The good news is a combination of decisions of the Trump administration/Congress to support and improve the Navy, initiatives of the Navy that have been bright spots, news from other nations that improve the strength of our Navy, and contracting/private sector actions that support Navy improvements as well.

Navy Leadership

• In August 2025, the Navy installed the 34th Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Daryl Caudle, a career submariner. ADM Caudle is only the 3rd CNO whose commissioning source was Officer Candidate School. He is a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a 1985 graduate of North Carolina State University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. His previous assignment was Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command. One of his first actions was to issue his CNO charge of command, an inspiring and well-received admonition to all Naval officers in command of the importance and responsibilities of their position. It says in part, “I characterize command as an action, not a position,” highlighting the essential attributes of integrity, courage, humility, and ownership. The Charge emphasizes that the Navy’s decisive advantage is its Sailors. “COs must invest in their people with the same intensity as operational readiness, fostering trust, accountability, and a warfighting culture that thrives under pressure.” Having had the privilege of command during my Navy career, I found this guidance to be exceptional, a great start for this CNO!

• In October 2025, CAPT Hung Cao was finally confirmed as the new Undersecretary of the Navy after a long delay due to “politics.” CAPT Cao is a highly decorated naval officer, a Naval Academy graduate with a distinguished career, and a combat veteran of multiple campaigns. He served as a Special Operations Officer with a focus on explosive ordnance disposal and deep-sea diving. He was also qualified as a surface warfare officer and naval parachutist. He served with distinction in multiple special forces deployments with assignments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

• The Secretary of the Navy recently announced the cancellation of the last four ships of the Constellation-class Frigate. Construction on the first two ships will continue, but the class will be terminated at two ships. This is recognition by the new SECNAV that the way we have been building Navy surface combatants is badly flawed, and new methods are needed going forward. This sounds like bad news, but it is good news as now there is a glimmer of hope that senior Navy leadership will adopt reforms advocated by this author and many others to enable the jump-starting of the construction of many more combat ships much faster, more efficiently, and much less costly. SECNAV promised more news soon on how the Navy will fix combat shipbuilding. A hint on how this might be done is described below, including new partnerships with other countries to meet some of our Navy requirements.

• United States Naval Academy. For the first time in history, in August 2025, the Navy appointed a USMC officer as Superintendent. He is Lt. Gen. Michael Borgshulte and is a Naval Academy graduate. He is an aviator and has hit the ground running. At the time of his appointment, SECNAV emphasized increasing the emphasis on warfighting and on winning wars at the Naval Academy. Lt. Gen. Borgshulte has welcomed the new USNA Board of Visitors with open arms and appears to be working closely with them on key issues needed to develop great officers for the fleet. Feedback from my extensive contacts among USNA alums is very positive about Lt. Gen. Borgshulte. Those who met with him personally to discuss needed improvements were welcomed with open arms and had the highest praise for his reception of their ideas and pledge to uphold the highest standards and traditions of the Naval Academy.

*Shipbuilding. *

• South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea are now working together in a big way. In a recent meeting with President Trump, South Korean leader President Lee Jae Myung pledged to invest $150 billion in U.S. shipbuilding. This has already started with a Korean-owned company, Hanwha, having bought a shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in recent months and pledging to invest $5 billion to improve the yard’s potential to build future Navy combat force ships. The company’s investments are aimed at increasing its annual production from fewer than two ships to up to 20. A Hanwha news release says, “As a global leader in [liquefied natural gas] vessels, Hanwha aims to produce LNG carriers, naval modules and blocks, and, in the long-term, naval vessels out of its U.S. shipyard.” Also, Samsung Heavy Industries will team up with Vigor Marine Group to perform maintenance on U.S. ships overseas. Their news release says, “The collaboration will bring expanded forward-deployed maintenance, repair, and overhaul capacity to the Indo-Pacific region, offering the U.S. Navy and Military Sealift Command a compelling new option to keep vessels mission-ready.”

• Action by President Trump and Congress. According to the Waterways Council, Inc., the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, contained an extensive list of improvements for the Navy and the Navy’s industrial base:

The bill directs about $29 billion toward revitalizing the U.S. shipbuilding and maritime industrial base. Of that amount, roughly $5 billion supports naval shipbuilding initiatives. Other provisions support workforce training, additive manufacturing, advanced techniques, artificial intelligence-driven processes and supplier development. Items in the maritime portions of the bill include the following:

• $250 million to expand accelerated training in defense manufacturing (shipyards)
• $250 million for U.S. production of turbine generators to support shipbuilding
• $450 million for additive manufacturing (wire production & machining) in the shipbuilding base
• $492 million to develop next generation shipbuilding techniques
• $85 million to produce U.S.-made steel plate for shipbuilding
• $50 million to expand machining capacity for naval propellers
• $110 million for rolled steel fabrication facilities
• $400 million to expand a collaborative naval shipbuilding campus
• $450 million for artificial intelligence/autonomy applications in naval shipbuilding
• $500 million to adopt advanced manufacturing techniques in the maritime industrial base
• $500 million to add dry dock capacity
• $50 million to expand cold spray ship repair technologies
• $450 million for maritime industrial workforce development programs
• $750 million for supplier development across the naval shipbuilding base
• $250 million for additional advanced manufacturing processes

• Japan and U.S. Agreement. On July 22, 2025, the U.S. and Japan signed a new trade agreement. According to the Hudson Institute, Japan pledges to invest up to $550 billion in “Trump administration’s core industrial priority sectors, such as energy, semiconductors, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and shipbuilding.” Actual details and when, where, and what are still to be worked out.

Navy Contracts Progress

• Delivery of the final Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship was on 26 November 2025.
• Big new sustainment contract for F-35 fleet propulsion engines. On 1 December 2025, the Navy awarded Pratt & Whitney a potential $1.6 billion contract to provide sustainment support for the F-35’s F135 propulsion systems across U.S. and allied fleets.
• The Navy awarded Electric Boat a $2.28 billion contract for advance procurement/construction of five new Columbia-class submarine SSBNs. Simultaneously, Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls got another $1.85 billion contract modification for long-lead materials and early work on future Virginia-class submarine Block VI SSNs.
• Expanded surface-fleet procurement: new oilers for underway logistics, as the Navy recently awarded a $1.7 billion contract to General Dynamics NASSCO for two additional “John Lewis-class” fleet replenishment oilers (T-AO 215 and T-AO 216).
• On November 17, 2025, the Navy accepted delivery of the future USS Harvey C. Barnum, Jr. (DDG 124) from Bath Iron Works.
• Major maintenance/modernization contract for submarine fleet sustainment. The Navy awarded a multiple-award contract — with a ceiling of $1.9 billion — to 25 companies for maintenance, repair, and modernization of nuclear-powered attack submarines.
• Industrial-base workforce strengthening through a dedicated training/industrial-skills contract to SENEDIA — a non-profit industrial-base/training alliance — secured a four-year, $98.3 million contract (if all options exercised) to expand workforce development for the New England submarine industrial base through 2029.
• Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a memorandum of agreement during the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, targeting joint military/commercial shipbuilding and maintenance strategy.