The Navy could potentially get by with fewer ships if some of the larger, more capable unmanned vehicles could someday reliably do some of the easier missions ships do, but it's not a one-for-one replacement, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Speaking to Breaking Defence, retired Navy strategist Bryan Clark, who is now with the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments refuted the comparison made by the US Coast Guard Commandant.

In the past two decades, the number of Navy ships has decreased by about 20 percent, though the time they are deployed has remained the same, according to a 2015 report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington research group funded by the Defense Department. The increased burden has fallen disproportionately on the Seventh Fleet.

The Navy has been strained by fewer ships taking on more missions. A 2015 study by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments found that deployed ships remained at a constant level of 100 between 1998 and 2014, even though the fleet shrank by about 20 percent.

What might be the most tantalizing point behind the cyber attack theory is that it’s technically possible, Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former aide to former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News on Thursday.

One grounding might be an isolated incident. Four ship collisions and 17 sailors dead in the span of eight months, that’s a trend. And not a good one. With some insight into what might be going on inside a troubled Navy, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turns to Bryan Clark, former special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.