And we’ve spent two and a half years building the mechanism to fill it.
First, the numbers that should stop every American cold.
As of March 2026, China’s fleet stands at 474 warships. Ours stands at 291. Since September 2016 — when Congress set a goal of 355 ships — China’s fleet has grown by more than 100 warships. We added 17. [1]
The 2016 Force Structure Assessment identified the real requirement as 459 warships. Budget pressure compressed that to 355. And 325 ships was assessed as “maximum acceptable risk” — a floor, not a goal. We are operating below that floor today.
Submarine production currently runs at 1.1 boats per year. The requirement is 2.33 per year — and above 3.0 per year once AUKUS demand kicks in. [1]
Secretary Phelan has said 250,000 new shipyard workers will be needed over the next decade. And according to the Navy’s own acquisition executive, 50 to 60 percent of new industrial base hires quit within their first year. [1]
There are eight U.S. shipyards capable of building vessels over 400 feet in length. Eight. For a nation that needs to build a generational fleet larger than the Reagan-era 600-ship buildup.
These are not advocacy numbers. These are Sadler’s numbers, sourced from the Pentagon, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Navy’s own planning documents.
What the Golden Fleet Report Gets Right
Sadler’s blueprint is built around two simultaneous imperatives that most naval commentary treats as separate problems. He holds them together correctly.
The first is getting firepower to sea now. The bridge fleet — largely unmanned platforms deploying existing weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-6 missiles, built faster at smaller shipyards — addresses the 2027 Davidson Window without waiting for the industrial base to catch up. The USV Ranger’s successful SM-6 launch in September 2021 is the proof of concept. This is executable today.
The second is the generational industrial revival. New public shipyards in the Pacific. Design sprint teams collocated with shipbuilders. Vessel Construction Manager models that consolidate accountability. Modular construction techniques. Robotic welding systems that South Korean and Japanese shipyards have shown increase productivity by 20 percent. Block buys that give industry the funding predictability to invest in workforce and infrastructure rather than managing quarter-to-quarter. [1]
Sadler is particularly sharp on a point that rarely gets named directly: budgets must not predetermine the size or delivery schedule of the Golden Fleet. The threat informs the requirement. The requirement informs the budget. Not the other way around. Budget-led planning is how we got from a real requirement of 459 ships to a compromise of 355 to an actual fleet of 291 — while China added 100 warships.
The Gap the Report Doesn’t Fill
Sadler calls for novel contracting mechanisms — specifically SAWS, the Shipyard Accountability and Workforce Support contracting approach — matched with reformed tax structures that incentivize capital investment in shipbuilding capacity over pleasing Wall Street. He calls for a Naval Act with block buy authority. He calls for a fifth public shipyard in the Pacific at an estimated cost of $20 billion, with Congress appropriating initial funding now. [1]
These are the right prescriptions. But they share a structural dependency that the report doesn’t fully resolve: they all require sustained, predictable, mandatory funding that the annual appropriations process has consistently failed to deliver.
The White House Maritime Action Plan, released February 13, 2026, directed OMB to propose a legislative mechanism for a Maritime Security Trust Fund — a dedicated, mandatory funding stream. The directive was clear. The mechanism was left unspecified.
That mechanism is the Strategic SEAS Act.
The Funding Engine
The Strategic SEAS Act — the Shipbuilding Economic Acceleration and Security Act — proposes a sector-based defense reinvestment framework. Companies whose global operations depend on the maritime security the U.S. Navy provides contribute to a Maritime Security Trust Fund dedicated to shipbuilding capacity, fleet expansion, and maritime workforce development.
The logic is direct. American technology, developed with public investment and deployed at global scale, enabled the commercial operations that now depend on open sea lanes. China’s own shipbuilding capacity — the one producing more tonnage annually than the entire U.S. fleet — relies on logistics networks and advanced manufacturing that trace lineage to American innovation. The companies that benefit most from maritime security should have a structural stake in sustaining it.
This is not a new tax. It is a reinvestment framework — the same principle Sadler invokes when he calls for incentive structures that reward capital investment in shipbuilding over short-term financial returns.
The SEAS Act provides what SAWS and block buys cannot provide on their own: a funding stream that does not depend on annual appropriations decisions, does not compete with other defense priorities in the FYDP, and does not evaporate when political priorities shift between administrations.
Sadler’s Golden Fleet blueprint is the architecture. The SEAS Act is the funding engine that makes it executable across budget cycles.
The full framework has been published by the Center for Maritime Strategy as “Defense Reinvestment as Naval Strategy.” [2]
One More Data Point Worth Naming
In the comments section of Sadler’s September 2025 Washington Times piece, a reader identifying himself as the leader of the 2016 Force Structure Assessment study team wrote the following:
“I led the study team that developed the 2016 force structure assessment and just wanted to point out that the different numbers were based on assessed risk. CNO chose the 355-ship force that we assessed as ‘moderate risk’ while the 459 was minimal risk. We even had a 325-ship ‘maximum acceptable risk’ — which should say something about our current force level.”
Read that carefully. Three hundred twenty-five ships was the floor — the maximum acceptable risk threshold established by the people who ran the assessment. We have 291. We are not below the goal. We are below the floor.
That is not a readiness problem. That is a national security emergency dressed in budget language.
What Comes Next
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan confirmed this week that the Golden Fleet is no longer a blueprint — it is an active program. In a public statement, Phelan outlined decisive action already underway: canceled programs not delivering results, new Portfolio Acquisition Executives with accountability for integrated capabilities, a Rapid Capabilities Office to accelerate technology delivery, and Ship OS now scaled to two major shipbuilders, four public shipyards, and 100 suppliers. Most significantly for the funding argument, Phelan stated plainly that “the era of free money is over — industry now has skin in the game and investing in their own expansion.” That is the SEAS Act’s core logic stated from the highest level of Navy civilian leadership. The reinvestment principle is no longer outside advocacy. It is official policy direction waiting for a legislative mechanism.
The Golden Fleet details will emerge in the coming days as the Navy’s budget and 30-year shipbuilding plan follow the report. Sadler’s three metrics for judging whether it’s worthy remain the right standard: firepower to sea, new operational concepts to deter China, and maritime industrial revival.
The third metric — industrial revival — cannot be sustained by legislative authorization alone. It requires a funding architecture that outlasts administrations and survives budget cycles. The SEAS Act is that architecture.
Americans for a Stronger Navy has been building toward this moment for two and a half years. Eight hundred published posts. A nonpartisan record. A framework developed in consultation with naval policy experts, constitutional scholars, and defense industry stakeholders.
The blueprint exists. The funding mechanism exists. What remains is the political will to connect them.
That is what we are working on. And we are not going anywhere.
References
[1] Brent Sadler, “To Build the Golden Fleet,” The Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 328, March 25, 2026. https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/build-the-golden-fleet
[2] Bill Cullifer, “Defense Reinvestment as Naval Strategy: The Strategic SEAS Act and Industrial Base Competition,” Center for Maritime Strategy, 2026. https://centerformaritimestrategy.org/publications/defense-reinvestment-as-naval-strategy-the-strategic-seas-act-and-industrial-base-competition/
[3] White House Maritime Action Plan, February 13, 2026.
Bill Cullifer is the founder of Americans for a Stronger Navy and a former blue-water destroyer sailor who served aboard USS Henry B. Wilson (DDG-7). StrongerNavy.org.