While a 355, 500 or 737-ship Navy is an important aspiration, the final tally must be grounded on the threat, tactical capability, affordability, as well as the infrastructure capacity of the U.S.
Nearly 3/4ths of the world’s surface is covered by water, the vast majority of that being saltwater oceans. This enormous operational area must be kept in mind when considering the mission, as well as the maintenance and sustainment requirements, of our sea services. We must also understand the criticality of open shipping lanes to the world’s economy, underwater cables to banking and internet communications, and regulated fishing to the food security of billions of people. None of these things can be ensured without a robust and effective American maritime force capable of safeguarding these assets not only for our national interests but also for the stability of the global community. Learn more here.
Recent events across the world, including conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, the Red Sea, and the increasing tensions in the INDO-PACOM region, have taxed our maritime services significantly. This increased operational tempo (OPTEMPO) has come with a price on our ships, equipment, stockpiles, and people. Meanwhile, due to a rising China and bellicose Russia, the U.S. no longer enjoys a monopoly on sea control or sea power. Despite these issues, our sea services must prepare for the possibility of great power competition within the next several years.
The Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Lisa Franchetti, has released a new NAVPLAN which focuses on two strategic imperatives—making the U.S. Navy ready for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027 and enhancing the Navy’s long-term advantage as global maritime power.
The FY 2025 Marine Corps active operations budget request continues to support readiness and modernization efforts by prioritizing funding aimed at further reinforcing Force Design transformation initiatives. The Marine Corps is organized, trained, and equipped as a naval expeditionary force that is ready 24/7 to operate, along with allies and partners, inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet operations with the implementation of the Stand-in Force concept.
And the Coast Guard, not only essential to homeland security but also to “gray zone” operations in the Indo-Pacific, is adapting to an ever-increasing portfolio of foreign and domestic operations. In the Coast Guard’s 2024 Posture Statement, ADM Linda Fagan, the 27th Commandant, states that “the world is changing, and the pace of that change is accelerating” and that the Coast Guard must prepare for a future that is different from today. Learn more here.
The Navy oversees a vast maintenance portfolio including its surface fleet, submarines, and aircraft. It has requested additional funds and programs related to maintenance in preparation for increased demand. The Marine Corps continues to use a Total Force (active and reserve component) approach for the planning and execution of ground equipment depot maintenance. For FY 2025, program increases are attributed primarily to updated maintenance strategies and service life extensions for automotive equipment, and the addition of new radar systems into the ground depot maintenance program. The Coast Guard is recapitalizing its fleet and the new vessels it introduces will not only need their own upkeep and maintenance, but the home ports and facilities supporting these vessels will also need alterations. The Coast Guard is also engaged with In-Service Vessel Sustainment (ISVS), which is the Coast Guard’s strategic class-by-class evaluation of its vessels to determine what major maintenance and upgrades are necessary to reach or extend their service lives. Learn more here.
Delivering decisive combat power is more than just putting ordnance on target. It depends on the ability to sustain combat action, to maintain and prolong combat operations until the adversary is beaten or surrenders.
The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act codified the goal of producing a 355-ship fleet, though recent Navy 30-Year Shipbuilding Plans have provided multiple options ranging below and above this figure. The Navy’s Maritime Sustainment Strategy identifies four key lines of effort:
Operationalize the Shore,
Integrate Logistics Command and Control,
Enable Assured Power Projection, and
Strengthen Sustainment for Distributed Operations.
The Navy-Marine Corps leadership team is pushing a more integrated and sustainable force design and structure than ever before. A fully integrated naval force is at the forefront of all discussion, plans, and driving policies regarding resources. The 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Eric Smith, has recently released his Planning Guidance in August 2024 which builds on the evolving Force Design 2030 and reiterates his priorities:
(1) Balancing Crisis Response and Modernization,
(2) Naval Integration and Organic Mobility,
(3) Quality of Life,
(4) Recruit, Make, and Retain Marines; and
5) Maximize the Potential of our Reserves.
In 2020, a Hudson Institute study proposed a “Battle Force Fleet Size” of 581 ships, including a mix of traditional aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers and cruisers, amphibious ships, and logistics ships, but also 139 unmanned surface and submersible vessels. There have been other official sources advocating for an increased Navy by 2045, dramatically increasing the size of the future submarine fleet, with new smaller surface combatants and amphibious warships. Without additional funding for the Navy, a force structure size of 355, 500 or more ships will never be realized, and the nation will find itself at greater risk in protecting the maritime commons for U.S. and allied interests abroad. Learn more here.
This section lists nearly two dozen specific recommendations to address the ongoing issues impacting the operations, maintenance, and sustainment of our sea services. Detailing needs from the Arctic to the Indo-Pacific, from shipbuilding to C4ISR, from manning to production, this section provides the results of exhaustive research into the issues identified previously. Learn more here.
When viewed from space, the shear size and area of our global maritime commons is vast. It is important to keep this picture in mind when considering our four US maritime organizations and how they are being tasked and employed all over the world daily. Make no mistake—our maritime forces have a monumental task of protecting American interests in the maritime commons. Here are just a few statistics to put this critical national security mission in context:
71% of our planet is covered by water. 97% of this maritime environment is salt water.
Of the 3% of freshwater on this planet, the United States owns 45% of that volume with the largest freshwater lake system in the world.
The United States is the 3rd largest country by land area in the world behind Russia and Canada.
The United States has the 3rd largest population in the world at about 345 million people. India (1.45 billion) and China (1.42 billion) are ahead.
However, India has lost over 630,000 people due to migration, and China has lost 319,000 people, while the US has gained 1.29 million people in 2024.
