Navy leader wants to move faster and leaner instead of turning to aircraft carriers in crisis

Navy Chief Advocates for Smaller, Flexible Ships in Global Deployments

The U.S. Navy’s top uniformed officer is pushing for a strategic shift away from the military’s heavy reliance on massive aircraft carriers, advocating instead for more tailored deployments of smaller vessels better suited to specific missions.

Admiral Daryl Caudle’s vision, outlined in what he calls his “Fighting Instructions,” aims to give the Navy greater flexibility in responding to global crises while addressing mounting concerns about the strain on larger vessels facing increasing maintenance challenges.

“I don’t want a lot of destroyers there driving around just to actually operate the radar to get awareness on motor vessels and other tankers coming out of port,” Caudle told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It’s really not a well-suited match for that mission.”

The admiral’s push comes amid a series of high-profile deployments that have disrupted standard Navy operations. In late 2023, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, was redirected from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean as part of operations related to then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. More recently, the USS Abraham Lincoln was pulled from the South China Sea to the Middle East as tensions with Iran escalated.

These redirections highlight the very issue Caudle seeks to address. The Navy currently has an unprecedented 11 ships, including the Ford and several amphibious assault ships carrying thousands of Marines, operating in South American waters. This represents a dramatic increase for a region that historically sees only one or two smaller Navy vessels.

For areas like the Caribbean, Caudle envisions a leaner presence focused primarily on interdiction operations and monitoring merchant shipping. The U.S. military has already seized multiple suspicious and falsely flagged tankers connected to Venezuela that were part of a global shadow fleet helping governments evade sanctions.

“That doesn’t really require a carrier strike group to do that,” Caudle noted, suggesting the mission could be accomplished with smaller littoral combat ships, Navy helicopters, and close coordination with the Coast Guard.

The admiral is also advocating for greater use of drones and other robotic systems to provide military commanders with similar capabilities while requiring less investment from Navy ships. He acknowledges this will require an education campaign to help commanders understand how to effectively integrate these new technologies.

“Even if a commander knows about a new capability, the staff may not know how to ask for that, integrate it, and know how to employ it in an effective way to bring this new niche capability to bear,” Caudle explained.

His vision represents a potential clash with President Donald Trump’s preference for large, powerful naval displays. Trump has frequently referred to aircraft carriers and their accompanying destroyers as “armadas” and “flotillas.” The president has also revived the historic battleship title for a planned vessel type that would feature advanced weapons systems including hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, rail guns, and high-powered lasers.

The proposed “Trump-class battleship” would be larger than World War II-era Iowa-class battleships, despite the Navy’s ongoing struggles to field some of the technologies Trump envisions and its challenges in building even smaller, less sophisticated ships on time and within budget.

Caudle’s approach would mean compensating differently when major assets like aircraft carriers are redirected. Using the Lincoln’s recent redeployment to the Middle East as an example, he suggested talking with the Indo-Pacific commander about alternatives: “So, as Abraham Lincoln comes out, I’ve got a three ship (group) that’s going to compensate for that.”

According to Caudle, his strategy is already working in Europe and North America “for the last four or five years.” He believes it could soon apply to the strategically important Bering Strait, which separates Russia and Alaska, noting that “the importance of the Arctic continues to get more and more prevalent” as China, Russia, and the U.S. prioritize the region.

This Arctic focus aligns with Trump’s previous interest in the area, including his controversial proposal to acquire Greenland from Denmark, which he justified by citing threats from China and Russia.

As global tensions continue to evolve across multiple regions, Caudle maintains that his “tailored force packages” would provide military commanders with more solutions and greater flexibility to respond to emerging threats with appropriately sized forces rather than automatically deploying the Navy’s largest assets.