By Chris Servello
History has a way of teaching the military lessons it would rather not learn. War exposes weaknesses, challenges assumptions and forces decisions that might otherwise take years. But it also creates opportunities for change that rarely exist in peacetime.
The U.S. Navy is living through one of those moments.
The conflicts in the Red Sea and with Iran have tested the Navy in ways exercises and war games never could. They have demonstrated the extraordinary skill of American Sailors, the effectiveness of our weapons and the value of decades of investment. They have also exposed weaknesses in how we deploy, sustain, defend and equip the Fleet.
We should be proud of what our Navy has accomplished. But pride cannot become complacency.
The real test will not be how many missiles were intercepted or targets destroyed. It will be whether the Navy uses what it has learned to become a better fighting force.
We’ve been here before. World War II accelerated advances in carrier aviation, amphibious warfare and underway replenishment. The Cold War drove improvements in submarines, sensors and missiles. Operational necessity pushed the Navy to rethink how it organized and fought.
Today’s challenges offer a similar opportunity. Five areas deserve attention.
Rethink How We Generate and Deploy the Fleet
The Fleet Response Plan and the broader system of generating ready forces deserve a hard look.
The Navy has spent years balancing maintenance, training and deployment cycles against growing operational demands. The Red Sea and Iran conflicts have made that increasingly difficult. Extended deployments and unpredictable tasking are becoming more common.
Our Sailors and their families are paying the price. So are ships and aircraft operating longer and harder than planned.
The answer cannot simply be accepting longer deployments as the new normal.
The Navy should reconsider deployment lengths, readiness certification, forward presence, rotational crewing and the use of allied and unmanned capabilities. It must distinguish between a ship that is technically available and one genuinely ready for sustained combat.
We cannot build a larger Navy overnight. But we can make smarter decisions about employing the Fleet we have.
Make Maintenance a Warfighting Discipline
These conflicts have reinforced that maintenance is not an administrative function. It is a combat capability.
Every additional day at sea creates wear, consumes spare parts and increases the work required when a ship returns home. When deployment schedules change, maintenance plans must change with them.
Unfortunately, the Navy and its industrial partners still too often operate with incomplete information and shifting schedules.
Industry needs earlier visibility into expected work, more reliable schedules and better information about emerging maintenance demands. Shipyards cannot hire workers, order materials or invest in capacity when plans constantly change.
The Navy should expand predictive maintenance, condition monitoring and operational data sharing to identify problems before they become expensive repairs.
Maintenance capacity must be treated as a strategic requirement, not something expanded only after a crisis.
The industrial base is part of the warfighting team. It needs to be planned, resourced and communicated with accordingly.
Reexamine How We Defend Our Ships
The Red Sea and Iran conflicts have provided invaluable experience defending ships against missiles, drones and complex threats.
American warships have performed remarkably well. But these engagements have raised questions about the cost and sustainability of our defensive architecture.
How many expensive interceptors should we expend against inexpensive threats? How do we preserve magazine capacity during prolonged operations? And how do we defend against coordinated attacks that threaten to overwhelm existing systems?
The Navy should rethink layered defense, incorporating aircraft, shipboard missiles, electronic warfare, directed energy, decoys and autonomous systems.
The objective should be defeating threats at the lowest practical cost while preserving the ability to respond to more dangerous attacks.
Combat lessons must quickly translate into updated tactics, training, doctrine and procurement decisions.
A successful interception deserves recognition. Learning how to make the next hundred engagements more effective matters even more.
Buy Weapons and Technology for the Fight We Face
Combat exposes the difference between what looks promising in a demonstration and what delivers results at sea.
The Navy should examine weapons consumption, magazine capacity, production rates and industry’s ability to replenish critical inventories.
We need more weapons, but also a better mix.
That means increasing production of proven systems while accelerating lower cost interceptors, electronic warfare, autonomous platforms and technologies that deliver advantages at scale.
When Sailors identify a capability gap or discover a new use for existing technology, the response should not automatically be another multiyear study.
Experimentation remains essential. But experimentation without fielding is not progress.
Industry also needs clear demand signals. Companies cannot expand production or invest in facilities based on uncertain requirements and inconsistent procurement.
Combat experience should shape acquisition priorities, backed by sustained funding and executable contracts.
Let Combat Experience Shape the Future Fleet
Perhaps the greatest opportunity is reconsidering what the Navy should look like over the next five, ten and twenty years.
These conflicts have reinforced the importance of large, capable warships while demonstrating the growing value of distributed operations, unmanned systems, resilient logistics and magazine depth.
Does our current mix of ships provide the right balance of offensive capability, defensive capacity, endurance and affordability? How can unmanned platforms extend sensing, targeting and combat effectiveness? What combinations of manned and unmanned forces could increase operational reach while reducing risk?
But we must avoid drawing narrow conclusions from any single conflict.
The threats encountered in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf are not identical to those the Navy would face in the Western Pacific. Lessons must be tested against the demands of a larger, more sophisticated fight.
The objective is not to design a Navy for the last war. It is to use that experience to make better decisions about the next one.
The Opportunity Is Now
None of these changes will be easy. They will challenge established processes, budgets and long held assumptions.
Good. That is what meaningful change requires.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle deserves credit for bringing urgency, operational focus and accountability to the Navy’s challenges. His emphasis on warfighting readiness and confronting difficult realities is exactly the leadership this moment demands.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao also has an important role. His focus on Sailors, readiness and strengthening relationships with industry offers an opportunity to turn operational lessons into departmental action. Together, Cao and Caudle can connect what the Fleet has learned in combat with decisions about resources, acquisition, maintenance and the future force.
With the midterm elections behind us, the administration and Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, should find common ground. Fleet readiness, maintenance, weapons production and industrial capacity are not partisan issues. They are national security responsibilities.
Cao can help lead that conversation, working with Congress and industry to translate operational requirements into sustained investment and practical reforms. There will be legitimate debates over budgets and fleet composition, but combat lessons should provide a common starting point.
Every major command, acquisition organization and industrial partner should be asking three questions: What have these conflicts taught us? What are we doing differently? And how quickly will those changes reach the Fleet?
Some improvements can happen in months. Others require years of investment and congressional support. Both matter.
The Navy has paid a considerable price in operational tempo, equipment wear, weapons expenditure and the sacrifices of Sailors and families to gain this experience.
We owe it to them, and to those who will fight the next conflict, to make that experience count.
Adversity has given the Navy an opportunity to take a meaningful leap forward. With strong leadership from Cao and Caudle, and renewed commitment from Congress, there is no reason to waste it.
Chris Servello is co-founder of Provision Advisors and co-host of the CavasShips podcast–he writes frequently about naval readiness, maritime strategy and the defense industrial base.
