The Iran campaign has deployed three carrier strike groups, sent destroyers to absorb Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, and put B-52s loaded with precision-guided munitions over Iranian targets. Yet two retired admirals say the conflict has also exposed exactly what the Navy still lacks - and the cost curve it must fix before the next war.
Admiral Jamie Foggo and Vice Admiral John "Fuzzy" Miller outlined their fleet design takeaways on the War on the Rocks podcast, "Hvylya" reports.
Miller argued that medium-sized unmanned surface vessels - a concept the Navy has struggled to finalize - would already be transformative in the current fight. "You can sail those ships through the Strait of Hormuz right now. They can be surveillance platforms. They can be armed for a variety of different kinds of missions," he said. They are relatively inexpensive, put no sailors at risk, and losing one would not constitute a strategic setback.
The cost exchange ratio with Iranian drones has emerged as a central problem. Foggo noted that the Navy spends tens or hundreds of times more to intercept Shahed drones than Iran spends launching them. Ukrainian armed forces have rushed to help Gulf Cooperation Council countries establish affordable counter-drone defenses - a practical rebuke of the expensive-interceptor model Washington has relied on.
Foggo defended the carrier strike group as "the crown jewel of the fleet" and pushed for the FAXX - the next-generation carrier-based fighter - to replace the aging F/A-18. He also called the cancellation of the frigate program a mistake and backed the concept of a large destroyer successor to the Burke class, potentially armed with hypersonic weapons. "The president's asking for 1.5 trillion. I never thought I'd see that day. We're going to need it," Foggo said.
Miller distilled the fleet philosophy into a formula he attributed to the current Navy leadership: manned steel will remain the backbone for three decades, while unmanned platforms serve as a forward-deployed hedge. "If I lose it, I don't kill any sailors. So I'm willing to take that risk," he said.