According to projected population growth pyramids, the world’s population is expected to grow from about 8 billion people in 2024 to 10.35 billion people by the year 2100 (in 76 years). During that time, the population of the United States is expected rise almost another 50 million people to 394 million, while the Chinese population is expected to lose over 663 million people and Russia will lose 32 million people to about 112 million total.
About 3 billion people (~44%) around the world live within 200 kilometers of a coastline.
According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) statistics, the US has nearly 95,500 miles of coastal shoreline.
The United States owns over 4 million square miles of maritime water (about 7.77% of the world’s total EEZ area) as part of its recognized Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) water space (which extends out 200 nautical miles from our coastline), second only to France (because of its vast overseas departments and territories that are located all over the world). The US EEZ hold critical natural resources for our nation including fishing, oil reserves, and minerals.
So given the above statistics, it is also important to look at how the nations of the world are using the maritime environment. Here are two graphics of the maritime shipping lanes that show just how critical the maritime commons are to the economic security of our nation and the rest of the world.
Now look at the underwater communications cable laydowns around the world. These underwater cables carry well over 90% of the world’s international internet, telephony and data transmission that control the global markets. All the banking systems of the world send trillions of dollars across these underwater cables 24 hours a day at the speed of light. Any disruption of these vital lifelines would have disastrous consequences for our nation and the world.
Expanding on this global perspective, a review of the latest data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program from the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at the Uppsala University in Sweden shows that there are over 200 various types of armed conflict around the world all the time—and this statistic has grown dramatically over the past 20 years. And the most sobering statistic—over 3.3 billion people have died in armed conflicts around the world over the past 35 years.
Given the facts above, it is surprising that there is still an ongoing discussion on whether the United States needs a robust and capable maritime fleet to maintain the security of our maritime spaces, protect our people, natural resources and coastlines, support our global allies, and keep the sealines of communication (and underwater communication lines) open or not. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the United States is a maritime nation, and always will be.
Unfortunately, right now the United States Navy only fields about 290 battle force ships. Of those, a little over a hundred ships are forward deployed around the world, and of those about 60 ships are currently underway.
With 11 different Congressionally-mandated mission sets involving both Homeland Security and non-Homeland Security missions, the U.S. Coast Guard deploys hundreds of operational assets to perform missions and support geographic combatant commanders worldwide and in the homeland. The Service has 259 cutters (vessels greater than 65 feet) of various sizes and mission focus and about 200 fixed and rotor wing aircraft carrying out a multitude of critical tasks in support of our national defense and security strategies.
This section of the 2025-2026 Navy League Maritime Policy focuses on how our US maritime services are addressing these operational and geostrategic challenges, and where we think more attention needs to be taken by Congress, the Executive Branch, and American citizens. The crux of the matter is that the solution is not just about shipbuilding numbers; it is much broader, requiring a coordinated, whole-of-government approach encompassing several lines of effort that must all be executed simultaneously vice piecemeal or sequentially, and must be implemented and committed to for decades into the future to be successful. The complexity of these issues intertwines together in a symbiotic nature where maritime operations bleed into sustainment issues, which in-turn impact maintenance issues, budgets, manpower, infrastructure, and so on.
Recent events across the world, including conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, the Red Sea, and the increasing tensions in the INDO-PACOM region, have taxed our maritime services significantly. There is no doubt that the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps is the most lethal and capable maritime force the world has ever known. And, that the U.S. Coast Guard, deployed locally and globally, is the most effective such force the world has ever known. However, this increased operational tempo (OPTEMPO) has come with a price on our ships, equipment, stockpiles, and people.
The United States is a maritime nation — this is an inescapable fact. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution directs Congress “to provide and maintain a Navy,” proving our Founding Fathers recognized nearly 250 years ago that a strong Navy was the most reliable guarantor of U.S interests at home and abroad. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard protect our waterways and sea lanes, ensuring the free movement of goods and services across the globe. Both are forward-deployed, dissuading potential adversaries, assuring allies, and building partnerships. The U.S. Navy ensures robust maritime logistics remain intact in times of conflict to support the other services, especially in a contested modern, multi-domain environment. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard are also first responders to global crises. Investing in America’s Navy and Coast Guard generates jobs, expands the pool of skilled American workers, and generates secondary and tertiary economic benefits. It is the bedrock for securing our nation and American interests for generations to come.
However, with a rising China and bellicose Russia, the U.S. no longer enjoys a monopoly on sea control or sea power and mere numbers of maritime assets may no longer be the appropriate measure of maritime strength. Adversarial regimes such as North Korea and Iran (with its proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen) persist in taking actions that threaten regional and global stability. And while the Navy’s priorities have been clearly defined by the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, which directs our Navy (sea services?) to protect the American homeland, promote economic prosperity and advance American influence throughout the world, new technologies and expanding warfare domains have caused the U.S. Navy to look at its future force structure in a new light. The National Defense Strategy operationalizes these imperatives and articulates a plan to compete, deter and win in a competitive, and contested security environment.
The 33rd Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Lisa Franchetti, issued her initial overarching guidance “America’s Warfighting Navy” in January of 2024 which aligns the Navy’s goals and priorities with the National Security Strategy (NSS) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS) through the framework of “Warfighting, Warfighters, and Foundation”. Her recently released Navigation Plan 2024 (NAVPLAN 2024) further supports those NSS and NDS directives. This new NAVPLAN keys on two strategic imperatives—making the U.S. Navy ready for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027 and enhancing the Navy’s long-term advantage as global maritime power.
