According to a report by the U.S. publication "NSJ" on September 13, the U.S. Navy proposed in its fiscal year 2026 budget to build up to 26 new ships with a total budget of $47.3 billion, aiming to achieve a fleet blueprint of 381 manned vessels plus 134 unmanned vessels within the next 30 years.

The report pointed out that this ambitious plan is intended to compensate for the U.S. military's disadvantage in quantity being surpassed by China and to maintain global maritime dominance.

However, the article also acknowledges that this goal is almost impossible to achieve.

In recent years, the U.S. Navy has built at most 6 to 9 ships per year, while this sudden increase to 26 ships is difficult to match in terms of shipbuilding capacity, human resources, budget control, and construction cycles.

Domestic U.S. shipyards are generally equipped with outdated facilities and have a shortage of manpower. The four public shipyards have an average age of over 75 years, and delayed maintenance periods have become the norm. Some ships even require six years to complete a mid-life overhaul.

Even though the goal sounds grand, the military is well aware of its deep-seated problems. However, when facing China's rapid pace of building warships, they can only put forward a plan that at least appears to be making efforts.

This mindset is: although we know we cannot do it, you cannot say we didn't intend to do it.

U.S. port

Facing the current state of the U.S. shipbuilding industry, American media attempts to offer a set of self-rescue lists.

The article lists a series of reform recommendations, including promoting the modernization of shipyards, increasing investment in labor training, streamlining the weapons procurement process, expanding the application of civilian technology, strengthening the rapid construction capability of medium-sized vessels, and suggesting closer cooperation between the U.S. military and Japan and South Korea to promote joint construction of small warships overseas.

Additionally, it mentioned a major project to comprehensively renovate and update the four shipyards.

But even this project only applied for a budget of $989 million this year, which is like a drop in the ocean compared to the actual billions required for the shipyard's renovation.

Another key point is promoting a distributed kill strategy, i.e., reducing reliance on large aircraft carriers and cruisers, and instead deploying more medium-sized vessels and unmanned combat platforms.

However, this theory has not yet formed a mature operational system in reality, let alone producing combat power.

Therefore, these suggestions seem clear, but in fact, most remain at the imagination level. To truly implement them requires time, and more importantly, the cooperation of the entire system and industrial ecosystem.

For the current United States, these are all impossible to achieve.

U.S. shipyard

Putting it another way, even if all these reform directions are correct, just believing in the process is not enough to save the U.S. Navy.

The current problem is not one of technical impossibility, but of systemic collapse.

Moreover, facing China's rapid naval expansion, the U.S. military does not have the time to wait for the process to slowly improve itself.

However, China will definitely be able to "help" in this process.

Because China is actively forcing the U.S. to reevaluate the significance of shipbuilding.

It is precisely because China can build dozens of main battle ships every year that the U.S. is forced to catch up.

In fact, one could say that every step forward in U.S. naval shipbuilding is driven by China's "encouragement."

Every time China launches a new ship, it serves as a stimulus to the U.S. Navy. Without China as an opponent, the U.S. Navy might not even have the motivation to build, let alone think about reforms.

Chinese shipyard

This has led to a more ironic situation: the more the U.S. Navy wants to compete with China, the more it realizes that it cannot build its fleet, while the one capable of quickly building these ships is exactly the very country that "pushes" them forward—China.

So, rather than dragging along and building slowly, why not hand the blueprints to Chinese shipyards and embark on a transnational manufacturing collaboration?

Although this is a joke, it seems that currently, the U.S. situation is that ordering from China is more realistic than completing its own reforms.

Original text: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7549816318489281064/

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