Defence procurement is no stranger to utter catastrophe: Britain’s Ajax combat vehicle provides its occupants with a sensory environment more intense than that found next to the sound booth at a Metallica concert (Beale, 2026). Yet, it is hard to think of a procurement disaster as epic as the US Navy’s failure to develop a new escort ship since the first Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, its workhorse, was deployed in June 1991, nearly 35 years ago. In that time, the initial procurement project to build a replacement, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, flamed out, as each ship would cost nearly $US2 billion more than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (Kass, 2024). Meanwhile, two attempts to field a new frigate entirely failed (Salisbury 1, 2025). In a fleet where naval combat power, centred in missile capacity, is found in the small ships, rather than WW2-style flagships, this is concerning.

The Trump administration has sought to address this generational failure with a straightforward plan: bring back the flagships. The USS Defiant represents the first of the Trump-class battleship that the Navy ‘desperately needs’, according to Navy Secretary John Phelan (Olay, 2024). This prospective vessel would be an ‘everything’ ship (Salisbury 2, 2025). It would be outfitted with a broad suite of weapons: 128 Aegis missile cells, hypersonic missiles, 5-inch deck guns, and a hypothetical railgun, which doesn’t exist yet (Holmes, 2026). Such a panoply of weapon systems would give it a broad set of possible roles:  a missile boat, helicopter base, command ship, secondary nuclear weapon delivery platform, futuristic energy weapons boat, and hypersonic archer (Salisbury 2, 2025).

But, this breadth leaves it profoundly confused. It is outfitted to both engage the enemy at short range, with its railgun and deck guns, and long range, with its missiles. And, while it is the size of a capital ship, it is meant to replace the DDG(X) programme to create a new destroyer, implying that it is meant to be an Arleigh Burke replacement and the Navy’s new workhorse (Kanno-Youngs et al, 2025).

This is concerning for a US Navy looking to rapidly increase lethality. It is too large to be built in destroyer shipyards, potentially competing with carriers and amphibious assault ships for production capacity. The choice to outfit it with speculative, unproven railguns and energy weapons is shocking, given that demands for cutting-edge stealth capabilities and a never-functional new gun were central to the failure of the Zumwalt-class (Kass, 2024). Most significantly, it would reset work on an Arleigh Burke replacement, lengthening the period between its obsolescence and the commissioning of a suitable alternative. This widens China’s window of opportunity to outbuild and outmatch the US Navy in the Indo-Pacific (Salisbury 2, 2025). Even if successful, it would only have 6 more Aegis missile cells (the most important armament on an escort ship) than the soon retiring Ticonderoga-class cruiser, while displacing over 20,000 more tons (Salisbury 2, 2025; Kanno-Youngs et al, 2025). It, therefore, would be a massively inefficient use of limited money, shipyard capacity, and time, compared to acquiring the fruits of a hypothetically successful DDG(X) program, which would almost certainly have a more efficient tonnage to missile ratio. Given these concerns, it is entirely possible (hopefully, probably) that this whole project never ends up going anywhere, and DDG(X) is quietly revived.

However, if the Trump administration presses ahead, this program would easily meet some of the administration’s goals. They want it to be ‘the largest… and best-looking warship anywhere’, and white elephants are both huge and bewitching (Shelbourne and Lagrone, 2025).