World Geostrategic Insights interview with James R. Holmes on the U.S. Navy’s plan “Project 33”, and whether the United States still has maritime dominance.
James R. Holmes, Ph.D. is a professor of strategy, the inaugural holder of the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, U.S. Marine Corps University. He is a former naval surface warfare officer and veteran of the first Gulf War, serving as a weapons and engineering officer on the battleship Wisconsin. James has published over 30 book chapters and 400 scholarly essays, along with hundreds of opinion columns, think-tank analyses, and other works. His most recent books are Habits of Highly Effective Maritime Strategists (a nominee for the U.K. Maritime Foundation’s Mountbatten Award for Best Book of 2022), A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy, and a second edition of Red Star over the Pacific.
Q1 – The U.S. Navy has released ‘Project 33’. The initiative, announced by Admiral Lisa Franchetti in September 2024, represents a major strategic shift to prepare naval forces for a potential conflict with China by 2027. It is not limited to improving the Navy’s operational readiness, but aims to introduce new technologies, integrate autonomous and robotic systems, and improve logistics and supply chains to sustain a prolonged, high-intensity conflict. What is your view of such a plan?
A1 – It’s probably the best we can do in light of our straitened finances. It is doubtful we are going to get a big boost in our shipbuilding account under the incumbent lame-duck presidential administration and Congress. Nor do the incoming administration and Congress show much appetite to spend taxpayer dollars increasing the U.S. Navy’s fleet inventory, i.e., numbers of hulls in the water. Admiral Franchetti openly acknowledges that in her Navigation Plan, which is a good thing. Candor is good coming from senior leadership.
There is a peculiar dichotomy in U.S. Navy fleet design in recent years. Our programs meant to produce “platforms,” meaning warships, are in shambles. We are behind schedule across the board, and usually over budget to boot. But some good things are happening on the “payloads” side, meaning the weapons our platforms carry. To list just one example, our destroyers and F/A-18 fighter/attack planes now carry the long-range SM-6 missile, which can go after enemy warships as well as planes and missiles. That extends the fleet’s precision reach. The Red Sea has been an ideal proving ground for new payloads even though the number of platforms carrying them has stagnated.
Admiral Franchetti wants to maximize the combat readiness of our platforms while adding new sensors and payloads to their armament.That is a sensible approach under the circumstances.
Q2 – Throughout history, dominant powers have always controlled the seas. Likewise, naval defeats or the loss of naval dominance have often marked the decline of great powers. US Admiral Mahan argued that maritime power ‘implies both an economic and a military dimension’ and that free trading powers must possess a military force that guarantees effective freedom of the seas. Over the past eight years, Congress has allocated an additional $24 billion for warships, the largest spending item in the Pentagon budget. However, a recent report by a US research institute, ‘Measuring and Modelling Naval Presence’, states that the US Navy’s margin of leadership is shrinking and America could quickly lose its dominant presence and capability to ensure freedom of the seas. What is your opinion? Is US naval power in decline?
A2 – Inflation has eaten away that extra cash in recent years. All the way back to Secretary Mattis, the standard line out of the Pentagon maintains that we need shipbuilding budgets that rise 3-5 percent each year after accounting for inflation in order to expand the fleet to the degree successive administrations and Congresses have agreed we should. The fleet has grown a little, but it is nowhere near the 350, 355, or 381 ships various studies have said it needs to be. In fact, it may shrink in coming years as older ships retire faster than new ones are commissioned. Factoring in inflation, the defense budget has suffered cuts in recent years.That wears on U.S. maritime supremacy.
We are certainly behind our Chinese opponent in numbers of hulls, and mass matters. They expand while we contract. We are hoping to offset inferior numbers through novel payloads and sensors that make our platforms much heavier-hitting than our antagonists’. That will probably work to a degree, but China’s vast maritime-industrial complex will let the People’s Liberation Army Navy rebound after a battle, repairing or replacing damaged ships, whereas our shipbuilding complex is struggling to maintain the existing force in peacetime. China’s navy is resilient while ours is fragile.
So yeah, I would say our margin of dominance is shrinking if it still exists at all. Nor is this just a navy thing. Sea power is a joint endeavor in all regions that matter to us, in particular the Western Pacific. Armies, air forces, and shore-based missile forces are implements of maritime might as surely as navies are. China fields an array of access- and area-denial sensors and weaponry to supplement the PLA Navy’s organic firepower. A fraction of our force will face off against the combined weight of joint PLA sea power, including the PLA Air Force and Rocket Force, on China’s home ground. Who wins?
James R. Holmes, Ph.D. – J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy, U.S. Naval War College
Image Credit: MC2 Anthony Rivera/Navy (The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group transiting the Pacific Ocean).