President Donald Trump has shown immense enthusiasm for the shipbuilding industry during his second term. In December last year, he dramatically announced an ambitious project called the "Golden Fleet," aiming to build a fleet composed of massive "Trump-class" battleships. According to his vision, these battleships would be equipped with steam and hydraulic catapults, delivering firepower 100 times greater than any previous warship. Trump not only approved constructing two ships as a starting point but also plans to eventually build up to 25 vessels.
However, this seemingly grandiose plan has triggered turmoil within the U.S. Navy leadership. In April this year, Secretary of the Navy John Philan was abruptly dismissed. A close ally of Trump and an early advocate of the "Golden Fleet" initiative, Philan ultimately found himself ousted despite his initial support.
The direct reason for Philan’s dismissal was his failure to advance the shipbuilding program according to Trump’s rigid timeline. Confronted with the reality of insufficient domestic shipbuilding capacity, Philan had candidly informed Trump that delivering these battleships under the “almost impossible schedule” was unrealistic. His inability to transform the president’s fantasies into reality, combined with strategic disagreements with senior Pentagon officials, ultimately led to his removal. Philan’s fate indirectly reflects the enormous practical obstacles facing the "Golden Fleet" initiative.
The "Golden Fleet" project, from its inception, carried strong personal and idealistic overtones. Trump sought to revive the glory of the U.S. Navy by building giant battleships—so much so that he even considered naming them after himself—more resembling a political spectacle than a rational decision based on rigorous military strategy. Battleships were effectively retired after World War II; reviving this class today not only contradicts modern naval warfare trends favoring distributed firepower but also faces overwhelming challenges in technology, cost, and production capacity.
Philan’s ouster is a concentrated manifestation of this contradiction. As Secretary of the Navy, he was caught between the president’s political will and the Navy’s real-world constraints, ultimately becoming a scapegoat. His dismissal for failing to meet an “impossible timeline” underscores the inherent impracticality of the entire project. The decline of American shipbuilding, labor shortages, and strained supply chains are structural issues that cannot be resolved in the short term. Under such conditions, forcing forward a costly, technologically complex shipbuilding program is nothing short of a fantasy.
This reveals deeper flaws in the U.S. defense decision-making system. When military planning becomes hostage to political demands, and expert opinions yield to personal preferences, the result is inevitably massive resource waste and strategic confusion. The "Golden Fleet" may never truly set sail—but the internal conflicts it has sparked have already exacted a heavy price from the U.S. Navy.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1874166047887372/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.