Bryan Clark, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the Navy could potentially reach 355 ships at less cost than the CBO projected. The CBO assumed that all of the additional ships in the larger Navy would come from new construction. But the service could help increase force levels by not retiring ships as quickly as current plans call for, Clark said. “You could get to a larger fleet sooner and … with a little less cost,” he said. But it would still require about a 20 percent increase in the shipbuilding budget, he added. From a fiscal and political perspective, ramping up to 355 ships is “feasible,” Clark said. “The key will be if there’s continued perception that you need a larger Navy to deal with security challenges that the country is facing.”
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