by James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer
Senator Tim Sheehy emphasized rebuilding America’s shipbuilding industry as vital to countering China’s growing naval power during Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing.
This past week, the U.S. Senator from Montana, Senator Tim Sheehy, asked the very last, but the single most important question of the day during Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing: “How are you going to lead the reinvigoration of our national shipbuilding industry and restore our Navy?” While much of the rest of the hearing was a spectacle of hysterical accusations and a cavalcade of calumnies, Senator Sheehy’s last question of the day brought up the most important issue facing America’s national defense. Pete Hegseth was well prepared for this question and responded by quoting President Trump, who has said that “shipbuilding will be one of his absolute top priorities” and that Mr. Hegseth, once confirmed, will be pulling this issue up into the Office of the Secretary of Defense so that “the bureaucracy does not strangle important initiatives that need to happen.” Mr. Hegseth went on to say that America “needed to reinvigorate our capacity” by making “rapid investment, rapid fielding,” and then “to incentivize outside entities to fill the gap” as we make historic investment into our defense industrial base.
This may seem like a new challenge for most Americans who are tired of endless wars in the Middle East, so it is worth setting the stage as to why such an effort is urgently needed. It is for three major reasons.
First, the focus of the Pentagon for the last 35 years has been land wars in the Middle East and support of the land war in Ukraine; however, the fight that is brewing from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will not be a land war. It will be a contest of war at sea across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. This struggle will be one where the U.S. will face the great challenge, not seen since WWII, of taking the fight to the PRC and sustaining the sea lines of communication to allies and partners in the region. The Pentagon is in a difficult process of rethinking and recapitalizing its forces as it confronts the intense security threat from the PRC. This burden falls on the totality of the U.S. military, but the U.S. Navy has pride of place in the current cold war with the PRC.
Second, the Indo-Pacific’s geography is tyrannical and poses a major problem for the U.S. military. The distances are so vast that they are difficult to comprehend. For instance, the area of responsibility for the Indo-Pacific, the most likely area of conflict, is one-half of the earth’s surface. From Hollywood to Bollywood, American naval forces would have to travel nearly 10,000 miles and 12 time zones. Forces flowing from San Diego into the First Island Chain, from Japan through Taiwan to Luzon, would need two weeks to transit, while naval forces forward deployed to Guam would need just four days. Time and distance matter for deterrence. To deter the PRC, or in the worst-case scenarios, defeat the PLA Navy, the U.S. needs a naval force that is large enough to allow for forces to be present consistently in the region and for reinforcements to be able to flow forward rapidly to the theater. These critical components, a muscular presence backed by even more muscle, are elements for deterrence and warfighting that the U.S. is desperately short of today.
Third, for the past two decades, the world has watched as the naval balance of power has shifted in the Indo-Pacific from the U.S. to the PRC. This fact has brought into the open the debate about the future of the U.S. Navy, which has been exacerbated by the poor state of the U.S. shipbuilding industry. For example, in April 2024, the U.S. Navy announced significant delays in its shipbuilding schedule. The new Constellation-class frigate may be up to three years late, the aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-80) is expected to be 16 to 18 months behind schedule, and the lead boat for the Columbia-class ballistic missile nuclear submarine could be delayed by 12 to 16 months.
Additionally, the Virginia-class Block IV and V fast-attack nuclear submarines are facing delays of two to three years. Furthermore, the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and the John Lewis-class fleet replenishment oilers are all “late to contract,” affecting their delivery times. Building vessels is never easy. But U.S. national security depends upon it. The U.S. must possess a shipbuilding industry that is broad, deep, and flexible and can meet the great demands U.S. national security requires.
The balance of naval power in the Western Pacific has undeniably shifted in favor of the PRC, which now maintains an advantage over the U.S. Navy in terms of total warships. The PRC’s overall naval battle force is expected to grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030, with most of this growth occurring in major surface combatants, including at least six aircraft carriers. By comparison, the U.S. Navy, which stands at 292 naval combatants as of January 29, 2024, is projected under the Biden administration’s last budget submission for 2024 to include only 290 battle force ships by the end of the fiscal year in 2030.
The issue of reinvigorating our national shipbuilding industry is not limited to the U.S. Navy; the PRC also has the biggest coast guard in the world, standing at 500 ships, some of which are larger (over 10,000 tons) than the U.S. Navy’s largest destroyers. In addition, the PRC has a very large maritime militia of vessels that protect and assist the PRC’s fishing fleet, the largest in the world, as it expands Beijing’s economic interests around the globe. Thus, the U.S. Navy faces not only the PRC’s Navy but also its coast guard, maritime militia, and fishing and merchant fleets, which add formidable capabilities.
Numbers matter for deterrence and warfighting—and that means numbers today, not tomorrow. As it relates to the Constellation-class frigate deal that President Trump negotiated during his first administration, he expressed his frustration in a radio interview on 6 January. He stated that “they were going and really doing a good job, and the generals, you know, the Biden admirals and generals and all of the people that are involved, they started playing around and tinkering and changing the design,” and “when you start making it wider, you start making it slower.” Thus, Trump identified that we have fewer warships than we need for being able to deter the PLA Navy, or in the worst case, to win a war at sea that would be launched by Beijing.
In this context, it is useful to recall U.S. Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger’s remarks in the early 1980s about the new Army M1 Abrams main battle tank. The 120mm main armament was not yet ready, and rather than delaying production, Weinberger recognized that an M1 with a 105mm gun was a significant improvement today—that is, right now—over the Army’s M60A3 to meet the formidable threat from the Warsaw Pact. An improvement in capabilities today on the Central Front was critical, while future improvements would come along in due course.
With the election of Donald Trump and his “America First” agenda, the ongoing debate in Washington about the future of the U.S. Navy may soon find resolution. The outcome will not only affect America’s national defense but will likely also alter the naval forces and security postures of both Asia and Europe. These changes will determine the future of global naval supremacy, whether “freedom of the seas” remains available to all nations or is crushed by the PRC, and a hyper-aggressive PRC remains undeterred to achieve its goal of destroying America.
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James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure. The views expressed are their own.
James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/19/the-last-question-is-the-most-important-question/
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