Planned New Battleships Come With a High Price Tag and an Uncertain Future |
Government Waste
Planned New Battleships Come With a High Price Tag and an Uncertain Future
Large warships could prove to be expensive drone sponges without a clear mission.
J.D. Tuccille | 8.21.2026 7:00 AM
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(Illustration: U.S. Navy Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Mark Logico/Wikimedia Commons/Michael Brochstein/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)
With control of the Strait of Hormuz up for grabs in the U.S. conflict with Iran, it's not surprising that President Donald Trump has naval matters on his mind. After all, patrolling sea lanes requires effective warships and the ability to keep them on station. The question is whether the president's ambitious plans for remaking the U.S. Navy with a new class of battleships and a return to older technology on aircraft carriers can live up to the hype. It's an important concern at a moment when U.S. federal debt has hit $40 trillion, because the Trump administration's plans are expensive.
New Battleships: High in Cool Factor and Expense
Last December, Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan announced "their intent to construct a new class of American-designed battleships that will be the most lethal surface combatant ever constructed."
Technical specifications published by the U.S. Naval Institute put the ships at more than 35,000 tons displacement. "That's more than double the size of the 15,000-ton Zumwalt class of destroyers, which is the largest surface combatant currently in the fleet," according to Mallory Shelbourne and Sam LaGrone of USNI News. Aircraft carriers like the USS Gerald R. Ford are larger, at around 100,000 tons, as are amphibious warfare ships like the USS America, at about 45,000 tons. But the new class of battleships, starting with the proposed USS Defiant, are combatant vessels........