BREAKING NEWS: Navy League urges rapid expansion of battle fleet for future wars.

BREAKING NEWS: Navy League urges rapid expansion of battle fleet for future wars.

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U.S. leaders should invest at least $40 billion every year to grow and maintain the country’s fleet of battle force ships in preparation for long-term and large-scale wars, the nonprofit Navy League urged in a policy statement unveiled Thursday.

 

The statement also called on Congress to increase funding for a Navy plan to revitalize public shipyards, add to the Coast Guard’s fleet of polar icebreakers and spend more on producing munitions to prepare for a “possible great power conflict.”

The nonprofit, which supports the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine, releases policy statements every other year to help guide lawmakers as they make decisions about maritime power.

 

In the wake of territorial disputes in the South China Sea, an ongoing fight against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, an escalating NATO-Russia contest in the Baltic Sea, increased competition between the U.S. and its adversaries over Arctic sea lanes and a looming Chinese threat to Taiwan, the Navy League focused its priorities for 2025 and 2026 on building up the fleet, as well as the shipbuilding industry’s ability to maintain more ships — and do it faster.

 

“America is undoubtedly a maritime nation, and our safety, security and prosperity depend on strength in this domain,” retired Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris said on a call with reporters Thursday. “American seapower is essential to global security.”

Challenges facing the country’s seapower “continue to grow with each passing day,” added Harris, the national vice president of the Navy League.

 

The nonprofit isn’t expecting an easy pathway to sway Congress toward huge investments in maritime power, said Jonathan Kaskin, the Navy League’s chair of Merchant Marine affairs. The policy statement would “give the Hill the background needed to provide additional resources,” he said, adding the caveat that they “will be very challenging to obtain in this fiscal environment.”

 

The nonprofit’s recommended $40 billion per year for battle force ships matches the cost associated with the Navy’s newest proposal to Congress. Under that proposal, the service would need to spend $40.1 billion on shipbuilding every year through 2054, for a total of more than $1 trillion, according to analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.