Republican MontanaSenator Tim Sheehy, a 2008 U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former SEAL commando, wrote an article aimed at addressing the weakened state of the U.S. Navy in a conjuncture where the United States attacked Iran with only 25 percent public support, in the destructive shadow of the Epstein files and under the influence of Israeli geopolitics.

Published in the February 2026 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s journal USNI Proceedings, his article titled“A New Framework for Navy Building for the 21st Century” proposes the privatization of the Navy. The main problem, according to Sheehy, is that the Navy is in an extremely disadvantageous quantitative position compared to its closest rival, China.Although the article may initially appear to be a discussion about increasing shipyard capacity, it in fact acknowledges the structural rupture in American naval power.Today, the United States does not possess sufficient shipbuilding, maintenance, and repair capacity for a possible protracted war with China. China’s overwhelming superiority in the shipbuilding sector creates serious fragility in the strategic balance to the detriment of the United States.

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At the beginning of the article, Sheehy gives the example that in 1943, during the Second World War, the United States built more ships in a single week than it can produce in an entire year today. During that period, 1,500 ships were produced in six years at the Henry Kaiser shipyards. In the Pacific War, the United States achieved victory not only through the strategic and tactical genius of its admirals but also through industrial superiority—specifically, its ability to replace ships sunk at sea. Japan could not replace its losses. The decisive factor that determined the fate of the war was production speed.

In his article,Senator Sheehyemphasizes this production capacity as the core element of naval power, arguing that quality alone is not decisive and that quantity must return. In short, deterrence cannot be sustained without mass production. However, the spirit of 1943 does not resemble the financialized American system of 2026. To bear the burden of a protracted war, the United States must reestablish a strong industrial base.

In 1989, the U.S. Navy possessed 580 combat and auxiliary warships. With the end of the Cold War, American strategic elites embraced the assumption that the Soviet Union had completely collapsed, that there would be no competitors at sea, that the dollar system would remain permanent, and that global trade would continue under American security guarantees. This assumption produced two major misconceptions. First, that downsizing naval power would not pose a security risk. Second, that globalization would integrate China into the American-led order.

Both assumptions have been proven wrong over the past 35 years. The Global War on Terror (GWOT), initiated after September 11 and aligned with Israeli geopolitical priorities, shifted the focus of the American defense budget toward ground operations. Expenditures exceeding six trillion dollars were not allocated to shipyard infrastructure or ammunition production lines. During the same period, China quietly increased the number of its shipyards, expanded its state-controlled shipbuilding ecosystem, massively enlarged its merchant fleet, and constructed an A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) architecture. In short, while the United States was fighting terrorism, China was preparing for war at sea. Today, China can produce in one year what the United States produces in seven.

The fact that the U.S. Navy today has approximately 292 ships is problematic for a power that claims to be the guardian of all oceans. Equally important is the weakened maintenance and sustainability capacity of this fleet. With the removal of shipyard subsidies in the 1980s, the U.S. share of global ship production declined dramatically. After the Cold War, the Navy significantly reduced its in-house ship design and engineering capacity, and critical systems were brought into production without adequate testing. This resulted in cost overruns and technical problems in programs such as the Littoral Combat Ship, the Zumwalt-class destroyers, and the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers.

Most warships today rely on a single manufacturer. Due to this specialized structure, production rates cannot easily be accelerated or reduced. Without a steady flow of contracts, shipyards cannot maintain a qualified workforce. Alternative commercial customers are limited. After the Cold War, hundreds of maintenance and repair facilities were closed, and shipyard infrastructure aged.

Source: Global Research