Future Navy

May 2017

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The Future Navy

May 17, 2017

Over the past year there have been numerous studies, conducted by the Navy and several

other organizations, that have explored what the future fleet should look like.

Two consistent conclusions emerge from this body of work:

• First, the nation needs a more powerful Navy, on the order of 350 ships, that 

includes a combination of manned and unmanned systems.

• Second, more platforms are necessary but not sufficient. The Navy must also 

incorporate new technologies and new operational concepts.

Finally, as we increase our naval power, our focus cannot be on some distant goal decades in

the future. The Navy must get to work now to both build more ships, and to think forward -

innovate - as we go. To remain competitive, we must start today and we must improve faster.

Faster and More Complex. And Faster.

There is broad agreement that the current security environment is faster paced, more 

complex,and increasingly competitive. Time is an unforgiving characteristic of that 

environment - things are moving faster, including our competitors. More and more often you 

hear one word to describe the pace: exponential. In many ways, information technology is 

driving this. But the pace is quickening everywhere. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

General Dunford has made clear, more and more of our challenges are multi-domain, transregional, and multi-functional.

This exponential and complex dynamic is playing out on the seas. As the world’s population

rises, more of it is moving to the coasts. The number of megacities is projected to grow 

from 31 today to 41 by the end of the next decade; the vast majority of them will be within 

100 miles of the coastline. People are taking to the seas for trade and sustenance at rising 

rates: maritime traffic has risen by 400 percent over the last 25 years, and world aquaculture 

production increased 13-fold over about the same time frame. As maritime appetites grow, 

they are driving people to stake claims to oil, natural gas, and minerals that are increasingly 

accessible as technology advances and the polar ice cap recedes. And people are not just 

tapping into undersea resources, but using more of the sea floor itself. Ninety-nine percent 

of all intercontinental telecommunications ride on undersea cables, and the number of 

cables continues to grow to support our insatiable (exponential) demand for data.

“The Navy must get to work now to both build more ships, and to

think forward - innovate - as we go. To remain competitive, we must

start today and we must improve faster.”
These changes are shifting the character of naval competition and warfare, and are being

exploited, to varying degrees, by a range of competitors. Both China and Russia are able to

compete on a global scale, in all domains, and at competitive speed. They both possess

considerable space, cyber, and nuclear forces. Both are challenging U.S. influence and

interests in expanding areas of the world, often in maritime spaces. They have been very

explicit about their maritime intentions, and have moved out smartly to advance them. 

China’s 2015 white paper asserted that “[t]he traditional mentality that land outweighs sea 

must be abandoned...It is necessary for China to develop a modern maritime military force 

structure commensurate with its national security and development interests...so as to 

provide support for building itself into a maritime power.” This goal is reflected in China’s 

shipbuilding efforts, which analysts recently characterized as proceeding at a “frenetic pace,” 

with the fleet “modernizing at an incredible rate [that] shows no signs of abating.” As just 

two examples, until 2009, China had a single ballistic missile submarine; it has added another 

three since. And the Chinese Navy commissioned 18 ships last year. China has used this 

growing and modernized fleet to sail all over the world, visiting ports across the globe and 

establishing new overseas bases.

Russia has also laid out its plans, issuing a new maritime doctrine in 2015 aimed at

“strengthening Russia’s position as a sea power.” The Russian Navy has continued to build

modern frigates and corvettes, and expanded its operating areas in the Baltic, Black,

Mediterranean, and Caspian Seas. And as ever, Russia has sustained and modernized a

capable submarine fleet. Just last month, the Russian Navy launched the second of its

YASEN-class nuclear attack submarines, the latest step in a plan to recapitalize its submarine

force. 

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“[C]hanges are shifting the character of naval competition and

warfare, and are being exploited, to varying degrees, by a range of

competitors.”
North Korea’s President, Kim Jong Un, has been equally clear about his aims, boasting that 

his nation can “tip new-type intercontinental ballistic rockets with more powerful nuclear 

warheads and keep any cesspool of evils in the earth, including the U.S. mainland, within...

striking range.” His relentless pursuit of nuclear-capable missiles continues to destabilize not 

just north Asia but the world; Asian and western naval forces are an increasingly important 

contributor to the international community’s response. Iran presents a maritime challenge 

of a different nature. Its growing naval forces routinely exhibit provocative behavior in the 

Straits of Hormuz, Arabian Gulf and beyond. The Iranians’ support to proxies throughout 

the Middle East shows no signs of lessening. Here, too, U.S. and partner naval forces are on 

station in the interest of preserving freedom of navigation and access for trade and markets. 