NAVPLAN 2024 continues the 18 critical lines of efforts set forth in NAVPLAN 2022 by former CNO Admiral Mike Gilday and introduces seven new areas for accelerated action. These seven areas, known as “Project 33 targets,” are:
Ready the force by eliminating ship, submarine, and aircraft maintenance delays
Scale robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed
Create command centers the fleets need to win on a distributed battlefield
Recruit and retain the force
Deliver a quality of service commensurate with the sacrifices of our Sailors
Train for combat as we plan to fight, in the real world and virtually, and
Restore the critical infrastructure that sustains and projects the fight from shore.
The Marine Corps continues to maintain approximately one-third of its Fleet Marine Force forward deployed throughout the globe. More than 30,000 forward stationed or deployed forces supported fleet operations last year. Additionally, the Marine Corps provides tailored military combat-skills training and advisor support to foreign forces as part of Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC); and enabled full spectrum cyberspace operations while supporting joint and coalition forces as part of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command (MARFORCYBER).
The FY 2025 Marine Corps active operations budget request continues to support readiness and modernization efforts by prioritizing funding aimed at further reinforcing Force Design transformation initiatives. The Marine Corps is organized, trained, and equipped as a naval expeditionary force that is ready 24/7 to operate, along with allies and partners, inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet operations with the implementation of the Stand-in Force concept. To achieve this, the Marine Corps continues its transformation from a legacy force to a modernized force while maintaining a military advantage in a fiscally responsible and executable manner. The Marine Corps readiness accounts continue to support the foundational efforts required to strengthen innovation and experimentation, as well as to provide resources to the Fleet Marine Force, including training and field and depot level maintenance across both ground and aviation programs. The FY 2025 budget also includes investment in force lethality to achieve combat overmatch; building information operations capacity, including cyber forces conducting full-spectrum cyber operations, as well as supporting the viability and reliability of data networks.
In the Coast Guard’s 2024 Posture Statement, ADM Linda Fagan, the 27th Commandant, states that “the world is changing, and the pace of that change is accelerating” and that the Coast Guard must prepare for a future that is different from today. Given this dynamic environment and rapidly evolving national security priorities, she directs that the Coast will utilize its people and assets in new ways while investing its limited resources in the highest priority missions to “ensure that the Coast Guard is best positioned to perform in service to the American public”.
From the Posture Statement, the Coast Guard serves as a unique instrument of national power, championing the rule of law and governance on our waters and beyond. It protects America’s waterways, coasts, and seas which are the lifeblood of our economy and national security. It provides oversight and protection for vast natural resources which fuels commerce, transportation, and defense, while enriching the lives of all Americans. To this end, the U.S. Coast Guard provides safety, security, and prosperity to America which depends on reliable access to the maritime environment, protection from threats on the sea, and protection of the sea itself.
The Coast Guard conducts 11 statutory operational missions, managed within six mission programs that cross the full spectrum of maritime activities:
Maritime Law Enforcement: Migrant Interdiction; Drug Interdiction; Living Marine Resources; Other Law Enforcement
Maritime Response: Search and Rescue; Marine Environmental Protection
Maritime Prevention: Ports, Waterways, & Coastal Security; Marine Safety
Marine Transportation System Management: Aids to Navigation; Ice Operations
Maritime Security Operations: Ports, Waterways, & Coastal Security
Defense Operations: Defense Readiness
In addition to the 11 missions codified in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, other responsibilities include: providing products and services for the Intelligence Community; conducting activities and efforts to advance U.S. diplomacy and international relations; Cyber Security; Bridge Administration; Great Lakes Pilotage; and other Waterways Management functions supplementary to Aids to Navigation.
The Navy’s depot and intermediate-level ship maintenance program is mission funded in Operation and Maintenance, Navy (OMN) with a continuing pilot program in Other Procurement, Navy (OPN). Since 2020, the total Ship Maintenance program has grown an average of 5.7% each year. The FY 2025 request funds 58 availabilities and increases funding to move submarines and ships through public and private shipyards and return them to the Fleet for operations. The increase is primarily due to investments in public shipyard efforts, including Submarine Industrial base (SIB), Virginia Class Materials, and wage grade initiatives. FY 2025 continues to invest in sustaining the productivity of the naval shipyard (NSY) workforce of 37,551 FTEs.
Ship maintenance improvements include better contracting strategies, increasing dry dock capacity, optimizing facility and pier layout, level load port workloads, and more accurate availability duration planning. The Navy requests $2.4 billion in OPN in FY 2025 for private contracted ship maintenance for both fleets, a decrease of $354.0 million from the FY 2024 request due to the transfer of Carrier maintenance to O&M,N. The continuation of the OPN pilot will provide further opportunities to demonstrate and assess the advantages of multi-year funding.
The FY 2025 Aircraft Depot Maintenance (ADM) budget improves readiness and represents updated requirements and acceptable strategic risk. The account also funds the Depot Readiness Initiative (DRI) to utilize depot capacity to incorporate O-level maintenance tasks into Phased Depot Maintenance/Planned Maintenance Interval events. The ADM program funds repairs, overhauls, and inspections of aircraft, engines, and aircraft components to ensure sufficient quantities are available to meet fleet requirements to deliver Warfighting Excellence. Starting in FY 2025, funding for the ADM program encompasses Calibration Maintenance, Ground Support Equipment, and Aviation Mobile Facilities. FY 2025 ADM decreases in funding due to reduced airframe and engine induction requirements as shown in Figure 4.9.
The Marine Corps continues to use a Total Force (active and reserve component) approach for the planning and execution of ground equipment depot maintenance. The FY 2025 budget was developed through programmatic changes based on strategic guidance and building readiness. For FY 2025, program increases are attributed primarily to updated maintenance strategies and service life extensions for automotive equipment, and the addition of new radar systems into the ground depot maintenance program.
