The President says the battleship will return as the centerpiece of his new Golden Fleet
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| My latest piece over at The Spectator touches on a topic that is near and dear to my heart: the battleship. President Trump has mooted the concept of bringing the ship class back into service as part of his revamped “Golden Fleet” meant to counter China, but is it a good idea? In the article, I discuss the pros and cons of the suggestion, explaining why the battleship went by the wayside and how it could be useful for the naval combat of the future. Below is an excerpt, but you can read the whole thing here. The China challenge is not in the far future. It is here in the present. America’s limited resources should, in the minds of the battleship skeptics, be ruthlessly prioritized to build as many useful, proven ships as quickly as possible. China’s navy is larger than our own and we need to play catch-up. If we decide to innovate a novel design, we will only fall further behind Beijing at a time in which we cannot afford to. The American people are only so willing to incur more debt and finance larger military budgets, even in the face of a powerful adversary. Prioritization is necessary to make the most of our constraints and still achieve victory. And achieving that victory is a must.
America is historically a maritime power built around a mighty naval force that defends our interests and commerce abroad. The past two decades of land-based imperial policing actions in Western Asia have abstracted us from that storied history and downplayed our innate national advantages. Focusing on our naval mission, especially in an era of Great Power conflict, is crucial. It, alongside our aerospace dominance, will be the defining military factor in any American success over the coming decades. The battleship may or may not be a part of that success, but the conversation that the idea has sparked is a prerequisite for achieving it.
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