Finally, there are terrorist groups, some of them supplied by Iran, that are firing missiles, 

smuggling weapons, laying mines off the coast of Yemen, and kidnapping and killing civilians 

in the Sulu Sea and elsewhere.

Response: Naval Forces

The challenges are serious. As an important part of the solution, U.S. naval forces, acting with

the rest of the U.S. joint force and with partners and allies, are particularly well suited to 

address the changing competition and shifting set of competitors. Complexity and pace 

place a premium on the ability to respond quickly, something that naval forces do well by 

virtue of their forward presence and ability to operate freely in international waters. National 

leaders can use naval forces (Navy and Marines) to react quickly, and can easily tailor that 

response to the circumstances at hand - to help local populations recover from natural 

disasters, attack terrorist encampments, or to suppress more sophisticated attacks.

The presence of capable platforms enables naval forces’ inherent responsiveness; they 

are also uniquely persistent. The same presence the Navy maintains around the world 

that allows it toreact quickly also provides U.S. leaders with a tool for long-term influence. 

This constancy deters conflict, assures our allies and partners, and offers them routine 

and plentiful opportunities for collaboration. Further, because U.S. ships are sovereign 

American territory, they offer unique diplomatic settings to conduct the nation’s business if 

needed. Finally, because they are self-sufficient when they respond, naval forces offer useful 

capabilities to assist in the initial response phases of a natural disaster. As full partners with 

the Army and Air Force as conflicts unfold, naval forces are often first on the scene, and 

continue to preserve U.S. interests in the long term, after the conflict subsides, through 

continued and routine operations forward.

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“Complexity and pace place a premium on the ability to respond

quickly, something that naval forces do well by virtue of their

forward presence and ability to operate freely in international

waters.”
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To address this rapidly changing security environment and achieve its mission, the Navy must

provide a balanced fleet that offers U.S. leaders credible options, in places of strategic

importance, at a relevant speed. That Navy is achieved through a fleet design and a resultant

fleet architecture that is powerful enough to achieve U.S. aims without conflict, but, if 

deterrence fails, to win quickly and decisively. The pace at which potential competitors 

are moving demands that we in turn increase the speed at which we act. Our advantage is 

shrinking -- we must reverse this trend.

The recent body of studies leads to some common conclusions about naval forces most

effectively providing credible options. One is that numbers matter. The number of ships in 

the Navy’s fleet determines where we can be, and being there is a key to naval power. As 

well, mere numbers are not enough: what a platform can do - how capable it is to create 

an effect - is increasingly important. Generally speaking, most analyses take an evolutionary 

approach that would seek to expand the current Navy much as it is, using current operating 

concepts, platforms, and modestly incorporating technological upgrades as they unfold. The 

Navy’s most recent Force Structure Assessment (FSA) was an evolutionary assessment. Using 

today’s fleet design and architecture and current platforms, the 2016 FSA estimated that the 

Navy battle fleet should grow to 355 ships.

Many of the ships currently in the fleet or under construction will be part of our future 

success, particularly as they are modernized. In parallel, Navy is already starting to 

implement a fleet design that portends significant changes in fleet architecture, and is 

seeking to deliver future capabilities more quickly to the waterfront. Put another way, a 

355-ship Navy using current technology is insufficient for maintaining maritime superiority. 

We must grow, yes. But we must also implement new ways of operating our battle fleet, 

which will comprise new types of ships. The clear conclusion is that linear expansion and 

improvement will not achieve the exponential pace that will enable us to win in the future.

 Figure 1: Proposed Navy Battle Fleet Sizes

“[A] 355-ship Navy using current technology is insufficient for

maintaining maritime superiority... we must also implement new

ways of operating our battle fleet, which will comprise new types of

ships.”
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This view is shared by many recent studies, which recommend some degree of non-linear

change. Most put forth what could be characterized as moderate departures from the linear:

larger fleets that incorporate some new technologies and capabilities, and in some cases

different methods of employing the fleet. The studies vary in their reliance on particular

technologies, reflect different views on how quickly those technologies might be integrated, 

and explore a range of possible implications for how the fleet might fight. While not all of 

this variation is captured in Figure 1 above, it does illustrate the range of proposed future 

battle fleet sizes in comparison to the Navy’s latest budget submission, and how those 

recommendations compare to the evolutionary approach taken in the 2016 FSA. What the 

figure also makes clear is that while the Navy has been on a growth path in recent years, a 

change will be required to reach and sustain sufficient numbers.according to these basic 

lines.