The FY25 Budget has requested $40M for personnel and operations and maintenance sustainment funding for new cutters, boats, aircraft, and capabilities. These funds include operations, maintenance, crew, and mission support elements for six Fast Response Cutters; shoreside maintenance and support personnel for Offshore Patrol Cutters #3 and 4; crew for Waterways Commerce Cutter #1; funds to support four hyperbaric recompression chambers; and crew, operations, maintenance for four MH-60T helicopters and eight Maritime Security Response Team boats. An additional $10 million has been requested for the operations and maintenance of newly acquired or recapitalized shore facilities in Puerto Rico, Florida, New York, and Maryland.
In-Service Vessel Sustainment (ISVS) is the Coast Guard’s strategic class-by-class evaluation of its vessels to determine what major maintenance and upgrades are necessary to reach or extend their service lives.
The Coast Guard has determined that strategic major maintenance and recapitalization can improve reliability of its vessels, help control maintenance costs, and increase time underway conducting missions. If necessary, additional work can be completed to allow vessels to operate efficiently past their service life until replacements are procured. Systematic evaluation of Coast Guard surface assets and creation of a recurring Acquisition Construction and Improvement funding stream through ISVS provides a cost-effective way to ensure the service has the surface assets necessary to complete its missions. ISVS work can be classified as service life extension programs, major maintenance availabilities (MMAs) or mission effectiveness projects.
A cutter capital asset management plan, which lays out a system of evaluative criteria, was developed to prioritize cutter classes to be included in the ISVS Program. The 140-foot icebreaking tug was identified as the highest priority; the program activities are complete with the objective of accomplishing a 15-year service life extension of the nine-vessel fleet. The program is now moving forward with follow-on HVAC improvements.
All ISVS Program work is performed using the most cost-effective option to meet cost, schedule and performance requirements. Current ISVS Program work is performed by the Coast Guard at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland, and commercial shipyards. The yard has previously demonstrated its ability to efficiently plan and execute major ship overhaul-projects.
The ISVS Program consists of two kinds of projects:
Major maintenance availability (MMA) – Planned life cycle events for targeted work and recapitalization of obsolescent/unsupportable systems, necessary for the cutter to achieve its design service life. MMAs facilitate fleet maintenance and increased availability for missions during a cutter’s later years of service. Shifts in the cutter’s homeport and assigned crew are considered in the planning process.
Service life extension program (SLEP) – Addresses specific systems and major maintenance to extend the service life of the vessel beyond the original design service life. A SLEP is not designed to increase a ship’s capability; it only extends the service life of the cutter by replacing obsolete, unsupportable or maintenance-intensive equipment and by seeking standardization of configuration issues.
Current ISVS projects:
Service life extension program for the 140-foot Bay-class icebreaking tugs to restore mission readiness and extend the service life of this nine-cutter fleet by approximately 15 years. The fleet was commissioned between 1978 and 1988, with most hulls operating beyond their planned 30-year service life. Critical reliability and supportability issues have severely degraded the fleet’s mission readiness. Completed efforts include repair of corroded and damaged hull plating, structural refurbishment and replacement of unsupportable or maintenance-intensive equipment. The program is currently continuing with HVAC improvements.
Service life extension program for Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star to recapitalize a number of major systems and extend the service life of the cutter until the second polar security cutter is operational. The SLEP will occur in a five-year phased production between 2021 and 2025. Polar Star is a 399-foot cutter, the service’s only active heavy polar icebreaker, which was commissioned in 1977. The Coast Guard has completed the fourth of five planned phases of Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star’s service life extension program, in Vallejo, California, with the cutter departing the San Francisco Bay Area for its homeport in Seattle, on Aug. 22, 2024.
Major maintenance availability for 225-foot Juniper-class seagoing buoy tenders to ensure the 16 vessels in the class achieve the full 30-year designed service life. Work includes completion of hull and structural repairs and replacement of obsolete, unsupportable or maintenance-intensive equipment, including updates to the machinery control system, propellers and HVAC systems. The project started in July 2015. Coast Guard Cutter Sequoia completed a major maintenance availability and sailed away from Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore on Aug. 21, 2024. This is the 15th of 16 seagoing buoy tenders to undergo this work.
Service life extension program for the 270-foot medium endurance cutters involves targeted system replacement to address system reliability, supportability, obsolescence and interoperability. This work includes upgrades or replacements to the electrical power generation and distribution system as well as the main propulsion engines. The mission is to facilitate continued operations during transition to the offshore patrol cutter by extending the service life of 270-foot cutters for up to 10 years. Coast Guard Cutter Legare arrived at Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore on June 24, 2024, as the fourth medium endurance cutter to undergo service life extension program (SLEP) work and the second to receive all major SLEP work items, including replacement of the main diesel engines.
Major maintenance availability program for the 175-foot coastal buoy tenders has been approved, beginning with the planned order of long lead-time material to support future production. Coastal buoy tenders serve the Coast Guard in a variety of missions and are tasked with maintaining aids to navigation, search and rescue, law enforcement, migrant interdiction, marine safety inspections, environmental protection and natural resources management. Keeper-class cutters are also used for light ice breaking operations.
Service life extension program for Coast Guard Cutter Healy will occur in a five-year phased production between 2026 and 2030. Healy is a 420-foot cutter, the service’s only active medium polar icebreaker, which was commissioned in 1999. When completed, the SLEP effort will recapitalize a number of major systems and extend the service life of the cutter until the polar security cutters are operational.
