This past week marked the 83rd anniversary of the Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942), an event in American history that went unnoticed nationwide. Not even the Department of Defense acknowledged the battle, while concurrently the Secretary of Defense was seen running with U.S. Army troops on the beach at Normandy to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings (June 6, 1944) in France.

However, the unremarked passing of the anniversary of the Battle of Midway isn’t a story about interservice rivalry; rather, it is a reflection of the past 30 years of disregard and neglect of American naval power throughout our history.

As James Schlesinger noted in 2003, regarding the battle, “Midway was far more than a decisive naval victory. It was far more than the turning of the tide in the Pacific War. In a strategic sense, Midway represents one of the great turning points of world history. And in that role, the battle remains underappreciated.”

While Schlesinger’s remarks underscored the Battle of Midway’s historical importance, given today’s strategic environment, the Battle of Midway is far more than just a historical reflection; instead, it is a warning about a future where America may not be capable of such a victory, this time over the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) navy.

Just 22 years after Schlesinger’s remarks—made 12 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the sad truth is that the United States is on the cusp of a defeat of similar magnitude because of 30 years of prioritized spending on land war at the expense of sustaining America’s naval power.

For example, at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union in 1986, the U.S. Navy had just under 600 warships and submarines. Today, the U.S. Navy has 296, while over the same period, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy doubled in size to over 370, well on its way to 430 ships by the end of the decade.

Twenty-five years ago, the PLA Navy was a brown-water naval force, consisting of a small number of World War II-era ships and submarines that rarely, if ever, ventured more than 20-30 miles from their coast. This week, two PLAN aircraft carrier strike groups are operating around our naval and air facilities on Guam, with one of these Chinese aircraft carriers operating east of Iwo Jima, east of the Second Island Chain for the first time in history, while hundreds of other warships are patrolling daily throughout the First and Second Island Chains.

The PLA Navy not only has more ships and submarines than any other nation on the planet, but its ships, submarines, and aircraft also carry the most advanced and lethal anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, capable of traveling at supersonic and hypersonic speeds. All of which are designed to sink the U.S. Navy.

Most worrisome is that this shift in naval power has occurred against the backdrop of America’s massive national debt, now at $37 trillion, and rising by all estimates. Make no mistake, America’s national debt is directly connected to shipbuilding. Why? Because America, sitting astride two of the world’s largest oceans, is a maritime nation, a fact recognized since President Washington and the first Congress authorized building six frigates (at a cost of 8% of the entire federal budget) to defend U.S. ships and ensure freedom of the seas. If a 21st-century China can control the seas of the western Pacific, as the Barbary Pirates did in the Mediterranean in the 18th century, then the basis for our entire economy and our liberty is at risk.

The Trump administration deserves credit for recognizing this shift in naval power and has taken steps to address this situation with the creation of the Office of Shipbuilding and a promised increased budget for naval warship production. Yet, the reality is that even these measures are not enough to restore America’s maritime power, even with the proposed $1 trillion DoD budget. All of which leads to the stark reality that hard decisions must be made in how the DoD spends its money.

After 30 years of fighting “endless wars” in the Middle East (from Operation Desert Storm in 1991 until our failed Afghan retreat in August 2021), the U.S. Department of Defense has been overtaken by a land warfare-centric approach to America’s national defense.

The DoD’s budget is the prime reflection of that shift, where most of our money was diverted into the Army, Air Force, and Special Operations communities, while the U.S. Navy shrank in real terms. This unbalanced approach to our national security has made America incredibly vulnerable, especially in the Pacific Ocean, in the face of the lethal capabilities of the PLA Navy.

Which all leads to the crux of the matter: what is the nature of the war that America must prepare for, what is needed to deter that war, and what is needed, if required, to win a war with the PRC? There is no rational answer to those questions that envision a land invasion of China; however, our main ally in the Pacific, Japan, is an island nation, and the tyranny of distance across the Pacific means we must maintain robust maritime logistics across dozens of island bases.

Any war with the PRC will be a maritime war; therefore, the Department of Defense spending strategy must be transformed from a Pentagon dominated by ground forces to one dominated by naval forces. Not only is this the right strategy for what we face, it is also the right answer for our current and future budget battles to rein in our national debt.