Shape of the Future Navy

So which of the above proposals makes the most sense for the future Navy? At the strategic

level, as stated above, the complexity of the environment and the inherent applicability 

of naval capabilities indicate that the Navy must be larger in order to continue to provide 

timely options for national leaders in areas that matter. Furthermore, platforms must be 

accompanied by adequate stocks of repair parts, maintenance programs, and sufficient 

numbers of trained people to stay balanced and capable. This reality is seen every day in 

the continued strains on the current fleet. The Navy must be able to operate in the blue sea 

outside the range of shore attacks, where there is primarily fleet-on-fleet action. Moving 

closer to land, the Navy must be effective in the intermediate seas, where long-range shorebased missiles contribute to the threat, and in the littoral zones where the variety and density 

of fires is more intense. In each zone, the Navy must be able to operate with sufficient 

numbers of the right kinds of capabilities to attack, deceive, and defend against adversary 

missiles, submarines, and cyber and electronic attack. So the future fleet will need to be 

larger and more capable, and arrive more quickly, than recent studies suggest.

There are many elements of this fleet that exist today, and that will continue to be relevant 

in the future. We will continue to rely on undersea superiority to guarantee a survivable leg 

of the strategic nuclear deterrent triad. As well, manned and unmanned submarines can 

penetrate deep inside most reconnaissance networks to perform a number of missions.

Naval aviation will continue to observe, orient, decide, and act against enemy forces, 

leveraging the maneuverability and proximity that can only come from being aboard a 

“Greater connectivity and capability will enable new ways to

combine ships, aircraft, and undersea forces that may enable

adjustments to the battle group and other formations.”
carrier. As technologies continue to advance, the future air wing must continue to adapt as 

it always has, particularly to increase its capacity to contribute to the sea control mission, 

conducting both kinetic and non-kinetic operations. To support this capability evolution and 

deploy the air wing to relevant places in the world with sufficient capacity, the Navy will need 

12 aircraft carriers to enable deployment of 5-6 carrier strike groups within relatively short 

time frames. In the shortand mid-terms, these will include a mix of 4th and 5th generation 

strike fighters, increasing numbers of unmanned air vehicles, and maritime patrol and 

electronic attack aircraft.

Changes in the air wing will be integrally linked to changes in the carrier strike group. 

Greater connectivity and capability will enable new ways to combine ships, aircraft, and 

undersea forces that may enable adjustments to the battle group and other formations. 

Very important here is the potential for increased capability and flexibility of amphibious 

ships, enabled by new aviation and weapons systems. Over the longer term, the range of 

possibilities will expand to more fully integrate space, surface, air, undersea, and cyber and 

electronic warfare capabilities.

The pace of change also demands that we design ships with modernization in mind. The 

“core” of those future ships - the hull, and the propulsion and power plants - will likely 

be built to last for decades. To leave room for future modernization, we should buy as 

much power capacity as we can afford. On top of that hull and power plant, we must plan 

from the outset to modernize the “punch” -- the combat systems, sensors, and payloads 

-- at the speed that technological advances allow. Future ships should be made for rapid 

improvement with modular weapons canisters and rapidly swappable electronic sensors and 

systems. Related, future designs must aggressively go after ways to drive down the costs to 

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operate and maintain the future fleet, no matter its composition.

There is no question that unmanned systems must also be an integral part of the future fleet.

The advantages such systems offer are even greater when they incorporate autonomy and

machine learning. And these platforms must be affordable enough to buy them in large

numbers, and networked in order to expand our presence in key areas.

To complement these capabilities, directed energy technologies, cyber tools, and advanced

missiles can cripple potential adversaries’ abilities to track or target our forces. Directed 

energy will also play a crucial and much more affordable role in defending against high rates 

of fire.

Netting the battle fleet together in ways that are reliable and secure will allow for maximum

flexibility. Strengthening and extending our nets will “raise all boats.” Those networks will

support multiple functions, but increasingly will also be a key enabler of artificial

intelligence-enabled tools, informed by data analysis, that will allow our commanders to 

make better decisions faster than our enemies.

Getting and Staying There

If these are key features of the future fleet, what can we do now to make that fleet real, as 

fast as possible? The short answer is that we must simultaneously build and innovate.

Let’s start with what we know. Multiple shipbuilding and aircraft production lines are “hot” -

currently producing. They can do more, building additional ships of the types already under

construction, more economically. Buying aircraft carriers at the economically-optimal rate - 

three or four years apart instead of the current five or more years - will not only get us a more

powerful fleet faster, but also will save considerable money. The same is true of surface

combatants; an analysis of the industrial base shows we could build up to seven additional

destroyers in the near term, and up to 14 more small surface combatants. We know we will

need the inherent flexibility of a larger amphibious fleet; the industrial base could build five 

more than we are currently planning over the next six years. Finally, we could also speed 

construction of up to 12 more combat logistics and command and support ships in the same 

time period.courses. 

