As most regulars here know, on the 13th, President Trump issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM), which was known in previous administrations as a National Security Memorandum. Most are aware of it because almost immediately there was much gnashing of teeth, rending of clothes, and general knee-bent running about concerning the future USS Doris Miller (CVN 81) having its EMALS replaced with steam and returning to hydraulics over a lot of the problematic electrical motors used in various elevators, etc. We’ll return to that in a bit—and it is but a small fraction of the story—but let’s make sure everyone understands what an NSPM is. It operates with the authority of the president, much like an Executive Order, but it is less formal, does not require publication in the Federal Register and do not always need a formal legal justification printed with it. That being said, they achieve the same practical management goals within the government as executive orders and stay active until a new president changes or cancels them. In line with some of the foolishness we’ve seen over the last week about our aircraft carriers that we discussed on Sunday’s Midrats Podcast, this has become hyper-politicized to the point that the bad-faith actors you always find in election years are drowning out serious people critiquing or supporting the substance of the memorandum. Some of the argle-bargle we’ve had to deal with is from those who are acting like everything—though mostly the EMALS issue (almost like they all parrot the same things from the same people)—was done on a whim by the President ungrounded by anything but vibes. No, that isn’t how this works. This was proposed to the President as a solution to a problem much greater than if EMALS and all-electric is the most effective way to get carriers displacing water faster and putting planes in the air or not—and the people involved have access to information that has yet to make it in open source. You may disagree with one part or another, but if all you have to discuss is EMALS, then frankly, I’m not all that interested in listening to you. Everyone should keep in mind that nothing in this memorandum will benefit the Trump Administration. You cannot build a fleet in a few months or a POM cycle. That isn’t how it works. Never forget that by the time New Years 1943 came around, we were almost out of aircraft carriers to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy. In the fall of 1942, we even had to borrow one from the Royal Navy. By mid-1943 however, the fleet that won the war left the shipyards in waves that swamped Japan for the next two years. The Essex Class carriers and all the support ships that came with them did not show up right away. No. The naval buildup began seven years earlier in 1936, followed by even more money injected into the maritime industrial base in 1938, 1940, and then, of course, with the war that finally came to our shores at the end of 1941. We have wasted so many years in vanity. The best time to have fixed the shortfalls in our shipbuilding industrial base was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. To keep doing the same thing and expecting better results is, of course, insanity. If this team is correct, then the benefit will be seen somewhere between 2030 and 2035, closer to 2035. It would be hard to do worse than we’ve done the last decade. The memo leads with this basic understanding. …President Donald J. Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum to fix critical long-term issues in Navy shipbuilding and ship repair programs and restore capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base. No quick fix. No over-promise and under-deliver. No magic beans. You can argue the details if you wish, but try to get the big picture. Now that I’ve set the table, let’s look at the full thing. You can get the full memorandum at this link. Get it, print off a copy or put it in a tab next to this post, and let’s dive in. I’ll quote the first bullet everyone is focused on in a bit, but know what is going on in the background. What problems could there be? PCU John F. Kennedy was supposed to be handed over to the US Navy a year ago, but two systems held up the delivery. These were “the Advanced Arresting Gear that catch aircraft as they land on the carrier and the Advanced Weapons Elevators that shuttle munitions from ammo storage deep in the ship to the aircraft on the flight deck”—both of which required further testing, USNI News reported. Seven of the future carrier’s 11 advanced elevators have been installed and are operational, and that is reportedly enough to enable the crew to access the weapon magazines and to continue with training and certification. It remains unclear if the remaining four AWEs will be operational when the carrier is delivered, but HII has another seven months to tackle the issues. The United States Navy had also sought to ensure that the future CVN-79 would not need to undergo the same level of post-delivery modifications that the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the first ship in the class, required and still requires. The Ford still can’t accommodate the fifth-generation F-35C Lightning II. To head off the same problems aboard the Kennedy, Congress mandated that CVN-79 would be capable of embarking the Joint Strike Fighter on its maiden deployment. First in class issues are expected and should be fixed for follow-on classes of ships. FORD was commissioned on 22 JUL 2017. That was nine years ago, 3,313 days, to be exact. Of course, that means it is time to pull out my favorite measure of time: the time it took the U.S. to defeat Imperial Japan (and Nazi Germany) in WWII—1,364 days, AKA a “WorldWar”. CVN-78 was commissioned 2.42 WorldWars ago, and things are still not working. It still can’t handle our premier fighter, the F-35C (will it anytime soon?). Only some of the weapons elevators work…and I am sure there are more. This is why I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt for this, The Memorandum directs the Secretary of War to replace the Advanced Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems and the Advanced Weapons Elevators with traditional steam and hydraulic systems during the construction of CVN-81. We have wasted the entire century at this point with failed programs that The Smartest People in the Room™ promised everyone would be transformational and bring the U.S. Navy to an unchallenged position of dominance, from LCS, DDG-1000, CG(X), FFG-62, and, of course, FORD. As a side note, this problem was predicted two decades ago. Give a listen to this Midrats Podcast with Tal Manvel from July of 2017. It is all there. We are years past running out of time. We need speed and timeliness in getting hulls in the water. The only detailed critique I have heard of the changes proposed for CVN-81 was giving up the launch rate. That is but one aspect of a larger system. I don’t think you can justify everything on that one figure. Does EMALS work? Sure, but it is worth it? If you are building a football team, are you bad if you don’t hire a wide receiver prospect who has the fastest 40 yard time you’ve ever seen? Everyone thinks you’re an idiot for not hiring the kid because…he has the fastest 40? What if he is 5’1 and 120 lbs? Pass on a 6’8” tight end? He happens to be missing one arm and is legally blind, but he’s 6’8”, right? I understand well the selling points of