Service life extension program for the 47-foot motor lifeboats (MLB) is being conducted in partnership with the Boats Acquisition Program to take advantage of the program's subject matter expertise, reduce support costs and improve operational availability. The service life extension work will significantly overhaul up to 107 of the service’s 117 47-foot MLB fleet. The 47-foot MLB fleet was placed in service during the 1997-2002 timeframe with an expected service life of 25 years. The 47-foot MLB SLEP was initiated to extend the useful life of the MLB fleet by 20 years through 2047. The SLEP will reduce support costs and improve operational availability through renewal of the propulsion, electrical, steering, towing, navigation, and hull and structural systems, along with other minor work items.
Delivering decisive combat power is more than just putting ordnance on target. It depends on the ability to sustain combat action, to maintain and prolong combat operations until the adversary is beaten or surrenders. On 1 May 2024, VADM Jeffrey Jablon, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Installations and Logistics, testified before the Senate subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies and spoke about the new Navy sustainment strategy that was designed to align directly with the CNO’s “America’s Warfighting Navy” guidance in support of the NSS and NDS. Formerly known as the “Maritime Sustainment Strategy: Sustaining Naval Forces Across the Competition Continuum (MSS)”, it outlines a strategy for “moving with purpose and urgency to improve the Navy’s capabilities, capacity, and competencies relative to this critical warfighting function”. The MSS introduces ‘sustainment in depth’ as a “layered, systemic approach designed to build genuine agility and resiliency” into the maritime logistics enterprise, with the main principle being that operational and campaign sustainment begins at the shoreline and ends with a Navy that is capable of “providing the right materiel and services, at the right place and right time, across the competition continuum, regardless of operational tempo and level of demand from distributed operational forces”. To accomplish this task, the MSS has established four lines of effort, which are aligned with the Joint Warfighting Concept:
These lines of effort are to be integrated across five Maritime Sustainment Vectors: Rearm, Refuel, Repair, Resupply, and Revive, and three crosscutting enablers of Data, Distribution, and Decks. This maritime sustainment strategy promotes deliberate, impactful infrastructure investments that fully integrate the shore enterprise as a warfighting capability.
To accomplish its mission, the Navy must be resourced appropriately to balance all elements of being a forward-deployed fighting force. The fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act codified a goal of 355 ships for the Navy fleet. This maritime force structure number has undergone numerous fluctuations over the past several years, and it is still not a firmly determined, nor fully-funded inventory planning figure. The Navy’s current 30-year Shipbuilding Plan (released in March 2024) provides Congress with two alternative long-range shipbuilding procurement profiles with a Future Force Design inventory of between 342-387 battle force ships depending on which alternative is chosen. This plan explores not only new ship classes, but also the procurement of unmanned/autonomous vessels, as well as modernization and service life extension programs for most ships in the current fleet that will continue in service for decades to come. Additionally, aircraft, weapon systems, ordnance, and command and control must be procured in support of this battle force inventory and exist in sufficient quantities. Finally, a steady flow of citizens must be recruited, trained, and retained in our all-volunteer service.
The Navy-Marine Corps leadership team is pushing a more integrated and sustainable force design and structure than ever before. A fully integrated naval force is at the forefront of all discussion, plans, and driving policies regarding resources. While the guidance used to design force planning and structure around the great power competition was laid out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy and Marine Corps General Berger’s 38th Commandant’s Planning Guidance, further guidance such as the Commandant’s Force Design 2030 document was published for congressional authorizers, appropriators, and planners to guide future force structure discussions.
The 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Eric Smith, has recently released his Planning Guidance in August 2024 which builds on the evolving Force Design 2030 and reiterates his priorities:
A key enabler for the Marine Corps has been codified in the 2024 NDAA and requires not less than 31 operational amphibious warfare ships, of which not less than 10 shall be amphibious assault ships. The Light Amphibious Warship program is pressing forward with the Medium Landing Ship (LSM), which is seen as a critical element of USMC Stand-in-Force that supports both the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and the Distributed Maritime Operations concepts.
Since the end of the Cold War, America’s naval forces have focused on power projection with no comparable peer competitor. However, the past decade has forced Navy and Marine Corps planners to change, consistent with pacing threats. Centered on the Navy’s distributed maritime operations (DMO) concept, the Navy and Marine Corps team is moving forward with a major transformation. Instead of building maritime forces around large capital ships, the plan utilizes the entirety of the maritime theater by disaggregating assets and complicating the adversaries’ counter-operations. The Navy’s focus has shifted to the total capabilities of the fleet rather than a specified number. Whatever the final number, the type of ships the Navy is expected to buy will change significantly. While a 355, 500 or 737-ship Navy is an important aspiration, the final tally must be grounded on the threat, tactical capability, affordability, as well as the infrastructure capacity of the U.S.
In late 2020, the Hudson Institute released its landmark Navy force structure analysis, American Sea Power at a Crossroads: A Plan to Restore the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Advantage. This was the first plan to be released on paper following a tumultuous period where the Navy’s force structure assessment was taken over by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and several additional studies were commissioned, including Hudson’s. This detailed study proposed a “Battle Force Fleet Size” of 581 ships, including a mix of traditional aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers and cruisers, amphibious ships, and logistics ships, but also 139 unmanned surface and submersible vessels. “The Navy needs a new fleet design to affordably address its challenges and exploit its opportunities while maintaining today’s operational tempo,” says the report. Hudson’s proposed force structure would rely on an “implicit or explicit concept for how the Navy will deter aggressors or win if deterrence is unsuccessful”. The fleet design integrated the Navy’s new generation of operational concepts: littoral operations in a contested environment (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). These concepts require a Navy that embraces a “decision-centric” warfare mindset that optimizes new characteristics widely considered mandatory for future platforms:
A defensive capability in each platform designed to defeat “a prompt adversary attack and enable U.S. forces to effectively fire their offensive weapons.”
