The Honorable John C. Phelan Surface Navy Association Keynote Speech

Good afternoon and thank you Vice Admiral Jackson for the introduction. Thank you to every Surface Warfare Officer, Chief, Sailor and Marine in this room who's doing the hard work and taking our ships forward. CNO, VCNO, Navy and Marine Corps senior leaders thank you for speaking to our Surface Force and discussing combat ready warfighters for the next 250 years. Captain Chris Bushnell, Julie Howard, Debbie Gary and the entire SNA team, thank you for putting this together.

This symposium matters. It's where we celebrate wins, get real about what's working, what needs to be fixed and what solutions we are going to implement.

Two hundred and fifty years are a hell of a legacy. But legacy alone doesn't win the next war.

Let me start with a moment in American history that should be familiar to everyone in this room: the Knudsen moment. In 1940, the world was in disarray. Europe was at war. Sea lanes were under attack. And the United States faced a hard truth: our Navy was too small, our shipyards were underutilized, our supply chains were fragmented, and our industrial base was not ready for sustained conflict. Industrial production determined survival. President Franklin Roosevelt understood this. And he also understood that you do not solve an industrial crisis with endless consultant studies, research papers, process charts, committees or meetings. You solve it with leadership, authority, and execution. So, he summoned William "Bill" Knudsen, the president of General Motors, to Washington and asked him to help mobilize the nation. Knudsen did not have a military background and was not a career government official. He was a businessman called in to fix an emergency. He understood production, bottlenecks, workforce mobilization, and systems. He measured success in output, timelines, and results. Knudsen, as does President Trump, understood something that still holds true today. Wars are won by production. By the ability to make things. By disciplined execution. By building production systems that scale. Knudsen did not ask for perfect conditions. He asked for authority, clarity of mission, and accountability. His answer was simple and brutally honest: we must out-produce them. And that is exactly what America did. By 1945, the United States had produced more than 2,700 warships. Not because we admired the problem, but because we organized the nation to solve it. We standardized designs. Mobilized the workforce. Made hard decisions. And moved with urgency. That was the Knudsen moment.

Today, we face a moment of similar consequence. That is what President Trump's Golden Fleet is about. We are operating in the most hostile, dangerous, and unpredictable global security environment of our lifetimes. As evidenced by recent conflicts, war as we know it has dramatically changed. The mix, scope, and scale of what the Department of the Navy does to accomplish its mission is more complex than any organization in the world. Above, on, and below the sea, we operate globally, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Whenever there is a disturbance anywhere in the world, the first question asked is: where are the carriers? Going forward, it will be where are the carriers? And where are the battleships? While the United States Navy and Marine Corps remain the preeminent maritime force on the planet, our strategic advantage is no longer uncontested. Our adversaries are quickly adapting, accelerating production, and innovating at an alarming pace. At the forefront of that competition stands the People's Republic of China, our most consequential strategic competitor. Their leadership has been explicit about their ambitions to dominate the Indo-Pacific, reshape the international order, and displace the United States as the world's leading economic and maritime power. Consider the industrial reality. China has roughly one hundred million people working in manufacturing. The United States has fewer than thirteen million. In 2022, China had approximately 1,800 ships under construction. The United States had five. If current trends hold, by 2030 China will have nearly half of the overall global industrial capacity, that is not just in shipbuilding. Let me repeat that. This is not a future challenge. It is happening now. And China is not our only concern. And We need to behave like we are on a wartime footing-because the timeline is not ours to choose.

In the Middle East, Iran and its proxies threaten regional stability and global commerce. In June, throughout the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran, we surged aircraft carriers and other assets from different Combatant Commands to support Israeli security … intercepting scores of incoming Iranian and Houthi drones and missiles to support a close ally and ensure regional stability. That same month, in OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER, a Navy Ohio-Class submarine launched dozens of Tomahawks into Iran from hundreds of miles away, striking targeted infrastructure sites in Isfahan and causing significant damage to Iran's nuclear capacity. In Europe, Russia's aggression against Ukraine has rewritten assumptions about modern conflict. At home, we remain responsible for defending the homeland. That is exactly why the Navy-Marine Corps team is doubling down on integrated, joint-ready combat power not in theory, but in execution. In Venezuela, at President Trump's direction, the United States Armed Forces demonstrated what no other nation can: the ability to bring synchronized air, land, and sea power to bear with speed, precision, and overwhelming effect while protecting our people and preserving freedom of action. Navy and Marine Corps forces operated as a unified naval team alongside joint and interagency partners, delivering disciplined command-and-control, aviation and maritime maneuver, and the kind of interoperability that turns capability into decisive outcomes. Bravo Zulu to the men and women of our armed forces and our Navy and Marine Corps team that participated in OPERATION ABSOLUTE RESOLVE. Not a single American service member or U.S. asset were lost. That is what integrated military power looks like when it is ready, practiced, and led with clarity of purpose. Across these theaters, the Department of the Navy stands front and center: projecting power, sustaining deterrence, and ensuring freedom of the seas.

