The Navy is currently a flaming hot mess. It’s not even debatable and I won’t bother
listing all the problems. President
Trump appears to recognize this to an unknown, but significant, degree and has
issued a memo calling for various actions to improve naval shipbuilding
capabilities and capacities.
The memo is a fascinating blend of solid, beneficial
concepts and technical and legal challenges.
It also fails to address, or even mention, the root cause of the Navy’s
shipbuilding woes. Let’s take a closer
look.
The very first sentence recognizes and states the problem
(well, one of the problems) quite forcefully and succinctly.
In plainer terms, it states that the Navy’s ship acquisition process is a steaming pile of crap and, very importantly, identifies at least a couple of the major contributing factors. Excellent!
It goes on to say,
That’s nice but it’s like calling for world peace – a noble goal but pointless without specific, effective actions and none are listed. Miss America calls for world peace every year but I’m pretty sure it’s still a problem.
We then see a vague recognition of part of the problem.
This is saying that the days of trying to incorporate non-existent, leap ahead technologies are over. That’s a great sentiment which I heartily endorse. Now, ruthlessly enforce it. However, there is also a potential pitfall here. If we never incorporate new technology, we’ll never advance. There needs to be a corresponding directive to make use of one-off prototypes specifically to evaluate and develop new technologies.
Now, here’s a stunner.
This has long been one of the President’s pet peeves and he appears to be trying to act on it. I fully support this but the inertia and incompetence in Navy leadership is not going to take this lying down. This will be vigorously opposed . Unless the President has the complete agreement and backing of SecNav and CNO, this will not happen. A great way to get such agreement and backing is to start firing people until people can be found who are on board with the President.
The memo repeatedly calls for foreign involvement in the
shipbuilding process, both directly and indirectly. This is a concept that has some appeal, under
certain, limited circumstances, but has a great deal of potential to run afoul
of legislative roadblocks. Beyond that,
what the President is calling for has been attempted and resulted in the
spectacular failures of the LCS and Constellation. Repeating a set of actions and expecting a
different outcome is the definition of insanity. This needs to be very carefully thought out
and managed and the Navy has emphatically demonstrated they have no such
management capability. Wholesale firings
of the existing flag ranks would go a long way to solving this.
Another major problem is addressed.
This is recognizing the destructive impact of the Navy’s never-ending change orders. Again, though, the embedded inertia of incompetent leadership will make this nearly impossible to enforce. Remember , the Constellation was going to a parent design with only minor changes and, yet, before it was cancelled, almost all commonality with the parent design had vanished. I enthusiastically support this but it will require ruthless enforcement. My suggestion is that any program manager who proposes a change order be summarily fired.
Here’s one of the major challenges that we mentioned above.
The President is going to find that getting Congress to go along with any attempt to utilize foreign shipyards is going to be poorly received and strongly opposed. There are also practical concerns with technological security. Still, under certain circumstances this could be beneficial. I’d prefer to build up our own shipbuilding capacity rather than rely on foreign involvement.
The memo calls for establishing a new public shipyard for
maintenance and support. Challenging but
outstanding!
Here’s another good idea.
Outstanding!
And finally, a major, major action calling for a gutting and
rework of NAVSEA.
This is saying what ComNavOps has been saying for some time – that NAVSEA is a failed organization of total incompetents. Outstanding, outstanding, outstanding!
Discussion
This memo has lots of good stuff in it and the Navy would be
far better off if they can be implemented.
The reality, however, is that any changes will be actively opposed and
unless SecDef and SecNav are willing to engage in wholesale firings, most it
will never occur.
I’m also dismayed that SecDef Hegseth did not implement all
of this on day one of his tenure. This
reinforces my belief that he is a failure, perhaps not as bad as some but
certainly a major disappointment. One
could read this memo as a criticism by the President of Hegseth and interpret
it as Hegseth failing to the point that the President felt he had to step in
and take over.
The aspect of all this that the memo failed to address is
that the root cause of the Navy’s failures is irredeemably incompetent
leadership from the flag officers. That
is what the memo should have led with and the solution is easy – fire them
all. Since Hegseth refuses to engage in
wholesale housecleaning, the actions called for in the memo will be vigorously
opposed and Trump and Hegseth will have only themselves to blame for their
disappointment when this fails to materialize.
