Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, suggests, however, that more naval power could give Trump flexibility to operate in international waters, a move far less provocative (and one that requires much less infrastructure) than sending in U.S. ground forces.

If, for instance, the United States deployed Navy battleships to the Baltic Sea, Moscow would undoubtedly balk at the U.S. presence off its coast, but there is very little they could or would do about it, says Clark, who recently completed a study on the needs for a future naval feet. A deployment of ground troops to the region, meanwhile, would be seen as a provocation and a more permanent presence, he says. 

“Part of the discussion might be that the president may want a better negotiating position,” Clark says. “Having more military force at his disposal gives us more strength when bargaining with the Russians.”

Trump will probably conduct foreign policy as an extension of “the art of the deal,” the former tycoon’s negotiating principle, says Bryan Clark, a defense expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “I think he could react more aggressively than past administrations would for the purpose of strengthening his negotiating position down the road,” Clark says. Clark says Trump’s choices could include shooting down North Korea’s next test missile, providing lethal arms to Ukraine’s government, deploying U.S. anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe and conducting more aggressive naval operations near islands China claims as its own in the South China Sea.

How can the silent service stay in tune with the times? First and foremost, by acknowledging the danger posed by foreign navies toting gee-whiz gadgetry. Clark hints at how hard adapting to more transparent seas could prove: “unless U.S. forces adapt to and lead the new competition, the era of unrivaled U.S. undersea dominance could draw to a surprisingly abrupt close.” That’s a grim prognosis in itself. Abrupt change begets major traumas in big institutions like navies. It’s hard to get ahead of the process.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said — using the seizure of Crimea as an example — sending forces in later “would look like we’re trying to change the facts on the ground.” This makes the response look like an act of aggression. “We’re going to have to prevent those things [from happening] in the first place,” he said

Predictable opposition scenarios, such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or Russian incursions into the Baltics, could happen so quickly that the United States would be forced to attack and dislodge units as a first response, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

McCain praised the conclusion of both the CSBA and MITRE studies that the Navy should halt procurement of Littoral Combat Ships and future frigates as soon as possible, and instead move toward a more powerful small surface combatant design. McCain has been a frequent critic of the LCS program. McCain was particularly impressed by the "comprehensiveness" of the CSBA study, according to his statement. He said CSBA's study should be the "starting point for the new administration's review of naval forces." President Trump campaigned on a goal of building the Navy from its current size of about 270 ships up to 350 vessels. "It proposes necessary new strategic, operational, basing, and force structure recommendations that deserve immediate consideration by Navy leaders," McCain said. The CSBA study makes a host of recommendations, perhaps most notably moving away from the Navy's current basing strategy and instead creating a forward deployed set of "deterrence forces" to be augmented with a "maneuver force" in the event of a crisis.