For instance, an Army Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) is at least five times the cost of an Aegis guided-missile destroyer (DDG), primarily due to manpower and sustainment costs: $23 billion versus $4 billion. An ABCT is designed for ground warfare, not maritime, multi-domain, high-end, electronic warfare. While firepower totals may be equivalent, a DDG’s range of firepower delivery (thousands of miles vs. hundreds) favors the Navy. Likewise, an ABCT is not highly mobile and requires a huge logistic tail to support 4,000 troops versus under 300 aboard a DDG. It is worth noting that the delivery time for such platforms is critical, with an ABCT taking just 2-3 years while a DDG takes 3-5 years (at present capacities). And even if some would want to debate the costs per building and sustaining an ABCT versus a Navy DDG, the fundamental question that has to be answered is, which one is of greater value to the nation when the problem we are facing is the defense of sea and air lines of communications in the Pacific and our support to a number of very close Western Pacific allies—most of whom are islands—from the threat of the PRC’s substantial naval force?

The fact remains that the advice “never fight a land war in Asia” must remain at the forefront of America’s strategic decision-making. But that does not mean the Chinese Communist Party will not start a war in the Pacific, and if it is to be fought, it will not be a land war; it may not be an Air Force war, but it will be a Navy war. We must be prepared.

Finally, the following factors must be considered. First, a limited qualified manpower expansion favors the DDG over ABCT and second, the Ukraine war shows limitations of the ABCT to drone warfare, while a DDG with effective anti-drone laser/microwave capability, plus its mobility, is more survivable in the vast openness of the Pacific Ocean, which is more than 20 times the size of the continental U.S. Third, the naval model of “run and gun” warfare is inherently more survivable than Army models (except maybe for SOF).

Thus, comparing the firepower of the U.S. Army mechanized brigade to a U.S. Navy Aegis destroyer involves analyzing two very different platforms with distinct roles, weapon systems, and operational contexts. A mechanized brigade is designed for ground combat, with a focus on maneuverability, combined arms, and sustained land operations. An Aegis destroyer is a naval platform optimized for multi-domain warfare, including anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine warfare, and missile defense, especially important given that any war in the Pacific with the PRC will primarily be a naval war.

While there has been recent speculation regarding surface ship survivability for American aircraft carriers that allegedly would be sunk within the first 15 minutes of a war by PRC missile forces, those missile programs can be defeated kinetically and non-kinetically and are inherently more survivable than fixed targets like those Ukraine recently destroyed across Russia. The ocean, which comprises 70% of the Earth’s surface, contains no geographic features, like highways, rail lines, airfields, or warehouses, that assist the attacker in targeting their adversary. The sea is an open slate where ships and submarines can operate at any place at any time, making them orders of magnitude harder to find, fix, and attack.

Add in the Cold War practice of emission control (EMCON) communications, and U.S. Navy surface ships can be very hard to find in the big blue sea. Not impossible, but still much harder than trying to find an Army unit that is operating in a known geographic area where there are only so many lines of communication for those forces to travel on, or a bomber base that isn’t moving at all. This is to say nothing of the stealth and survivability of the U.S. Navy’s submarine force, still the finest on the planet.

It is time for an urgent change in our military force structure and focus. We need to plan for the worst-case future scenario, which is a major maritime war in the Pacific, not the land-centric wars of the past. As such, America must have a major shift in Pentagon spending, as our future depends on being able to control the seas and protect our borders. This cannot be done when the Congress and Pentagon are still promoting land-based options and solutions. Just look at how many people take the war in Ukraine and cut-and-paste it into our defense budget to buy small, short-range drones as if the drone attacks on land are the military equivalent of fighting a war at sea.

Let us remember the Battle of Midway, a victory that was made possible because of a nation that had not forgotten the importance of maritime power. Let’s not forget the courageous pilots who gave their lives to sink those enemy carriers. Let’s not forget the thousands of sailors who were embarked on those great beasts of war. And let’s not forget, as well, that these warships were built in American shipyards from Philadelphia to Long Beach. Ships made by American hands—using American steel and the kinds of ingenuity and care that no other nation could match, due to the long line of American leaders who understood the value of maritime power.

We won at Midway for many reasons, but the biggest and most important for today is that the country had leaders who understood shipbuilding and how important it was, not parochial service rivalries, but leaders who, regardless of their personal backgrounds, understood that if America is to survive, she must have ships—big, beautiful capital ships and submarines.

So, for the sake of the country, as the fiscal year 2026 budget is formulated, America must turn towards the restoration of our naval power, even if it means trimming the top line of the U.S. Army’s budget and end strength. If we do not reallocate the limited dollars we have towards restoring our naval power, then we can rest assured that more American Army soldiers and Marines will die in battles, even on our homeland, if we don’t act now.

James E. Fanell served as a career naval intelligence officer whose positions included senior intelligence officer for China at the Office of Naval Intelligence and chief of intelligence for CTF-70, Seventh Fleet, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He is the co-author of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure.