President Donald Trump’s push to build a new fleet of battleships is drawing sharp criticism from defense analysts, who argue the plan would leave the Navy more vulnerable and less effective despite a massive price tag.
Trump has said he was inspired to invest in battleships after watching the 1950s documentary series “Victory at Sea,” which chronicled naval combat in World War II, but Navy expert Steve Cohen wrote an op-ed for the New York Times arguing that conflict demonstrated that aircraft carriers and destroyers, not battleships, were decisive in an era of aircraft and submarines.
“His plan would have been outdated a century ago,” wrote Cohen, a former member of the board of directors of the United States Naval Institute. “Unless senior Navy officials steer him off his course, the nation will spend billions to make the Navy more vulnerable and less deadly.”
Last year, Trump ordered construction of new battleships he said would be “the largest we’ve ever built,” with the Pentagon designating the lead ship, the Defiant, as the first of the “Trump class” — a break from Navy tradition of naming a class after its first vessel.
Then-Navy Secretary John Phelan was reportedly fired four months later after telling Trump the ship could not be delivered by 2028 as the president wanted, though work on the program continued.
The Congressional Budget Office’s newly released report projects the Defiant will cost just over $23 billion — $8 billion above the Navy’s original estimate — even though some of its planned weapons systems don’t yet exist.
Each of the 14 additional battleships planned is now projected to cost at least $18 billion, up from an initial $10 billion estimate, bringing the total program cost to roughly $275 billion. By comparison, the most expensive ship ever built for the Navy, the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, cost about $13 billion with overruns.
Critics argue that concentrating firepower in a small number of large, vulnerable ships runs counter to modern naval strategy, which favors distributing capability across many smaller vessels.
Harlan Ullman of the Atlantic Council said the cost of a single new battleship could instead buy five or six advanced guided-missile destroyers with greater combined firepower and antisubmarine capability.
The plan has drawn little public support even within Trump’s own party, with only one senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee voicing backing for it.
Trump has separately ordered future aircraft carriers to revert to 1950s-era steam catapults instead of the newer, more efficient electromagnetic systems now used by the U.S. and other major naval powers, including China.
“Most observers believe that a future Democratic administration would kill the battleship plan — and perhaps a Republican one would, too,” Cohen wrote. “But a lot of money could be wasted between now and then. As defense programs get going, more and more people have an interest in keeping the money flowing.”
“If Mr. Trump wants his name emblazoned on a big ship, the Navy should name a carrier after him,” Cohen added. “Just don’t tell him how the catapults work.”
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