Finally—and most interestingly—a concerted, four-year campaign to rebuild American naval power offers an opportunity to upset the status quo within the Pentagon and alter the bureaucratic balance of power between the military services in ways that resonate far beyond the next presidential term. Historically, the Army, Air Force, and Navy (inclusive of the Marine Corps) Departments claim roughly equal shares of the annual defense budget. Shifting that ratio in favor of the sea services—either by reassigning existing funds or disproportionately allocating new defense spending—will enhance the Navy Secretary’s position in the perennial battle for budget and influence inside the Pentagon. Deliberately reducing or eliminating certain Army and Air Force missions and programs to reallocate funding to enhancing naval power would send a powerful message to the Pentagon’s entrenched bureaucracy about political leadership’s vision for American defense priorities going forward.

From the 1949 “Revolt of the Admirals” down to the multi-decade ground wars of the early twenty-first century, the Pentagon’s bureaucratic culture has been dominated by the Army and its stalwart ally, the Air Force. Putting the thumb on the scale in favor of the Navy and Marine Corps by increasing their resources and providing clear, consistent political direction in their favor would upset the comfortable status quo within the federal government’s largest bureaucracy. 

Insofar as budgets and influence can be permanently shifted away from the air-land cartel and toward the sea services, a second Trump administration can reshape the options and professional military advice available to its successors, limiting the ability of a future president to pursue the kind of interventionist foreign policy Trump campaigned against. If the goal is to “end endless wars,” the sea services should be primus inter pares when it comes to advising a future president on military issues. It is generals, after all, who tend to tell political leadership that using the United States’ exquisite military to invade a landlocked country on the far side of the world is going to be quick and easy; admirals, by and large, do not. 

Naval power is the right tool to confront America’s mounting national security challenges, and making it central to U.S. defense policy would complement other priorities on the Trump platform. If re-elected, President Trump should take a page from the book of past Republican navalist presidents—Roosevelt and Reagan—and make rebuilding America’s sea services a priority of his second term. Who knows: one day, the USS Donald J. Trump might join those presidents’ namesake warships at the head of a carrier strike group.

Samuel Byers is the Senior National Security Advisor at the Center for Maritime Strategy. From 2018 to 2020, he served as a policy advisor to both of the Secretaries of the Navy during the first Trump administration. He holds an MA with distinction in War Studies from King’s College London and a BA summa cum laude in Diplomatic History and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Image: Aerial-Motion / Shutterstock.com.