The US Navy is in Trouble

On Sunday, the 16th of August, Trita Parsi, the co-founder and executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, made a post on X that has gone so viral even RFK Jr. would want to get vaccinated against it.

And that's saying something. the time of recording, it has been reposted 7,000 times at 38,000 likes and over 16 million views. The post showed the right-wing flap of a KC-135R strato-tanker, a plane used to refuel other planes in midair with what can only be described as creative graffiti.

The had gems such as P-Still-64 incoming, Operation Epstein Fury, and a whole host of others that we can't mention without getting demonetized. The graffiti expressed a level of dissatisfaction that we rarely see out of the American military. course, if it was just one photo, then we wouldn't be making an entire video about it.

However, combined with other stories that are emerging, such as sailors trying to jump off an aircraft carrier, a fleet stretched thinner than it's been in decades, and a White House rewriting warship designs based on unusual aesthetic preferences, while the situation gets a lot more concerning.

Because taken all together, these incidents create a picture of a Navy that, while far from crisis point, is certainly looking more tired, more demoralized, and more overworked than its reputation would suggest. At Sea Late last month, the USS Benford, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, lost power during routine operations in the Indo-Pacific.

The ship lost the ability to maneuver on its own, and perhaps more importantly for its crew of about 300 sailors, they had to make do without working toilets, air conditioning, even kitchens. the crew, this couldn't have come at a worse time, because they were dealing with temperatures that CNN described as blistering.

The Navy later released a statement blaming the power loss, which lasted four days, on an engineering failure. No sh**. On its own, this is just an unfortunate accident that the crew could later joke about.

However, it captured the attention of observers, because the Benfold is usually part of the strike group that accompanies the aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington.

And while the Benfold is currently over in Asia, the Washington is en route to replace another ship where conditions are not great, the USS Lincoln. that connection between the two unfortunate ships was just too powerful to resist.

USS Abraham Lincoln left naval base San Diego in November 2025, and nine months later, it still hasn't come home. a single overnight stop in Guam in December, during which most of the sailors couldn't get off the ship, the carrier went 208 straight days without touching port again.

This broke the previous modern-day record of 206 days, which had been set by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower during the pandemic. The Lincoln finally made a brief stop at Dukomport in Amman on the 7th of July.

But even then, the sailors didn't get much reprieve, because while they were allowed off the ship, they had to stay at a secure compound within the port, basically going from being trapped at sea to being trapped on land. then the ship left port again, and they were back to being trapped at sea and that raises an interesting question why did the lincoln

Spend so much time at sea well during a normal deployment carriers can expect to pull into a port every 30 to 45 days that's when the crew can rest and stock up on supplies because there's only so much you can carry on a ship even when the ship in question is absolutely gigantic the lincoln didn't get to do that because there wasn't a safe port for it to

Stop at iran as part of its strategy to expand the war horizontally and inflict as much pain as possible on america's regional allies has hit a lot of the ports in the region that the lincoln would have traditionally docked at in fact a few days after the lincoln stopped at to come the irgc claims that they had struck logistics support facilities and

Refueling platforms used by american aircraft carriers at that very port as iran expanded its war efforts the lincoln was asked to do more including launching airstrikes and participating in the blockade of hormuz a mission that currently seems fated to continue for the next century and a half or something all of this would have been broadly tolerable if the

Supply chain had remained relatively stable but you could probably guess by now that it didn't in the early days of the war iranian missiles and drones hit the u.s navy base in bahrain the facility that had served as the fifth fleet's main logistics of the decades with that base out of commission and other regional ports considered too exposed the pentagon

Shifted its logistics hub to diego garcia an island in british indian ocean territory where the uk and the u.s run a joint base the only problem was that the same thing that made diego garcia an attractive choice namely that it's about 3 500 kilometers away from iran also meant that the sailors would experience significant delays in receiving supplies the

Weight of all of this stress clearly affected the lincoln's crew cnn reports that two sailors from the lincoln strike group jumped overboard in recent months both sailors were rescued alive and others were stopped before they made it over the railing one sailor's wife told the navy times that her husband tried to jump because he was burnt out none of this is