In all, analysis shows that today’s industrial base has the capacity to construct 29 more ships

and almost 300 more aircraft over the next seven years than our current plan. Those 

platforms are ones that we are confident will continue to be relevant in the coming decades, 

and can better incorporate the modular approach described above.

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“There are other ways to get more capability for the dollar. Thinking

hard about the number and type of performance requirements for

future platforms can help find the “knees” in the cost-performance

curves.”
We should also assess how much additional capacity and capability we can get by upgrading

and extending the lives of platforms we currently have and are planning to retire.

There are other ways to get more capability for the dollar. Thinking hard about the number 

and type of performance requirements for future platforms can help find the ”knees” in the

cost-performance curves. A meaningful discussion to discover this optimal point would 

involve a team of industry leaders, technologists, our defense labs, the requirements officers, 

and our budget people. The conversation would determine the most achievable path 

to improve performance in a way that’s affordable, with low technological risk, on a wellunderstood schedule. The derived “cost-performance point” would then define the next 

improvement step, with the understanding that the following step would occur much sooner 

than it has in recent history - defining a rapidly iterative approach to improving performance. 

This requires acquisition practices that are far more agile than the ones we have now.

As well, if we build with faster improvement cycles, the inherent cost of our systems and

platforms can come down. Shifting more heavily to unmanned surface, undersea, and aircraft

will help us to further drive down unit costs. Energy-based weapons can be both more 

effective and put the Navy on the right side of the cost curve. Designing in the ability to 

modernize - plug and play hardware matched with software-programmability - will make 

upgrades quicker and more affordable even as we stay more capable.

Two thoughts as we get started. First, we need a year to consolidate our readiness and 

achieve better balance across the Navy. 2018 will be that year, and even as we restore 

wholeness, we’ll ensure that we continue to grow the Navy and establish a firm foundation 

for accelerating growth in following years. Next, as we move forward, we must remain open 

to the likelihood that achieving the Navy we need cannot be accomplished within historical 

levels of funding for ship construction -- more will be needed. Arresting the coming decline 

in fleet size means we must get more capable ships to sea as quickly as we can. We need 

to determine the best way to get the most overall capability in relevant timeframes, which 

will result from a mix of new and modernized hulls. From that starting point, we must focus 

our intellectual energies on defining the optimal mix of platforms for the future, within a 

timeframe appropriate to the dynamic complexity we face now and that will only intensify in 

the future.

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“We need this more powerful fleet in the 2020s, not the 2040s .”
 

 Figure 2: Resultant Capability of New Fleet Design and Architecture

Determining the eventual fleet composition - with the size and capability to deliver the 

required naval power - is important. The fleet must be larger and more powerful. But the 

urgent problem before us is that all studies show the need for more naval power, and 

without determined action, we will indeed see the Navy becomes less powerful. So we must 

rapidly increase the number and capability of platforms: we must get to a higher build rate 

from which we continue to work our way forward. We must arm those platforms with more 

effective, modernized payloads. We must make better use of sensor and communications 

apertures. We must operate on networks that will degrade more gracefully and heal faster 

than those of our rivals. Most importantly, the future fleet must be on station ASAP! We need 

this more powerful fleet in the 2020s, not the 2040s. To do that, we must get more capability 

out of what we already own, and bring new technologies and platforms into the mix as 

rapidly as possible. Figure 2 depicts the kind of fleet we must pursue: one that is larger, yes, 

but more capable than any of the recent analyses have suggested, and arriving much more 

quickly. In short, a Navy that achieves an exponential rate of improvement.

Given the attention that has been focused on the future Navy, many different thinkers have

independently arrived at similar conclusions - the writing on the wall is clear. The competition 

is on, and pace dominates. In an exponential competition, the winner takes all. We must 

shake off any vestiges of comfort or complacency that our previous advantages may have 

afforded us, and move out to build a larger, more distributed, and more capable battle fleet 

that can execute our mission. The foundation of that fleet will be leaders and teams who 

learn and adapt to achieve maximum possible performance, ready for decisive operations 

and combat. 

Time is of the essence.

“We must shake off any vestiges of comfort or complacency that

our previous advantages may have afforded us, and move out to

build a larger, more distributed, and more capable battle fleet that

can execute our mission.”

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