Benjamin Giltner
Over the holidays, President Trump announced that the US Navy would begin building a new class of battleship, unsurprisingly called the “Trump class.” The United States faces a delay in shipbuilding capacities, with these ships necessary to bolster America’s grand strategy to project its power across the globe.
Yet, building these battleships—or any battleship for that matter—is a terrible idea. Plenty have already commented on the futility of building this class of ship. It would be decommissioned once Trump’s final term in office ends, and battleships are now vulnerable to air power, submarines, and missiles. However, it’s essential to briefly highlight the wastefulness and inanity of this plan to build the battleship, as it reflects the inadequacy of the present US military-industrial complex. Namely, US policymakers’ inability to invest in weapons to achieve America’s political objectives.
The first question that defense planners must ask themselves is how a weapon system will help achieve America’s strategic interests. To quote former US defense officials Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, “Requirements depend on what we want to accomplish in the national security field, tempered by what we are willing to give up elsewhere.” Yet, it’s unclear what geopolitical goal the Trump battleship would accomplish. Surface ships are vulnerable to increased anti-access/area denial capabilities. Moreover, arming these massive surface ships with nuclear cruise missiles makes them more obvious targets for America’s adversaries and doesn’t add to America’s secure second-strike deterrent capability.
Instead of investing funds and time into vulnerable and costly surface ships, the Pentagon should prioritize more worthwhile naval systems, such as submarines, which have a better chance of surviving enemy air and missile strikes.
While this sort of spending adds little to deterrence, it lines the pockets of defense contractors. From 2020 through 2024, 54 percent of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending—roughly $2.4 trillion—was given to military contractors. Despite the Trump battleship’s slim chance of ever being built, defense contractors will profit.
This is hardly a unique case. There are scores of weapons systems just as wasteful as these ships. They include the F‑35, with its multiple malfunctions and repairs when performing basic missions and flights, and the Littoral Combat Ship, with the US government decommissioning seven of these ships due to their mechanical failures on the open seas. Of course, the inadequacy of these programs only comes to light after billions are captured by companies to research and build them.
Put bluntly, the US government provides corporate welfare to defense companies, benefiting Lockheed and Boeing more than America.
Policymakers should be more selective and scrutinize the sort of weapons the United States builds and the contracts it awards to defense companies. However, with policymakers often benefiting from insider trading and defense lobbying, many are disincentivized from addressing the corruption in the defense industrial base. Policymakers should summon the courage to put their country and their fellow citizens ahead of defense corporate interests.