JEDDA, SAUDI ARABIA. Sitting on a rooftop overlooking the Red Sea, I’m more aware than ever that water controls the world. Yet for the first time in a long time, America doesn’t control the water.
This thought hit me hard as I watched Donald Trump’s inaugural address on Monday, with its sweeping vision for US supremacy over everything from the Panama Canal to the surface of Mars. But Trump made no mention of restoring American sea power, despite its being the necessary linchpin for everything he wants to do. Only a year after the Yemen-based Houthi insurgents practically shut down the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest sea lanes, US preeminence on the water is more important—and more precarious—than ever.
“Sea power is the irreplaceable tool of American national dominion on a global scale,” proclaims a new paper from the Center for Maritime Strategy (CMS). Bracketed by two oceans, the US has no choice but to depend on its Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and merchant marine fleet to ensure its prosperity and strategic position among the nations. Since World War II, American sea power has additionally upheld global order by protecting freedom of navigation, the cornerstone of international commerce and stability. Despite the technological innovations of recent decades, 90 percent of the world’s cargo still moves by ship.
But American sea power is on the wane, warns CMS expert Richard Levine. China, which this week unveiled its next-generation frigate, now owns the world’s largest navy and is expected to have 395 ships by the end of this year compared to our 296. (By 2030, China is expected to have 435.) Some experts argue that the US still maintains a qualitative edge despite its smaller fleet—especially when its wide network of alliances is factored in—but even there the gap is narrowing.
And the disparity isn’t just a military one. In 2023, China produced 230 times the number of large commercial ships as the US, which, in terms of tonnage, has dropped ship production by 85 percent since the Korean War. In the 1980s, the US had around 300 shipyards; currently, it has around 20. Today, just 0.2 percent of ocean-going commercial vessels are built domestically.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” President Trump promised on Monday. But a golden age can’t come without massive investment in the maritime sector—which, in a happy coincidence, happens to dovetail perfectly with Trump’s broader agenda.
The revival of US maritime strength, which demands a huge uptick in ship production, plays well first of all in the context of Trump’s domestic agenda. Few industrial sectors can revive US manufacturing more quickly and profoundly. “Along America’s coasts and in areas around our Great Lakes, dormant facilities must be revived, new shipyards built, and existing structures expanded,” Levine writes. Shipyards breed shipping companies, and shipping companies drive commerce. The potential economic and political gains in Rust Belt states are enormous.
The return to American sea power would also give needed shape to Trump’s quasi-isolationist foreign policy while mitigating its worst impulses. It was the renowned naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan who pointed out why naval power suits a democratic nation better than land power, which inevitably pulls towards tyranny. Navies have a limited capacity to extend coercive force inland, making them, as Robert Kaplan has put it, “no menace to liberty.” If Trump’s goal is to avoid foreign wars while maintaining a muscular posture abroad, a Navy-forward national security doctrine would serve him well.
Levine expands on this idea in his paper, arguing for an end to big wars with ill-defined or unattainable goals in favor of smaller operations with clear objectives and exit plans. Isolationism is not a strategy; power must be deployed. But the watchword in all things is discretion, which above all requires a judicious use of military force. The Navy-Marine Corps team, being inherently mobile and flexible, should be America’s primary force in hard-hitting but brief interventions that advance the national interest—that is to say, most military actions abroad. The Army and Air Force, which require an immense footprint when deployed, are wired to enlarge and extend military operations as a rule, and thus should only be used in major, congressionally-declared wars. This one insight, if adopted and taken to its logical conclusion, would inspire a radical readjustment of military doctrine, budgets, and procurement plans inside the Department of Defense. Trump would be wise to push it.
But there’s something else: A return to US dominance at sea fits Trump’s overarching narrative. In his second inaugural address, the returning president rightly portrayed our nation as proud, powerful, and pioneering, constantly longing for the next adventure. His declaration that America will aim for Mars was designed to stoke that longing. But nothing over the centuries has inspired dreams of adventure more than the vast, untamed ocean that surrounds us. It is our greatest resource, our proving ground, our final frontier.
For reasons concrete and altogether intangible, the sea remains an essential element in any program of national renewal. Looking out at the glittering surface of the Red Sea, I can’t help but hear the call.