Let’s hope for the best but the sad reality is that most of
this is a fantasy because they won’t take the necessary first step of mass
firings.
_________________________________
The United States Navy has experienced a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures …[1]
In plainer terms, it states that the Navy’s ship acquisition process is a steaming pile of crap and, very importantly, identifies at least a couple of the major contributing factors. Excellent!
The Department of War shall restore both capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base ,,,[1]
That’s nice but it’s like calling for world peace – a noble goal but pointless without specific, effective actions and none are listed. Miss America calls for world peace every year but I’m pretty sure it’s still a problem.
It will use proven, reliable, and affordable technologies and ship designs …[1]
This is saying that the days of trying to incorporate non-existent, leap ahead technologies are over. That’s a great sentiment which I heartily endorse. Now, ruthlessly enforce it. However, there is also a potential pitfall here. If we never incorporate new technology, we’ll never advance. There needs to be a corresponding directive to make use of one-off prototypes specifically to evaluate and develop new technologies.
Within 60 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall provide to the President, … a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of CVN-81 ...[1]
This has long been one of the President’s pet peeves and he appears to be trying to act on it. I fully support this but the inertia and incompetence in Navy leadership is not going to take this lying down. This will be vigorously opposed . Unless the President has the complete agreement and backing of SecNav and CNO, this will not happen. A great way to get such agreement and backing is to start firing people until people can be found who are on board with the President.
The Navy shall not impose iterative design changes upon the original mature parent designs within the above programs implemented pursuant to the plans developed under subsections (a) through (b) of this section. No changes from parent designs shall be made without the approval of the Secretary of War ,,,[1]
This is recognizing the destructive impact of the Navy’s never-ending change orders. Again, though, the embedded inertia of incompetent leadership will make this nearly impossible to enforce. Remember , the Constellation was going to a parent design with only minor changes and, yet, before it was cancelled, almost all commonality with the parent design had vanished. I enthusiastically support this but it will require ruthless enforcement. My suggestion is that any program manager who proposes a change order be summarily fired.
… for purposes of waiving the general prohibition on Armed Forces shipbuilding in foreign shipyards.[1]
The President is going to find that getting Congress to go along with any attempt to utilize foreign shipyards is going to be poorly received and strongly opposed. There are also practical concerns with technological security. Still, under certain circumstances this could be beneficial. I’d prefer to build up our own shipbuilding capacity rather than rely on foreign involvement.
… establish a Component Repair Center to receive new and refurbish old components and parts as required by the submarine repair industrial base.[1]
Outstanding!
Reforming Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall submit to the President, through the Director of OMB and the APNSA, a review of NAVSEA, including recommendations for implementing personnel, organizational, and structural reforms. The objective of these reforms should be to: introduce results‑based accountability for NAVSEA leadership, determined by speed of delivery of vessels and systems; reduce bureaucracy and red tape; eliminate competing priorities among different NAVSEA components, which often result in delayed, cost-prohibitive, or overly complex vessels and systems; and prevent NAVSEA from imposing redesigns or iterative design changes upon original mature parent designs.[1]
This is saying what ComNavOps has been saying for some time – that NAVSEA is a failed organization of total incompetents. Outstanding, outstanding, outstanding!
https://news.usni.org/2026/08/13/presidential-memo-rebuilding-the-united-states-navy-and-americas-shipbuilding-industrial-base
As I said with respect to war, it's impossible to separate from politics. In the practical sense, "fire them all" is the easiest and the president certainly has the authority. Exercising that option as a naked and dramatic display of power could lead to a loss of that power.
ReplyDeleteA speculative possibility is that this declaration of intent will lead to a politically safer method of eliminating many admirals. It might be politically impossible to fire them outright, but if they refused to follow orders, leak their gripes, or simply resign in protest, there's a pretext that even died in the wool bureaucrats can't dismiss (in fact, it's their natural methodology).
And yes, I think firing/cashiering the 80% of the GOFOs that should be would provoke a massive political crisis simply because the 40% of the country that hates Trump is (mostly) willing to fight literally anything he does. You can see this in the response to this memo. People are trying to say the Ford works well, when it's patently obvious it does not.