The US Navy has released its Navy Shipbuilding Plan. The Acting Secretary of the Navy, The Hon. Hung Cao stated in his foreword that: “We are at a strategic inflection point. For decades, while America’s attention was elsewhere, our adversaries built fleets at a pace not seen in generations.
“During this time, our own maritime industrial base was weakened by inconsistent demand and misaligned priorities. This left our Fleet smaller, our shipyards reduced in numbers and atrophied in capability, and our people facing unacceptable risk. We will not allow these conditions to continue.
Over a century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt sent our fleet of battleships and their escorts on an unprecedented voyage around the globe to demonstrate America’s interests, industrial might and resolve. The Great White Fleet was a clear, unmistakable signal of peace through strength.
Today, under the leadership of President Trump, we will launch the modern successor to that vision: the Golden Fleet. This is not merely a course correction; it is a generational undertaking to restore America’s position as a seapower state. It requires a clear-eyed strategy, sustained investment, and a direct commitment to the American worker who builds the ships and the Sailor and Marine who sail them into the fight.
This Shipbuilding Plan is our roadmap. It is built on three clear, enduring principles:
- Change How We Do Business: We are shifting from a slow, compliance-based bureaucracy to an accountable, warfighting enterprise. We will demand performance, reward speed, and empower our partners to deliver. We will no longer tolerate the backlogs that put our mission and America’s sons and daughters at risk.
- Enhance Maritime Dominance: We will build a larger, more lethal, and more balanced fleet. The Golden Fleet will deliver a high-low mix of advanced combatants, cost-effective frigates, and unmanned systems, giving our commanders the combat mass and flexibility to win any fight, any time.
- Revitalise Our Industrial Base: In accordance with the President’s Executive Order, we will “Restore America’s Maritime Dominance” and ignite a renaissance in American shipbuilding. Through a stable, long-term demand signal, we will unleash private investment, expand our manufacturing capacity across the nation, and create thousands of high-skill American jobs. A strong industrial base is not just an economic goal; it is a national security imperative.”
Notably in respect to the AUKUS program, the Long Range procurement profile for Attack Submarines “do not reflect future adjustments to support the AUKUS trilateral agreement.” The Plan states that ”Future Procurement Profiles, Battle Force Delivery, Retirement and Inventory Plans will be updated in future reports after further analysis refines future SSN workload.” (see Table A1-2 on page 42.)
The Plan also states that the Trump class battleships will be nuclear-powered. It said that:
“The nuclear-powered Battleship is designed to provide the Fleet with a significant increase in combat power by longer endurance, higher speed, and accommodating advanced weapon systems required for modern warfare. Adding capability at the highest end of the high- low mix, the Battleship’s primary role is to deliver high-volume, long-range offensive fires and serve as a robust, survivable forward command and control platform, it is not a destroyer replacement. In particular, the decision to expand the size and energy density of the Battleship offers key advantages for the future fight:
- Advanced Payload Modules and the space for future vertical launch systems give the Battleship true long-range strike capability to engage the enemy with hypersonic weapons and other capabilities beyond the capacity of the current Mark 41 cell. The ability to deploy theatre nuclear weapons from surface units forces our adversaries into difficult strategic calculations, bolstering our overall deterrence.
- Vastly increased power generation capacity provides warfighting capability across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including through electronic warfare tools and high- output lasers that allow us to reduce reliance on high-cost single-use munitions for both attack and defence.
- Advanced naval gunfire capabilities provide new options for medium-range strike, support to amphibious forces, and even air defence at a vastly reduced cost-per-round than missiles alone.
- The internal volume and capability to embark a fleet command staff allows us to take the Maritime Operations Center concept to sea. As a tactical command-and-control platform, the Battleship can lead a Surface Action Group (SAG), integrate its systems with a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) for layered defence, or operate autonomously, possessing the organic capability to defeat advanced threats and distributing our force capability.
- Combined capability in all warfighting domains allows the Battleship to singlehandedly perform key missions to the sustainment of commerce, like holding open choke points on critical sea lines of communication that would otherwise require a wider commitment of assets from the fleet.
In addition to these discrete benefits, the Battleship also offers two broader unique advantages.
First, it represents a commitment to the future. The Navy procures ships that it will use for decades. If we constrain ourselves in design and capacity to the capabilities in use today, there will be no place for the weapons, combat systems, or other innovations that future advancements will prove. The Battleship ensures that the hull forms of today do not constrain the genius of tomorrow and offers room in every kind of capacity to ensure that the Navy can bring to bear on the sea the most dominant capabilities American invention can create.
Second, the Battleship provides distinct enhancements to deterrence. While unseen platforms like submarines and space systems can give adversaries pause by creating uncertainty, ensuring peace through strength ultimately requires presence. The arrival of a Battleship, whether in the port of an ally or on the horizon of an enemy, sends an unmistakable signal of American resolve matched today only by our aircraft carriers. The Battleship’s design will inspire confidence in our friends and fear in our adversaries, with the capacity and capability to hold fast in contested seas, to both lead and win any fight, anytime, anywhere.”
The Navy Shipbuilding Plan can be downloaded at:
https://media.defence.gov/2026/May/11/2003928909/-1/-1/1/NAVY%20SHIPBUILDING%20PLAN%20MAY%202026.PDF
