The Navy's New Plans For a 355-Ship Battlefleet to Fight Russia and China

Dave Majumdar

Security, United States

"Our Navy must continue to grow."

The United States Navy has completed its new 2016 Force Structure Assessment and the verdict is that the service needs to grow its battle fleet 47 ship and submarines. While the current plan called for a fleet of 308 ships, the new plan calls for a 355-ship fleet—including 12 aircraft carriers, 38 amphibious assault ships, 104 large surface combatants, 66 submarines, and 52 small surface combatants.

"To continue to protect America and defend our strategic interests around the world, all while continuing the counter terrorism fight and appropriately competing with a growing China and resurgent Russia, our Navy must continue to grow," said Ray Mabus, the outgoing Secretary of the Navy in a statement. "All of the analysis done to date, inside and outside of the Navy, recognizes, as we have for nearly the last eight years, the need for a larger Fleet. That is why, working with Congress and our partners in industry, we have successfully reversed the decline in shipbuilding that occurred from 2001-2009, putting 86 ships under contract over the last seven years. Maintaining this momentum, and the cost-saving business practices we have established, will be critical to ensuring the Navy is able to achieve the FSA-recommended fleet size and is positioned to maintain the global presence the Navy and Marine Corps uniquely provide our nation."

Mabus drafted the plan in anticipation of the incoming Trump Administration, which has promised to ramp up defense spending. Indeed, in drafting the new plan, Mabus had to defy the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter—who had demanded the fiscal year 2018 budget conform to the Budget Control Act of 2011. The Navy, however, submitted a budget that is some $17 billion over those limits in anticipation of a more permissive spending environment when the new administration takes office on Jan. 20, 2017.

The Navy provided The National Interest with a summary of the 2016 FSA.

Table 1: Naval Battle Force Requirements

- Aircraft Carriers FY 2014: 11 FY 2016:12

- Large Surface Combatants FY 2014: 88 FY 2016:104