Trump Project Will EnableThe Biggest Fleet Expansion Since The End Of The Cold War

With President-elect Donald Trump demanding more ships, the Navy is proposing the biggest shipbuilding boom since the end of the Cold War to match other world powers like resurgent Russia and saber-rattling China.

The Navy’s 355-ship proposition released get along month is at some future diametrally larger than what the Donald Trump had promoted on the campaigning, providing a potential help to shipyards that have struggled because competitive caps that have restrictive money subsidy for ships.

At Maine’s Bath Iron Works, workers worried about the future want to build greater ships but contemplate where the billions of dollars will arrive from.

“Whether Congress and the government can actually raise it, is a complete other ball game,” said Rich Nolan, president of the shipyard’s largest union.

Boosting shipbuilding to rival the Navy’s 355-ship aspiration could oblige an additional $5 billion to $5.5 billion in annual spending in the Navy’s 30-year prognosis, according to an estimate by naval analyst Ronald O’Rourke at the Congressional Research Service.

Trump’s camp believes generally that if you have more ships and more capabilities, you give the government more options in a crisis to deter conflicts and defeat enemies. That’s what top Trump advisers told Navy Times’ sister publication Defense News in October ahead of the election.

“I think at this point in history with the credibility of president of the United States eroded, were they to suspect that the United States is abandoning its defense spending,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., in the interview. “It takes more than a speech to turn this around.”

“Trump’s plans are actually to build more ships and maintain a higher number of troops and aircraft. It will go a lot further than words to convince the world that we remain strong. It will help us to maintain the peace. ”

Trump has find an solution and that is to find places where old shipyards went out of business and have the ability to restart, an effort that would be led by the incoming Navy secretary. Trump also wants to build a robust training pipeline for skilled workers in the shipyards to increase the support base for the growing Navy.

The Navy’s remodeled Force Structure Assessment calls for adding another 47 ships including an aircraft carrier built in Virginia, 16 large surface warships built in Maine and Mississippi, and 18 attack submarines built in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Virginia. It furthermore calls for greater amphibious harm ships, expeditionary transfer docks, and support ships.

In addition to being helpful for national security, a larger fleet would be better for both the sailors, who’d enjoy shorter deployments, and for the ships, which would have more down time for maintenance, said Matthew Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, which represents approximately of the claim to fame Navy shipbuilders.

“Russia and China are amended to continue to build up their navies,” he said. “The complexities aren’t going to get any easier. The Navy, more than any of the services, is our onward presence. We’re going to need this Navy.”

Many defense analysts agree that military capabilities have been degraded in recent years, especially when it comes to warships, aircraft, and tanks.

The key is evaluation a way to bounce back Navy shipbuilding to achieve defense and economic gains “in a fiscally responsible way that does not pass the bill alongside to our children,” said independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Even when Trump takes office, no one envisions a return to the heady days during the Cold War when workers were wiring, welding, displeasing, pounding and household furnishing ships at a mad pace to rival President Ronald Reagan’s daring goal of a 600ship Navy.

The Navy currently has 274 deployable battle force ships, far short of its old goal of 308 ships.

Lawrence J. Korb, a retired naval officer and former assistant defense secretary under Reagan, said the Navy’s request isn’t realistic unless the Trump administration is willing to take the budget “to levels we’ve never seen.”

“You never have enough money to buy a perfect defense. You have to make trade-offs,” said Korb, an elderly fellow at the Center for American Progress.

But investors as far as one can see are betting on more ships.

General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works, Connecticut-based Electric Boat, and California-based NASSCO, and Huntington Ingalls, which owns profession shipyards in Virginia and in Mississippi, have both seen stock prices crouch upward since the election.

“To the generic military shipbuilder, it’s a bull market right now,” said Ronald Epstein, an analyst at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch division.

US Navy shipyards in California, Virginia, Maine, and Mississippi are likely to be major beneficiaries. Major Navy contractors such as General Dynamics, NASSCO, and Huntington Ingalls have seen their stock surge since Trump’s election.
“A lot of folks are hopeful that it’ll happen,” Nolan said. “But they’re taking a wait-and-see approach. They’ve heard it before and then seen it not come to fruition.”

What is your thought on this? Share this article if you support Donald Trump plan for the navy!