Summary and Key Points: The proposed Trump-class “guided-missile battleship” (BBG(X)) is pitched as a revival of American sea power, but the concept clashes with how modern naval war is actually fought.
-The platform is missile-centric—more like a bloated destroyer than a true battleship—while remaining highly vulnerable to submarines, long-range missiles, and ISR-driven targeting.
Trump-Class Battleship. Image Credit: White House.
-Exotic add-ons like railguns and shipborne lasers are power-hungry and still unreliable at sea, while bigger hulls simply create bigger, pricier targets.
-Worse, U.S. shipyards are already strained, meaning BBG(X) would likely crowd out submarines and logistics ships that matter more in a China fight.
Trump’s BBG(X) Battleship Has a Message for China — But It’s the Wrong One
President Trump announced, in a December 2025 press conference, the new Trump-class battleship, or BBG(X).
The program is a headline-grabber, indeed—the first US battleship proposal in several decades, which explicitly references reviving American naval power.
Yet while the announcement gestures at real strategic anxieties, the Trump-class concept is incoherent mainly historically regressive, and operationally misaligned with modern naval warfare.
Said another way: the idea is nonsense.
Historical Context
The US retired its last Iowa-class battleships in 1992, platforms that were half a century old and well past their prime.
The battleship had declined after World War II because aircraft carriers had eclipsed it in terms of range and flexibility, while the emergence of missile technology made large surface ships increasingly vulnerable.
16-Inch Guns of USS Iowa. Image Credit: National Security Journal.
The Iowa-class endured, being revived multiple times from decommissioning, for the sake of shore bombardment and symbolic presence. But even that role faded as precision strike replaced massed gunfire.
And since Iowa’s retirement, over thirty years ago, no serious naval planner has advocated for a new battleship.
The Battleship Plan
Officially designated the BBG(X), the Trump-class is intended as a “guided-missile battleship,” outfitted with a variety of weaponry, including nuclear-capable cruise missiles (SLCM-N), hypersonic CPS missiles, a large VLS battery, a railgun, lasers, and conventional guns.
The BBG(X) would also feature aviation facilities for VTOL aircraft and drones.
And generally, the BBG(X) would not be a battleship in the traditional sense—there would be no heavy armor or large-caliber main battery serving as a primary weapon.
So the idea is not a pure throwback.
Iowa-Class Sideview. Image taken by National Security Journal at USS Iowa Battleship. Taken August, 2025.
Traditional battleships were defined by their armor, their big guns, their ability to engage in, and survive, direct surface combat.
The proposed Trump-class, meanwhile, is missile-centric, resembling a battlecruiser or oversized destroyer. The closest analogs are the Russian Kirov-class, or a scaled-up DDG(X). Using the battleship designation appears to be about rhetoric and nostalgia, more political than doctrinal.
Fundamental Flaws
But the concept is operationally flawed. Missile-centric surface ships already exist (cruisers, destroyers).
Adding more missiles to a larger hull does not solve survivability problems and only increases the cost to build it, while also increasing the target’s value from adversary’s perspective.
Large surface ships are mismatched for modern naval combat, suffering from high visibility and high vulnerability to submarines, long-range missiles, and hypersonic weapons. Essentially, large surface vessels are sitting ducks. And the railgun and high-energy lasers, which surface vessels have been proposed to deploy, remain developmental, intensively power-hungry, and consistently unreliable at sea.
Addressing China
Trump’s proposal does reflect real concerns, specifically, China’s massive shipbuilding spree, an overt attempt at naval assertion. China has already achieved numerical superiority in surface combatants. But quantity isn’t everything; the US still retains a qualitative advantage. And US naval strength rests not on surface combatants, but on aircraft carriers, submarines, and networked warfare.
Iowa-Class 5-Inch Guns. Image by Harry J. Kazianis/National Security Journal.
USS Iowa Opening Fire. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
A new battleship would not address the real threats to US naval superiority, like China’s increasingly capable A2/AD network, or ISR saturation, or missile salvos. Basically, the Trump-class serves to address a political narrative problem (China’s naval rise) rather than a strategic one (operating against China’s A2/AD network).
Industrial Realities for the Trump-Class Battleship
Aside from the strategic irrelevance, the industrial reality is that US shipyards are already strained. Submarines are backlogged. Destroyers are backlogged. Skilled welders and engineers are scarce.
The World War II-style industrial mobilization that yielded so many battleships in such a short span no longer exists. Building a dozen or more new surface combatants would disrupt higher-priority programs, likely crowding out submarines and logistics ships with higher value.
But the Trump-class doesn’t sound like a serious proposal, and is unlikely ever to enter production. For one, the naming itself suggests a lack of seriousness.
US battleships are historically named after states, whereas presidents’ names are reserved for carriers. Naming a class after a living president would be unprecedented, almost silly enough to suggest this is not a real procurement effort.
Iowa-Class 16-Inch Shell Menu. Image Credit: National Security Journal.
Regardless, Congressional skepticism is likely to be overwhelming. Cost overruns are almost guaranteed.
So expect the concept to be quietly shelved or folded into some other program. The probability that this Trump-class proposal is ever actually commissioned is exceptionally low—borderline zero.
The Trump-class is a nostalgia play, deployed for rhetorical effect. The proposal reflects a strategic misunderstanding about how modern naval warfare works, a throwback to a time that no longer exists.
About the Author: Harrison Kass
Harrison Kass is an attorney and journalist covering national security, technology, and politics. Previously, he was a political staffer and candidate, and a US Air Force pilot selectee. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in global journalism and international relations from NYU.
Old flint
February 15, 2026 at 7:24 pm
A better use for that money, other than for education or healthcare, would be long term investment in shipbuilding infrastructure. China has dozens of large, capable shipyards, several of which have greater capacity than all U.S. shipyards combined.
We won WWII because of our production output, mostly because we had so much idle factory space due to the after effects if the Great Depression . We no longer have that ability. If tensions increase, China could rapidly expand and we could not. A handful of ill-advised, vulnerable ships, which would take years to design, build and prepare for service is like throwing money into a furnace if the balloon goes up.
Richard M
February 17, 2026 at 3:20 pm
The need for increased power is unequivocal in order to be able to affordably defend against China’s missiles. While presenting this as living in the past, it is the author that is living in the past. It doesn’t matter what it’s called. We need to be able to shoot down Chinese missiles at a price we can afford. Sticking with missiles is stupid.