I hear and read a lot about ship vulnerability, and I hear it most often framed through the conflict in Ukraine and the pundits believe all we should do is invest in drones, space and submarines and that is the future. Drones are indeed transformative-one of the biggest battlefield innovations in a generation. Recent conflicts prove their value as force multipliers, delivering intelligence, targeting, and strike effects at lower cost and reduced risk. But here's the question I ask: how would that force structure-by itself-have worked in Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE? The mission succeeded because we had a joint force that integrated numerous technologies and platforms. Unmanned mattered, but it was only one piece of a larger interoperable and distributed kill chain backed by the unique reach and staying power of American sea power. Keep in mind something that moves…like a ship is much harder to hit than a stationary target, like a base or missile silo. Throughout our history, how many times have carrier or ship survivability come into question, yet they still remain as critical components of naval and American military power. Prior administrations substantially cut submarine programs and even considered cancelling them entirely. Think about where we would be today, had we ended submarine production in the early 90's.

To operate at a wartime footing, we must unleash our innovators-uniformed and civilian, public and private. We are now operating in an era of software-defined warfare, and the Navy is rapidly adopting AI and digital capabilities to increase the lethality and survivability of the Fleet. Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE made that undeniable. It worked. And we intend to scale it across the Fleet. Unmanned systems, AI, C5ISR, directed energy, hypersonic, and long-range conventional strike are not futurism. They are operational realities. And the lesson from Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE is not that drones make the traditional Fleet obsolete, nor that AI replaces the warfighter-it is that victory belongs to integrated systems that adapt faster than the enemy can react. So yes, I understand the critique that unmanned and software should be the center of procurement gravity. They must be central. But, America's maritime dominance will come from an optimized architecture that integrates both emerging technologies and traditional platforms-pairing new systems with proven naval power to deliver mass, resilience, and decisive effect when the nation and when the mission calls for it. Keep in mind, no mission is ever the same - Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER, ABSOLUTE RESOLVE and ROUGH RIDER were all different in their own unique ways.

But military power alone is not enough. Economic strength, manufacturing ability, and industrial capacity are national security. President Trump understands this and is rightly addressing it. To be a superpower you need a dominant military force, a robust economy and the ability to make things. In an era of software-defined warfare, lethality is a function of the speed of adaptation, and the quality of the decision cycle. Those who out-innovate and adapt the fastest will dominate the fight. You cannot sustain global maritime power with a hollow industrial base. You cannot deter a numerically superior adversary across the vast distances of the Indo-Pacific without logistics, speed, scale, and depth. Like Bill Knudsen, President Trump did not bring me here to admire the problem. He brought me here to build faster, smarter, and at the scale this moment demands. The President was clear about my mission: restore America's shipbuilding might-and seize a once-in-a-generation investment to bring the United States Navy into the 21st century. For the past nine months, we have been reviewing every program and standard-diligently and without exception-to ensure each is properly baselined, maximizes readiness, and restores accountability across the enterprise. My focus is output, timelines, systems, and results. That is why the Knudsen moment is not just a historical analogy. It is a guide. Wars are not won by isolated platforms. They are won by effective processes, systems, sustained production, and the ability to fight and replenish faster than the enemy can adapt. Paper fleets and PowerPoint strategies do not deter anyone. Readiness means hulls in the water, crewed by trained Sailors, backed by American industrial surge capacity.

When I testified before Congress: I stated the truth: Despite having the most formidable Navy in the world, all of our shipbuilding programs are a mess. We are behind schedule and over budget. That candor was intentional. Candid self-assessment builds trust-inside the Department, with Congress, with industry, and with the taxpayers who fund this fleet. Some argue that admitting mistakes undermines confidence. I believe the opposite. The Navy is changing the way it operates and behaves. Nothing builds credibility faster than honesty, and nothing destroys it faster than pretending everything is fine when the data says otherwise. Look at the Russian military, who thought they would roll over Ukraine and are now in the fourth year of war with a tremendous loss of life. If we want industry to invest, Congress to partner, and Sailors and Marines to trust the system that supports them, then we owe them the truth-especially when it is uncomfortable. My mother always taught me as a kid to tell the truth, it's the easiest thing to remember. we must also learn from our mistakes as well as our successes. When a program succeeds, document why. When it fails, document what went wrong. We do this very well post operations and during training, but we aren't very good at it when it comes to business processes. Too often, lessons evaporate-lost in billet rotations, reports, and reorganizations. In addition, standards are not maintained consistently across the DON. We relearn the same lessons at great cost in time, money, and readiness. That is unacceptable. And that is an organizational culture and leadership problem. Lessons learned must be lessons retained and applied consistently. We will institute processes that actually work, feedback loops that capture critical insights, and systems that surface problems early. Not more bureaucracy, paperwork, red tape, or excuses-but clarity, accountability, and action.