An “offensive weapons capacity distributed across numerous platforms and able to sustain strike and counter-maritime operations.”
Scalable “force package diversity” giving combatant commanders and the National Command Authority a wider range of options.
A “force package complexity” designed to thwart adversary targeting capabilities.
An affordable and sustainable procurement process that will bring this new fleet into reality.
There have been other official sources advocating for an increased Navy by 2045, dramatically increasing the size of the future submarine fleet, with new smaller surface combatants and amphibious warships. Some plans have provided even more unmanned surface and submerged autonomous vessels designed to expand the battle space and complicate targeting for a potential Chinese adversary. So, while there is flux in the final Navy and Marine Corps force structure analysis about specific quantity and capabilities, DoD and Navy leadership agrees we need to expand the future integrated naval force and be more modern, networked, lethal, and ready.
The Navy League strongly supports a U.S. Navy shipbuilding and conversion (SCN) budget of more than $35-$40 billion annually to meet the future shipbuilding goal, whatever that ultimately proves to be. We also highlight the production timeline of the Ohio replacement program (Columbia class) and the importance of recapitalizing the strategic ballistic submarines outside the SCN in the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund. Congress should be attentive to the need to work around continuing resolutions, if necessary, to keep the program on schedule. Finally, and most importantly, the Navy League supports a larger share of the DoD fiscal year budget being dedicated to Navy acquisitions, operations and infrastructure as we move into an expanding great power maritime threat environment. Without additional funding for the Navy, a force structure size of 355, 500 or more ships will never be realized, and the nation will find itself at greater risk in protecting the maritime commons for U.S. and allied interests abroad.
Whatever the exact mix determined by Navy-Marine Corps planners, the current and future fleet plans will include the following ship classes:
Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBNs) and their Trident II D5 missiles: The nuclear triad of strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and sub-launched ballistic missiles has provided the United States with strategic deterrence that prevented global war for more than 50 years. The Navy’s top acquisition priority and the most survivable leg of the triad, the SSBN, provides 70% of the deployed nuclear warheads under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Today’s 14 Ohio-class SSBNs are scheduled to be replaced by 12 Columbia SSBNs.
Aircraft carriers: Supercarriers are needed to provide sufficient worldwide coverage of combatant commanders’ Title 10 directed requirements. It is vital to maintain the currently scheduled refueling of the Nimitz-class carriers, which are essential elements of a shipbuilding strategy that ensures our persistent forward presence well into the future. Over the next two year the Navy has a capacity goal of 11-12 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
Large surface combatants (LSCs) and small surface combatants (SSCs): Acquisition of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers as well as the modernization of the Navy’s cruiser and destroyer inventory will ensure the sustainment of the land-attack, fleet air, missile-defense and anti-ballistic missile capabilities. Initial design of the DDG(X) next-generation guided missile destroyer is a critical element of the Navy’s future force structure. Finally, proven lethality and survivability enhancements implemented in the Constellation FFG program will deliver much needed and cost-effective capability improvements to the fleet platforms. These ships will take full advantage of a proven parent design and incorporate lethality and survivability upgrades that will make this small surface combatant a capable multi-mission addition to the surface fleet. The current 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan has a goal of between 82-83 large combatants and 29-30 small combatant ships over the next two years.
Attack submarines (SSNs): In an environment with the growing threat of layered, offensive and defensive precision missile systems, our submarine force’s asymmetric stealth advantage and immunity from missile attacks enables success for the entire joint force. Sustaining the gold-standard Virginia-class acquisition program, to include procurement of at least two hulls per year through fiscal 2025 and the Virginia Payload Module (VPM), is vital to the sustainment of this critical capability. However, the current PB2025 only has one SSN in the SCN budget. The 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan has an inventory goal of between 48-49 fast-attack submarines over the next two. NOTE: this does not include potential additional shipbuilding plans in support of AUKUS agreements which will have an impact on overall submarine building capacity.
Amphibious ships: The Commandant’s Force Design 2030 promotes a mix of large amphibious assault ships along with a new light amphibious warship (LSM). This mix is designed to meet a range of amphibious operations in the littoral environment in support of Marine Expeditionary Units and Marine Littoral Regiments. The 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan and the 2024 NDAA both show an inventory goal of 31 operational amphibious assault ships.
Combat Logistics Force (CLF): CLF ships and auxiliary vessels make up a critical element of the sustainment of forward deployed Navy capabilities. These ships include replenishments ships, tenders, repair ships, salvage ships and hospital ships. The 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan shows an inventory of 32 CLF ships over the next two years with an expected growth to 56 ships by 2054.
Unmanned Surface and Subsurface Vessels: This new and emerging inventory category is growing in importance and will be a key force multiplier to the manned-combatant force of the future. The vessels increase the Fleet’s capacity for distribution and expand the ISR capabilities for commanders in the maritime domain. The current Battle Force Ship Assessment Requirement (BFSAR) shows a planned inventory of 134 unmanned vehicles. This number will undoubtably shift in the coming years as new capabilities and missions are developed for these assets.
