Why the Golden Fleet Will Sail

There has been a backlash over President Trump’s call for a new class of battleships. Much of this concern misses the need for increasing naval firepower in support of existing doctrine and emerging concepts like hedge forces that can be tailored to different regions. Seen in this light, debates about the new battleship are better analyzed in relation to the enduring interest in arsenal ships and how to optimize massing cost-effective salvos in naval engagements, something both China and South Korea are exploring as well. And the idea deserves a healthy debate about the costs, benefits, and risks associated with launching new classes of ships and changing how the United States builds future fleets.

Design and Cost Concerns

There is a long history of searching for ways to field larger ships capable of massing long-range fires. In modern naval history, this extends back to debates about dreadnoughts. The early twentieth-century transition to the “all-big-gun” dreadnought was defined by a contentious trade-off between concentrated firepower and the escalating costs of naval supremacy. Critics of the era, such as the “Jeune École” in France, argued that the immense capital investment required for these behemoths made them “eggshells armed with hammers,” fearing they were too expensive to risk against burgeoning threats like torpedoes and mines. This debate highlighted an enduring tension in naval architecture: the struggle to balance the strategic necessity of massed effects with the fiscal and operational risks of placing high-value assets in increasingly lethal environments. Ultimately, the dreadnought era proved that while the price of admission to naval power is high, the search for a platform that can dominate through superior range and volume of fire remains a constant in maritime competition.

The emergence of the carrier didn’t negate the need for massing effects launched from surface combatants. The Soviet Union built nuclear-powered battlecruisers to mass anti-ship cruise missile salvos against the U.S. Navy. The heir to this class, the Russian Federation Ship Admiral Nakhimov, has 176 vertical launch system (VLS) cells. The Chinese continue to increase the size of their surface combatants. Type 052 has 64 VLS cells, while the follow-on Type 055 has 128 VLS cells. The first batch of the new South Korean Sejong-class destroyers has 128 VLS cells, 32 more cells than a Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer operated by the United States. Multiple navies want to achieve mass effects. Sometimes bigger is better, especially if it is cheaper per salvo launched.

In the United States, there is also a long-running debate about the utility of arsenal ships. The 1990s arsenal ship concept, championed by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jeremy Boorda and originally proposed by Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf and refined by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, envisioned a stealthy, low-profile vessel packed with up to 500 VLS cells to provide massive long-range fire support for land operations and littoral strike. Designed with a minimal crew, the ship was intended to act as a remote magazine, receiving targeting data from off-board platforms like Aegis cruisers or E-2 Hawkeyes via the Cooperative Engagement Capability. Proponents argued it offered a cost-effective way to mass fires, with an estimated price of $450–550 million per ship—roughly one-tenth the cost of a contemporary aircraft carrier. The idea was revived by Huntington Ingalls Industries and converted an LPD to carry 288 VLS cells. However, the concept sparked fierce debate over survivability and costs. These 1990s debates mirror modern concerns: the tension between placing a massive volume of fire on a single hull versus distributing that firepower across a larger, more resilient fleet of smaller, unmanned platforms.

As a result, calling for larger surface combatants that can mass fire salvos is not heretical. The larger question is what constitutes the best set of ship design options for massing effects over time. That requires thinking about costs as well as readiness, maintenance, and ship lifecycles before attacking the utility of any new class of combatant. It also requires a larger debate that brings together the Navy, the Department of War, the White House (i.e., Office of Management and Budget), and Congress to evaluate the options.

Turning to costs, while concerns are valid given the $10 billion price tag of the proposed battleship, every major class of modern warship is expensive and subject to cost overruns. In fact, U.S. Navy shipbuilding is consistently over budget and delayed. This extends to new classes, from the U.S. polar icebreaker to the recent shift in the frigate program.

The bigger announcement than the Trump-class battleship is that the Navy is going to change how it builds all ships. Both Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have zeroed in on cost overruns and delays in recent speeches. This focus follows the Maritime Action Plan announced by the White House in April 2025. That is what the critics are missing.

