OFW-7: Surface Combatants

'On Future War' is a 12-part series exploring the evolving landscape of military strategy and defense technologies with a focus on the Indo-Pacific.

This episode addresses the U.S. Navy's challenges to project power in a potential "away game" conflict. Following the Cold War, surface ship design changed radically. Revolutionary concepts were introduced including the Zumwalt destroyer and Littoral Combat Ship. When technology didn’t work the only way to pay for fixes in the Global War on Terror era was to retire existing hulls and cut back on ship building. This has led to closure of public and private shipyards, limiting our capacity to build ships and grow the fleet.

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