State of the navy: US surface fleet programmes
With its share of the US DoD’s budget reduced from the Cold War, the USN is having to manage a range of surface fleet shipbuilding programmes while attempting to build up its forces to meet the emerging strategic competitors.
The USN accounts for 34% of the DoD’s budget today, compared to 38% during the Cold War epoch in the 1980s. A marquee submarine programme, the Columbia-class SSNs, will account for 32% of the shipbuilding budget today, compared to 20% for its Ohio-class predecessor.
USN officials have recently spoken of an ambition to have ‘overmatch’ over ‘great power’ rivals,
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