Particularly unique to the lincoln ships break down sailors get exhausted supply lines get disrupted i mean this happens in every war mike bell a retired chief petty officer who spent 20 years in the navy told the warfronts team that he had once spent 59 days at sea which significantly affected the mental health of his colleagues yet there are signs that

Recently many ships are starting to feel the strain admiral daryl cordall chief of navy operations said that the navy aimed to provide predictable three-year cycles for sailors that included a 210 day deployment or about seven months for a while the navy was on track to achieve that between 2018 and 2022 most deployments were within that target plus or minus

A few days to be clear that's the length of the deployment away from home port not the amount of time spent at sea that 210 days at sea would be done in batches of 30 to 45 days with port breaks in between to stop everyone going crazy but even the deployments themselves are now getting longer the length changed after hamas's october 2023 attacks on israel

The uss gerald r ford and the uss dwight d eisenhower had their time at sea extended after the war the ford spent 260 days away while the eisenhower spent 274. that might sound like small increases but when that means an extra 50 to 60 days away from your wife or your husband and your children on top of the original seven months well you could see why that

Might be tough on people over the next few years the length of deployments would keep increasing three deployments that began in 2024 past 250 days and in 2025 there were two deployments that exceeded 270. the increasing lengths of these deployments are a symptom of the main issue the fact that the u.s navy is currently stretched too thin the u.s navy has

About 293 ships in its fleet which is well below the number that most experts both inside the government and outside of it believe is necessary to keep up with the demands placed on the navy for comparison in 1987 the navy had 594 ships at its disposal which gave it greater operational leeway aircraft carriers really highlight the problem here because there

Are only 11 of them and two are currently in dry dark instead of in the fleet the uss john c stennis at nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarrier is currently in virginia for a scheduled refueling and complex overhaul or rcoh which began in 2021 and was supposed to take about three years it's now been more than five the other aircraft carrier that's

Unavailable is the uss harry truman another nimitz class carrier which began its own rcoh in june this year with two major ships out of commission washington has fewer options when it needs to rotate the ones out that have already spent time in the middle east it's not as simple as simply pulling a ship from wherever it might be every carrier cycles through

The same process deploy come home and stand down for months of maintenance then spend more months training up before it's ready to go out again most of the fleet is somewhere in that cycle at any given time not sitting idle and available to quickly swoop in and save the day if a mission goes too long or if a ship has a major issue that renders it inoperable

Take the uss george washington for instance it's being pulled out of a deployment in the indo-pacific theater at a time when china is becoming a lot more aggressive the decision to pull it out means that washington has no aircraft carriers in asia at the moment and should anything happen on the continent its ability to respond will be severely limited all of

This stress shows up in the sailors rear admiral jennifer couture the navy's director of military personnel plans and policy told the military times that an analysis of exit strategies completed by sailors departing the service has found that the main reason most were leaving was because of burnout from the high operational tempo retention among naval

Aviators and maintenance crews has become enough of a concern this year that secretary of defense pete hegseth ordered a formal review of it for navy strike fight squadrons and the navy is offering flight officers and aviators bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars a year just to keep them from leaving and while the u.s military has a near infinite

Budget there is only so much stress burnout bad food and time away from their families that most people are willing to tolerate days before they straight up just quit, especially when their families In 2024, the military surveyed the spouses of active-duty troops and found that 32% would like to see their partner leave the military, up from 27% in 2021.

Similar fatigue shows up in the ships.

Experts told CNN that on extended missions, components can wear out faster and repair jobs at sea are at best a band-aid. issues can also add up, increasing the likelihood of a major catastrophic failure. being overstretched was the only problem the Navy had, though, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Once the war on Iran ends, the pressure will reduce and the deployments will hopefully go back to their normal length. being overstretched, it's really just the tip of the Titanic-sized iceberg here, because there are subsurface forces at work here making all of this into a bigger problem than anyone is willing to admit. the iceberg The basic major issue

That the American Navy is facing is the fact that it isn't building enough ships, especially when compared with its main rival, China.

Washington estimates that China's shipbuilding capacity is roughly 230 times larger than America's. China's shipyards can produce about 23.25 million tons of shipping a year. American shipyards can produce less than 100,000. believes that by 2035, China will have amassed 475 battleships, while the US will have between 305 and 317.