Maritime Preposition ships: While not in the battle force, the Navy plans to shrink from 14 maritime preposition ships down to 10 ships in FY2025. However, the National Defense Reserve Fleet is expected to maintain its inventory of 56 ships, with 47 MARAD Ready Reserve Force Ships and 9 RRF Used RORO ships for a total of 66 strategic sealift ships. Our forward-based maritime preposition squadrons with civilian mariner and military force protection detachments are critical to the nation’s global humanitarian disaster and crisis response capabilities. The Navy’s mobilization forces provide transportation capability that enables rapid response to contingencies worldwide. Prepositioning ship squadrons are forward deployed in key ocean areas to provide the initial military equipment and supplies for operation. Most operate in full operating status (FOS) with a few operating in reduced operating status (ROS). The number of days indicates the time from ship activation until the ship is available for tasking. ROS-5 indicates it will take five days to make the ship ready to sail, fully crewed and operational. The prepositioned response is followed by the surge ships, which are maintained in ROS-5 in CONUS. The surge ship inventory includes recent used vessel purchases and decommissioned ships as the fleet is modernized.
Robust, technologically superior naval airpower has long been, and will continue to be, a critical deterrent to aggression against the U.S. and its allies and partners. PB25 provides $16.2 billion for aircraft procurement in FY 2025 which supports procurement of 75 aircraft, modifications, spares, and support equipment.
The aircraft procurement request is $16.2 billion in FY 2025 and includes 75 fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and unmanned aircraft to modernize our capabilities that can achieve lethal and persistent effects inside adversary weapon engagement zones. This budget funds 53 fixed-wing aircraft to include 13 F-35B and 13 F-35C Lightning IIs as multirole stealthy strike fighters; and 27 Multi-Engine Advanced Training Systems to modernize multiengine aircraft training. The request also funds 19 rotary-wing CH-53K King Stallions to conduct expeditionary heavy-lift assault transport for the Marine Corps. Lastly, three MQ-25 Stingrays are requested to conduct aerial refueling and ISR.
The FY 2025 President’s Budget provides $6.6 billion for the Weapons Procurement, Navy appropriation. This delivers critical capabilities to maintain our warfighting advantage. FY 2025 ship weapons procurement 252 Tomahawk recertification kits; 111 Tomahawk navigation and communications kits; 32 Maritime Strike Tomahawk kits; 221 Tactical Tomahawk Military Code; 5 Tactical Tomahawk Joint Multiple Effects Warhead System; 125 Standard Missile-6s; 148 Rolling Airframe Missiles; 369 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles; 79 MK 48 Advanced Capability heavyweight torpedoes; 51 MK 54 Mod 1 anti-submarine torpedo kits; 12 Naval Strike Missiles; and 12 Littoral Combat Ship Surface-to-Surface Missile Modules. Aircraft weapons procurement includes: 157 AIM-9X Sidewinders, 261 AIM-120D Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles; 157 Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Munitions- Extended Range; 182 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles; 90 Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles; and 280 Small Diameter Bombs Increment II. The Navy continues to make investments in critical munitions required by the warfighter. In response to the large investments the department requested last year, and industry’s challenges to meet that immediate demand signal, the department is reinvesting funds in the weapons industrial base to ensure we can ramp up production in the immediate future.
Cutting-edge command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) is central to a naval strike group’s combat capability and is a critical force multiplier. C4ISR is not just an enabler of more efficient and effective operations, it also provides the information, C2 and precision targeting essential to ultimate success, especially when executing DMO in a multi-domain battle environment.
The Navy League continues to support the direction the Navy is taking in cyberwarfare and cybersecurity to promote assured C2, electromagnetic maneuver warfare, cyber and integrated fires. We must be ready to fight and win in contested and denied environments by leveraging our superior technology. The integration of all elements of cyberwarfare — from policy and requirements to research and development, training, fielding and operations under the Navy Cyber Command/U.S. 10th Fleet — has established the Navy as one of the nation’s critical resources in this complex and rapidly evolving warfare discipline.
The FY 2025 budget prioritizes the Marine Corps’ commitment to remain the Nation’s naval expeditionary force in readiness, capable of meeting global challenges and responding to any crisis, at any time, and anywhere in the world. The request reflects the Marine Corps Priority to organize, train, equip, and posture to meet the demands of the rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive future operating environment; capable of delivering critical joint warfighting capabilities while maintaining force readiness and resiliency. This budget provides $0.3 billion for Marine Corps ground equipment. The Marine Corps readiness appropriations (excluding funding support in Navy appropriations) increase to $4.3 billion. The budget supports an active force of 172,300 Marines, emphasizes forward deployment and posture, and enhances Operations, Activities, and Investments (OAIs) tailored to increase Joint Force lethality and to strengthen alliances and attract new partnerships. These efforts ensure that the Marine Corps is prepared to operate inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of Fleet and Joint Force operations.
The Coast Guard is a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces and the principal Federal agency responsible for maritime safety, security, and environmental stewardship in U.S. ports and inland waterways, along more than 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline, throughout the 4.5 million square miles of U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and on the high seas. As a military service, a law enforcement organization, a regulatory agency, a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and a first responder, the Coast Guard supports Department of Defense (DOD) Combatant Commanders on all seven continents, secures U.S. maritime borders, combats transnational criminal organizations, and safeguards the $5.4T U.S. Marine Transportation System (MTS). The Service leverages an expansive array of military, interagency, international, and industrial relationships, capabilities, and authorities to maximize strategic effect and support DHS and National priorities.
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget includes $13.8B; 52,273 positions; and 51,076 full-time equivalents (FTE) for the U.S. Coast Guard sustains readiness, resilience, and capability while building the Coast Guard of the future to ensure the Service has the assets, systems, infrastructure, and support needed to enhance the Nation’s interests in an increasingly complex and connected world.