Calling for a new class of ship to help change construction paradigms, including finding ways to reduce costs by using AI, is a sound approach. Multiple researchers, including those at the International Monetary Fund and the World Economic Forum we are entering the next stage of the fourth industrial revolution. Technologies like digital twins and automated factories reduce the time and cost to build, something seen in South Korea shipyards and Tesla factories.

Combined with economic policy promoting onshoring, this creates a new age of U.S. manufacturing. New plans in the second Trump administration, like the AI Action Plan and multiple executive orders, directly call for creating the type of regulatory environment that supports this resurgence and complement efforts like the Maritime Industrial Base Program in the Department of the Navy. These initiatives extend to new ways of negotiating weapons purchases, such as the multiyear agreement to triple PAC-3 production, and new executive orders aimed at accelerating defense production. There are even provisions in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act to create government-owned production facilities. In other words, there are reasons to hope that the Trump administration and the Department of the Navy can reduce the costs of shipbuilding and delays, thus making even the high-priced battleship or equivalent arsenal ships cheaper than projected.

Conceptual Fit

Second, critics raise concerns that the battleship, which is only one part of the Golden Fleet, does not match current Navy doctrine. This statement is false. Distributed Maritime Operations calls for distributed ships to complicate enemy targeting. It still advocates massing effects in naval engagements. An arsenal ship that supports long-range strikes that can be integrated into larger pulse operations will be central to both maritime deterrence and joint warfighting.

Consider a future naval engagement in the first island chain. Large ships in a carrier strike group will seek to be outside the threat range, while smaller, unmanned ships will be forward using a mix of electronic decoys and attack to complicate enemy targeting in support of long-range strike packages that combine carrier air wings and air force assets alongside missiles launched from littoral rotational forces like the Marine Littoral Regiment and Multi-Domain Task Force. An arsenal ship adds to this pulse operation, freeing up the VLS cells on a destroyer to protect the carrier and even conduct ballistic missile defense as part of larger integrated air and missile defense networks that connect the land and sea.

Emerging ideas like the hedge strategy outlined by the chief of naval operations will also need to be backed by massed salvos, including hypersonic weapons envisioned for the battleship. The hedge strategy calls for tailoring hybrid fleets for different geographic challenges. Middle East contingencies, for example, will need a mix of counter-mine and air defense capabilities, while scenarios in the first island chain will need capabilities like replicator, attack subs, and joint fires networks. What these different regionally aligned hedge forces will also need is long-range precision strike, whether salvos launched from an arsenal ship, carrier air wing, or creative packages like Rapid Dragon that turn transport aircraft into palletized missile carriers. The idea is to reduce the stress on the large ships, not completely replace them. It is easy to imagine new classes of battleships serving as arsenal platforms that back forward-deployed hedge forces.

New defense planning guidance that will emerge from the National Security Strategy will also likely call for increasing the capacity for naval raids. Strikes against Islamic extremists in Northern Nigeria relied on surface combatants, as did Operation Rough Rider in the Red Sea. A new era of gunboat diplomacy calls for a bigger gun. With large, arsenal ships, the navy can support these raids without stressing high-demand destroyers needed for air and missile defense.

Conclusion: How to Evaluate the Battleship

Announcing a ship is different than fielding a fleet. It is a promise designed to guide reform as much as it is a design parameter. Calling for new classes of ships is as much about reforming the navy and catalyzing the industrial base as it is about fielding any one particular class of ship. The real message is one of change and what Secretary of the Navy Phelan calls the “re-industrialize 2.0” initiative.

In the end, if the battleship is a costly behemoth, it is suboptimal. If it is an arsenal ship that backs up distributed unmanned ships with long-range strike options whose production helps transform how the U.S. builds ships, it directly contributes to maritime strategy.

Benjamin Jensen is a senior fellow and the director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Futures Lab in Washington, D.C.