That also means changing how we think about risk. I want to spend a little bit of time on the word risk. The key to understanding risk is defining it. The trouble is that risk is not a number, it is a concept or notion, and it is not a simple one. Your own definition of risk is an important one and has real implications for an organization and its culture. Keep in mind the amount of risk we take personally, individually, or collectively is not a given physical constant. We choose it. What we need is more calculated risk taking and to move away from the zero-defect mentality. And the way an organization embraces risk shapes its culture, its speed, and its outcomes. If we want to modernize at speed and if we want to outpace adversaries who are building without hesitation, then we must be willing to take smart, disciplined risk. Think about successful companies. Success comes from unconventional thinking, willingness to experiment and tolerance for risk. These traits are all rooted in courage and conviction. Not reckless risk-but informed risk, backed by data, accountability, and leadership that owns outcomes. To be an innovative organization, we have to take risks. There are many challenges and approaches to keeping innovation alive. A big part of this is sustaining your capacity and willingness to take risk. It takes constant vigilance as a large organization to assure that everything doesn't have to be perfect and guaranteed before taking action. We need to remove the fear of failure when testing things both internally and for industry. Iteration and partnerships must be our new modus operandi. Making mistakes is one of the best ways to learn and can lead to great success, repeating the same mistake results in mediocrity and ensures you will lose. In the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, "if you ain't first, you're last."

President Trump's vision for maintaining and enhancing American maritime dominance is known as the Golden Fleet. So, what is the Golden Fleet? It is really about three things: First, rebuilding the Fleet - delivering the best and most capable ships. Second, revitalizing the maritime industrial base. And lastly, it's about changing how the DON does business. That is the logic behind the Golden Fleet. It is rooted in the understanding that you cannot download a shipyard, that time is the most unforgiving constraint in warfare, and that artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing multiply the workforce rather than replace it. Under President Trump's plan, we will have the most tonnage under contract since WWII. The Fleet will be a high-low mix of platforms, next-generation battleship, continued production of destroyers, carriers, amphibs and submarines. A new frigate, auxiliary ships and various unmanned vessels. Large surface combatants provide volume, survivability, magazine depth, and sustained fires for the high-end fight. High-end warfighting demands platforms built for tonnage and capability. That is why the next generation battleship is designed to deliver sustained fires, robust air and missile defense, and command and control for both manned and unmanned forces. The TRUMP-Class battleship will serve as an unambiguous statement of American resolve - defiant in spirit and decisive in action. It is not a return to the past; it is a lethal, decisive response to the future fight. A ship built to not only swat the arrows but to kill the archers. At the same time, we must build ships quicker. The Navy needs more ships in order to meet mission requirements. Small surface combatants are affordable, producible, and lethal at scale, freeing our most capable platforms to focus where they matter most. That is why we are accelerating the production of a new frigate using proven designs, disciplined modularity, and cost and schedule as hard constraints. We learned the lesson of ever-changing requirements and open-ended designs. This time, integration is deliberate, finite, and executable.

Logistics and auxiliaries form the backbone that sustains operations across distance. The distances of the Indo-Pacific make sustainment decisive. A world-class combat fleet without a modern auxiliary force is a fleet that cannot stay in the fight. Modern oilers, ammunition ships, tenders, and forward staging bases are essential to credible naval power. Every Sailor in this room knows platforms don't fight without fuel, food, munitions and…of course ice cream. The logistics tail wags the operational dog and right now our tail is too short for our ambitions. Unmanned and autonomous systems are central to the Golden Fleet. Unmanned systems add mass, optionality, and unpredictability. They multiply combat power, create targeting dilemmas, and allow us to scale capability faster than traditional platforms alone. Paired with manned ships acting as command nodes, they form a system that adapts faster than any single platform ever could. The generational investment in the maritime industrial base launched by the President's shipbuilding renaissance prioritizes capacity, throughput and workforce development along with predictable contracted defense business that rewards performance and drives commercial shipbuilding back to America's shores. Time is the most unforgiving variable in war. Ships are complex systems built across years and sustained over decades. When schedules slip, designs churn, and contracts reward delay, we lose time we cannot recover. Our adversaries understand this. They are aligning industrial output to military timelines. They are building with campaigns in mind, not budget cycles. That is why sustainment and munitions are as critical as new construction. Recent operations have made this reality undeniable. Precision munitions are consumed rapidly in real combat. Interceptors, cruise missiles, torpedoes, and long-range fires are not theoretical requirements. If production cannot surge, deterrence erodes. We are expanding munitions capacity, stabilizing demand signals, modernizing energetics infrastructure, and diversifying suppliers. Predictability spurs investment. Scale enables speed. Speed enables deterrence. Maintenance is combat power. Every day a ship sits idle beyond plan is a day we cede initiative. We are instituting disciplined planning measured to the hour, prioritizing only the work that requires downtime, awarding contracts earlier, forecasting in advance and adopting best practices from commercial operators who understand availability as a core metric. This is not about lowering standards. It is about applying them intelligently and consistently.

