The newest Ford-class vessels have a service life of 50 years, but the Pentagon may find itself confronted more forcefully by China and Russia by the 2030s, according to a January 2017 report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a nonprofit think tank that advocates for a Navy reconfiguration. “The capability and willingness of great powers such as China and Russia to challenge the status quo are increasing, and the U.S. will need to shift the focus of its military operations from maintaining security against these manageable threats to deterring aggression by highly capable adversaries,” according to the detailed report. The Navy’s current size is also inadequate for the demands military leaders place upon it, with deployments growing longer and more frequent, according to the CSBA’s report. “For example, in 1998 only 4 percent of the Navy’s deployments were longer than six months; today all are.”
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