EMALS and going electric. It briefs well, but if we can’t make it work in 2.24 WorldWars and it is preventing us from getting functional carriers forward in a timely manner…then is the trade off worth it? It appears that a critical mass of people believe the trade off is not worth it and it is better to step back to something that works so aircraft carrier delivery doesn’t slide to the right too much. CVN-81 is going to take 15 years to be delivered. That isn’t acceptable. Aircraft carriers, like all ships, have a demographic problem. You cannot create fleets overnight, nor their airwings or support infrastructure. Ships are commissioned, get worn out, and have to be retired. If you want to grow a navy, you have to commission more ships than you decommission, just like if you want to grow your population, you have to have more births than deaths. CVN-71 through CVN-75 were all commissioned two to three years apart from 1986 to 1998. They reach the 50 year retirement point in 2036. If we are not commissioning a carrier every three years by that point, we will slip to 10 and probably 9. We already know that we are an “11” carrier navy in a 15 carrier world. Additionally, do you know how many carriers the People’s Liberation Army Navy plans to have by 2036? Conservatively, they are looking at nine, but plan to build six in 10 years. With their industrial base, I don’t doubt it. CVN-81 will be commissioned sometime after 2034. Can the engineering changes be done? I don’t know. We’ll find out. Our whole structure is creaking: Budget records state that “the delivery date of CVN-81 shifted from February 2032 to February 2034 due to shipyard construction capacity constraints, which limited its ability to fabricate the ship’s modules.” There are greater concerns here than how many point-nosed things you can launch in a day. Let’s look at the rest of the memo. The Memorandum directs the Department of War to pursue more direct investments in the American shipbuilding industrial base based off of the successful “Finland model,” which was first employed with the Coast Guard’s medium icebreaker program. As foreign shipbuilders make substantial and durable investments into America’s shipyards and train an all-American workforce for the jobs they create, they will be temporarily permitted to build up to two ships in their parent shipyards that will be delivered to bridge gaps on a quick turnaround, while additional ships will be built in revitalized American shipyards. If you are looking to get hulls in the water faster—sustainably in the long run—this is the way to do it. The way to avoid this was to not allow our maritime industrial base to degrade to the state it is in this century. In our arrogance, vanity, and sense of entitlement, we have used up all the time left for an “all American” solution. I think well-meaning people can argue the case, but unless you have a way to match this speed of delivery, I think it is too late to make the sell. Why is no one talking about this? The Memorandum directs the Secretary of War to establish a fifth Naval shipyard, the first in over 80 years, to increase the Nation’s submarine and aircraft carrier repair capacity. It has been knowv, again, for decades we do not have the ability to properly maintain our submarines and aircraft carriers…but all we did was study with no action. This takes action. The next part is, for me, the foundation for real change and success. For two decades we have discussed the absolute requirement for root-and-branch reform of NAVSEA. We will not build the fleet we need if we rely on the same processes, programs, people, and institutions that allowed us to sleepwalk into this state. BEHOLD!The Memorandum directs the Secretary of War to undertake a full review, reform, and reorganization of Naval Sea Systems Command to address chronic challenges in American naval shipbuilding. Yep, I’m going to be watching that closely. There is also some clear, direct, and firm fact delivery. The U.S. Navy has experienced several shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures, which have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations. A lack of capacity and competition has resulted in large backlogs of orders across six major Navy shipbuilding programs and a commercial shipbuilding sector that is not globally competitive. An atrophied shipbuilding industrial base, coupled with diminished adjacent supplier bases, has expanded delays and increased costs. How could I not approve a memo that reinforces critiques we have been pounding for all these years? Yes, follow through and action is required, but to have this from the CINC matters. We have been suffering the secondary effects from Perry’s Last Supper and the warping effects of two decades of spending on imperial policing action ashore in Central and Southwest Asia. We are by nature and comparative advantage a maritime and aerospace power—not a continental land power. Let’s be clear, this memo should not be a shock. During the March 2025 joint address to Congress, President Trump promised to “resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding.” We’ve been waiting 17 months for follow through. Here’s the capstone of what has been building since that March: President Trump established a new Office of Maritime and Industrial Capacity at the National Security Council in the White House to prioritize American Maritime Dominance. In April 2025, President Trump signed a historic Executive Order to restore American Maritime Dominance, strengthening the nation’s economic and national security. President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cuts included nearly $9 billion to build a series of heavy, medium, and light arctic security cutters (ASCs). In October 2025, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum to authorize the construction of up to four ASCs abroad to address urgent national security needs in the Arctic region. In February 2026, the White House released its Maritime Action Plan, which expands the Maritime Industrial Base to include investment and expansion of commercial and defense shipbuilding capabilities, component supply chains, ship repair and marine transportation capabilities, port infrastructure, and the adjacent workforce. And there’s the NSPM. Short and to the point. Again, people will argue small points, and I hope preliminary work on how to convert to steam and hydraulics are already underway. I am naturally suspicious, but there are people involved in this decision who will be around for years. They are in the arena. They have access to levers of power. They want to be successful, not just for their reputation, but for their Navy and the nation it serves, so I’m willing to step back and let them run. If I could offer some unsolicited advice here? I would release the data on the performance shortfalls and other concerns that drove the decision to make the changes for CVN-81. It is hard to find discussions of issues, and what you do get—like linked above—is full of generalities and corporate rope-a-dope. In theory, EMALS and the electric motors will be operating on CVN-78, 79, and 80. If the problems are sorted out by the time 81 is commissioned…well…it won’t be a good look. There simply is not enough information out there to argue the point one way or another…but in a way, the point is moot. The memo is in force. Let’s cut steel. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article