In FY 2025, the Coast Guard will accept delivery of more capable, modernized assets, and provides the resources to operate and maintain these new assets, including personnel and operations and maintenance funding for three Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPC), crew for the first Waterways Commerce Cutter (WCC), and operations, maintenance, crew, and mission support elements for seven Fast Response Cutters (FRC). Additionally, the FY 2025 Budget provides operations, maintenance, and crew funding for HC-130J and MH-60T helicopters.
The FY 2025 Budget continues efforts for the Coast Guard’s highest acquisition priorities, including the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC), and provides funding to support the Service’s transition to an all MH-60T rotary wing fleet. Specifically:
$1.1 billion to recapitalize legacy surface assets and make capital improvements to extend the service life of cutters and boats, including: $216 million for production of two Fast Response Cutters for the Indo-Pacific; $530 million for construction of the seventh OPC and long-lead time materials for the eighth OPC; $135 million for the Waterways Commerce Cutter (WCC )including program management and production activities; $148 million for In-Service Vessel Sustainment activities on the 47’ motor- life boat, 270’ Medium Endurance Cutter, CGC Healy, 175’ buoy tender, and 418’ National Security Cutter (NSC); and $7 million to support post-delivery activities and program management for the eleventh NSC.
$206 million to recapitalize and sustain fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, including: $168M for sustainment and growth of the MH-60T helicopter fleet; $15M for program management for the HC-130J acquisition; $1M for installation of small, unmanned aircraft systems for the National Security Cutter fleet.
The FY 2025 Budget provides resources for the Coast Guard to conduct today’s highest priority operations in support of National objectives, including meaningful expansion in the Indo-Pacific through addition of personnel to bolster engagement in the region and procurement of highly capable Fast Response Cutters in support of the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States. Specifically:
$21M for Fast Response Cutter mission support personnel, a Marine Transportation System (MTS) Assessment Team to support regional economic prosperity, a Maritime Engagement Team focused on bolstering partner-nation capacity, and regional maritime advisors, liaison officers, attachés, legal support, and foreign engagement personnel strategically stationed to increase regional engagement.
Navy-Marine Corps’ use of experimentation and focus on force design to achieve a more integrated naval force. The Navy League also supports the aspirational goal of whatever force structure the Navy and Marine Corps finally determines, while acknowledging the fleet of the future will change with a mix of manned and unmanned platforms and adapt to supporting more distributed operations to take back the initiative in a great power competition.
Full funding of the Navy’s fiscal year 2025 shipbuilding plan with defined milestones to ensure the buildup of a more integrated and larger naval fleet.
A larger allocation of the fiscal year defense budget to fully realize a larger and more integrated maritime force structure to effectively compete with near peer rivals.
Continued development, procurement, and deployment of the Navy portion of the Ballistic Missile Defense System, including long-range surveillance and tracking capability to queue ground-based intercept systems and, ultimately, the ability to detect, track and engage medium- and long-range ballistic missiles distant from the United States.
The sea services’ maritime domain awareness effort, which integrates national and global partner intelligence resources and information systems to provide the best intelligence picture of the world’s oceans.
The Navy’s efforts to upgrade the quality and scope of mine countermeasure capabilities and improve the forward-deployed readiness of mine warfare forces.
Increased emphasis on, and funding for, Navy and Coast Guard operations in the polar regions to protect our access to natural resources, as well as preclude these regions from becoming sanctuaries for potential adversaries. Communications, logistics, ship and aircraft modifications are essential for such operations.
Increased emphasis on antisubmarine warfare, as our skills in that arena have atrophied in the face of an increasing threat.
31 Navy amphibious ships and sufficient sealift platforms to provide the expeditionary lift support for present and future combatant commander requirements.
Continued funding for combat logistics force assets, including oiler/dry cargo carriers; large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off ships; and new classes of sealift prepositioning vessels. These assets will be employed in the maritime prepositioning force (enhanced) squadrons.
Realistic and sufficient operational training to ensure the safe, combat-effective performance of our men and women, to include adequate flight hours and steaming days, live-fire events, as well as active sonar operations in ocean environments (taking into consideration how such operations impact marine mammals).
Accelerating the development of survivable tactical ISR UAS capability.
Capitalizing on the significant goodwill fostered by cooperation with multiple countries in response to piracy concerns.
Procurement of sufficient weapons and munitions to meet operation plan requirements, which are woefully inadequate. Additionally, there has been substantial war-gaming support to justify a recommendation that the Navy fund vertical-launch system rearming capability at sea to allow combatants to remain on station for longer periods of time.
Expansion of maritime fleet ranges in terms of access and readiness, while reducing impediments and obstructions that may limit the usefulness of these ranges for critical technology testing, maritime combat doctrine development, and robust and realistic training opportunities for fleet assets in a variety of live-fire individual, combined and joint exercises.
Continuing to invest in the transformation of the Coast Guard’s workforce, including support to further develop and modernize recruiting, training, retention, healthcare, child and family support, and personal and professional development.
Maintaining full funding for the Service’s largest recapitalization effort since World War II, with particular focus on:
the Polar Security Cutters (PSCs);
the Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs);
the Waterways Commerce Cutters (WCCs); and
the transition to an all MH-60 fleet.
Accelerating investment in technology to include continuation of the Coast Guard’s Technology Revolution initiative and additional funding to support the construction of resilient infrastructure.
Investing $300M in continued funding for the highest priority needs from the Coast Guard’s annual Unfunded Priorities List to address Service needs for operational assets, shore infrastructure, and personnel support.
The Coast Guard, Navy, and Marine Corps review the Tri-Service Strategic Plan every four years.