The gap between American and Chinese shipbuilding capabilities did not happen overnight. shipbuilding subsidies expired in 1981, and the commercial shipbuilding industry that used to keep American yards busy between military contracts collapsed with them. Between 1987 and 1992, US shipyards sold a total of eight commercial ships over 1,000 tons.

For comparison, they sold 77 in 1975 alone.

Without the commercial work, the yards closed and the ones that survived atrophied, leaving only a few capable of building major combat ships. 2026, that number had dropped from 55 to just seven. White House knows just how big of a gap that it has to overcome.

It requested roughly $65.8 billion for naval shipbuilding in its 2027 fiscal year budget, $20 billion increase from the previous year.

Adjusting for inflation, this would be America's largest financial commitment to shipbuilding since 1962. would fund the construction of 34 ships, supporting President Trump's vision for a golden fleet and the creation of a Trump-class battleship and a next-generation frigate.

But while the money will go a long way toward revitalizing the shipbuilding industry, it doesn't fix everything on its own, at least not quickly. industry suffers from very brittle supply chains, with builders overly reliant on individual suppliers and often forced to start projects without all the parts needed to complete them.

Building a second qualified supplier for specialized components, especially anything nuclear-rated, years of testing and certification. of funding can compress that timeline.

The industry also faces a shortage of skilled workers, with the consulting firm McKinsey estimating that the sector would need 200,000 to 250,000 additional workers over the coming decade to meet military and commercial demand.

While raising pay would vastly increase the number of people interested in shipbuilding jobs, they still need to be trained and certified, which could take years, especially if they are working with nuclear materials.

And the sensitive nature of this work, which sometimes requires shipbuilders to get security clearances, means that the industry can't just quickly plug its shortfalls with foreign workers.

All of these issues compound, meaning that when America completes a ship, it's often months or years behind schedule and at a higher cost than was initially planned. If America is to once again become a naval powerhouse, it needs to figure out a way to fix these issues, and quickly.

But even if Washington had a magic wand that could fix all of these issues today, there's still one issue that would hang around the shipbuilding industry like an albatross around its neck. yes, that was a reference to a famous nautical poem, thank you for noticing.

And that albatross is political interference. the 13th of August, the White House issued a memo and a fact sheet directing Pete Hegseth to submit a plan within 60 days to install steam-powered catapults instead of the Ford-class's electromagnetic launch system on the USS Doris Miller, a Ford-class carrier that is still under construction, which is expected

To enter service around 2034.

The White House justified this demand by saying that it would fix critical long-term issues in shipbuilding and restore capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base. However, several naval analysts see it differently.

Brian Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told CNN that the redesign would probably cost billions of dollars and could push the completion date into the late 2030s. Part of the problem is that the U.S. stopped building steam catapults years ago.

Christopher Kavis, a journalist and the host of a podcast on naval issues, told the outlet, quoting him here, But it isn't just issues with Trump suddenly demanding old-school catapults on his vessels.

The Washington Post reports that the Navy is also reviewing whether to move the island, the multi-story tower that serves as a carrier's command center, from its current position, near the rear of Ford-class ships, to the middle, so the ships look more like World War II-era carriers, which President Trump finds more aesthetically pleasing.

The island's current position was chosen primarily for operational reasons. It gives aircraft more room to line up near the catapults, shortens launch times, and reduces turbulence during landings.

Changing the design would eliminate all of those benefits. The Navy studied this exact change during Trump's first term and found it would cost billions and cause major delays. The fact that Trump is bringing it back, despite this earlier review, is a major challenge to the Navy's ability to plan on the kind of timeline shipbuilding actually runs on.

Every part of this industry works in years, not months. the industry doesn't have the certainty it needs, then it can't deliver the ships that America needs to run remain competitive on the global stage.

And that would be a real worry, because US Navy has long been an important tool in America's power projection arsenal, but if it can't fix a fleet that is stretched too thin to cover deployments or get the nation's shipbuilding industry back on track, then broken toilets and long deployments will be the least of Washington's concerns.

Especially when China has proven extremely capable of catching up to America's maritime potential.

Thank you for watching.