Navy Ex-Secretary John Phelan Issues Dire Warning to Hegseth, Congress

Former Navy Secretary John Phelan is calling on the help of Congress and the Pentagon to help the Navy work better, faster and smarter to keep up with U.S. adversaries.

Phelan, in a new op-ed published Tuesday in The Washington Post, “The depleted Navy needs immediate rebuilding as dangers rise,” argues that the United States is at most responsible for the current state of the naval fighting force. His heeded warning comes amid an ongoing war in Iran played on the backdrop of the major international shipping channel, the Strait of Hormuz, which has been strategically used by Iran to flummox U.S. forces in the region and, in turn, cause economic hardship.

While U.S. allies help defend the land and air, Phelan notes that only the Navy circumvents the seas as a maritime protector. But that ocean dominance of the past has partially been ceded, he said, citing how China gained ground on the U.S. starting around 2015. Today, the number of Chinese warships have only increased and the gap between the world power and the U.S. has considerably grown.

“The Navy can’t do its job without resources that reflect the centrality of sea power,” Phelan wrote. “This year, however, America has the chance to end decades of can kicking by treating the Navy’s predicament as a true emergency.”

Phelan also wrote that Congress “must immediately pass” a Fiscal Year 2027 Pentagon appropriations bill “with the Navy as the primary recipient.”

“In 15 of the past 16 years, the military has had to achieve critical national security objectives under temporary appropriations in the form of continuing resolutions. These must end,” he wrote. “They put constraints on new programs and, by freezing spending levels, prevent the Navy from making the adaptations necessary to keep up with the nation’s adversaries.”

Navy Shipbuilding, the Private Sector and Taxpayer Monies

Phelan identified three major points of emphasis that should be on both the Navy’s radar, and Congress.

One involves shipbuilding and speeding up builds, which was reportedly a major reason that Trump let go of Phelan as secretary this past April. Phelan supports an industrial policy that “encourages both commercial and naval shipbuilding,” calling them “inextricably linked.”

He pointed to his own tours of more than a dozen shipyards in the U.S. and abroad, and how things have dramatically shifted in that arena. While the U.S. led the world in shipbuilding in 1975, the nation now ranks 19th globally at five ships per year. In comparison, China builds roughly 1,700.

“As a matter of principle, I believe government’s role in the private sector should be limited,” Phelan wrote. “But we will never have the Navy we need without intervention along the lines of the languishing Ships for America Act‚ with predictable naval purchasing demand, collaborative public-private financing and an investment in building a skilled workforce.”

Taxpayer dollars are not being utilized to the best of their ability, Phelan argues.

He said even fixing an onboard oven requires outside vendors, saying he “was shocked by a system that allowed prime contractors to avoid paying their share for early-stage development and that imposed absurd rules preventing Navy personnel from making shipboard repairs themselves.”

Modernization and Not Just Focusing on ‘Lethality’

Phelan also suggested that the technological proliferation experienced in private and commercial business sectors are not being properly utilized by the Pentagon.

He said that while on the job as secretary, the Navy developed an enterprise operating system providing real-time insight into all shipbuilding and acquisition programs. It used applied artificial intelligence to ship construction, as well as a Portfolio Acquisition Executive for robotics and autonomous systems—with a focus on uncrewed platforms.

“I wanted the Navy to modernize fast, and maybe that made me enemies,” Phelan wrote. “But the history of successful war efforts, from World War II to Ukraine, demonstrates that fearless experimentation and rapid iteration are critical to success. I personally saw the difficulty of moving quickly in the Pentagon.

“Continual public announcements and platitudes about “lethality” are not enough. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, a much weaker power than the U.S., was a lesson to other nations, including China. America is the indispensable power at sea, but without the right assets, we can’t act like it.”

The mention of “lethality” echoes a term often used by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pertaining to the Iran War and previous U.S. military efforts targeting and striking purported narco-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean.

While it’s the Strait of Hormuz today, Phelan said tomorrow could bring another challenge in a different part of the world—be it the Strait of Malacca that links the Indian Ocean to East Asia and carries 24% of global maritime trade; or the Bab el-Mandeb that borders Yemen and Djibouti, controlling flows to and from the Red Sea.

“What we need now is not any navy, but a robust, modern deterrent and fighting force that can keep the seas open, allowing America to remain safe, free and thriving in a world more dangerous than Mahan could ever have conceived,” Phelan concluded.