We are also modernizing how information flows across the industrial base. Fragmented data slows decisions. Slow decisions lose wars. Real-time analytics and AI give leaders visibility into bottlenecks, risks, and timelines so problems are fixed early, not explained later. But systems don't build ships, people do. Workforce development is a strategic center of gravity. A quarter of the shipyard workforce is retirement-eligible within five years. Over the next decade, shipbuilders and suppliers will need to hire roughly 250,000 skilled workers to meet demand. That means apprenticeships, vocational training, accelerated pipelines, and partnerships with local communities. It also means paying fair wages and consistent build schedules so shipyard workers can have lifetime careers. AI and automation do not replace the workforce. They empower it. And in many ways upskill it. Advanced manufacturing increases throughput, improves first-time quality, and makes skilled labor more productive. AI-enabled enterprise platforms provide real time production visibility through integrated data connections, like the recent contract award for the Shipbuilding Operating System (ShipOS) that connects shipyards, suppliers and Navy program offices through a centralized command center. We are currently implementing ShipOS in partnership with General Dynamics Electric Boat and at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard with planned deployment to all four public shipyards to identify production bottlenecks and supply chain risks before they become delays. Decisions that once required extensive coordination can occur within minutes. Technology multiplies talent.

Execution starts with changing how we do business. The hard part about making organizational changes of this magnitude is unlearning the things that have made you successful and changing your beliefs about what is important…and what is possible. Nothing fails like success. One of our biggest challenges is to learn how to organizationally optimize the performance of the whole, while maintaining the excellence of the parts. This is important, because when you optimize the performance of the parts you systematically suboptimize the performance of the whole. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. However, we can't spend too much time measuring the problem or admiring it. We need to fix it and get faster. Going forward, accountability, honesty, and transparency will be our operating principles. We are locking in designs earlier, enforcing disciplined requirements, and consolidating authority so decisions are made by leaders who own outcomes. We are shifting from fragmented accountability to portfolio-level ownership. We are accelerating procurement pathways so our Sailors and Marines receive capability in months, not years. We are aligning acquisition with execution. This effort extends to how we finance and structure industrial growth. Public-private partnerships, private capital, and distributed shipbuilding expand capacity faster and reduce risk. Distributed production taps new labor markets, brings modern manufacturing into shipbuilding, and strengthens resilience. None of this works without integration across the naval force. Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE was proof of this integration. The Navy-Marine Corps fight as one integrated team. Power projection wherever national interest's demand. Distributed operations, expeditionary basing, amphibious maneuver, and sustained naval fires all depend on a fleet designed to fight together. Every platform enables the Navy-Marine Corps team. Every system reinforces the whole.

And that brings us back to where we began. The Knudsen moment teaches us that industrial power, properly organized, is decisive combat power. Deterrence requires readiness. Readiness requires capability. Capability requires platforms and hulls in the water. The question before us is not whether we can build the Golden Fleet. It is whether we will. We are choosing to act. With leadership. With labor. With industry mobilized for outcomes. Freedom isn't free. It is sustained by those who answer the call: Sailors at Sea, Marines forward and American workers in our shipyards and factories. And it depends on decision-makers in Washington remaining bold and resolved-meeting this industrial challenge head-on in a way that strengthens our national security and delivers real benefits for all Americans. That is the duty we share. The mission we honor. And the Golden Fleet we will build.

In closing, on my last trip to San Diego, I was asked by a Sailor, if I had only one goal, what would it be? I said: thank you for the question-that's an easy one: to ensure there are zero caskets draped in an American flag. Why? Because if we achieve that, then peace through strength i.e. deterrence worked. We avoided the fight. And, I promise you that I will do everything in my power to try and make this a reality.

May God Bless you, May God Bless the United States of America and May God Bless the Navy and Marine Corps Team that defends her.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.