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On Tuesday, speaking at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper unveiled a U.S. Navy force design titled “Battle Force 2045.” Administration policy and the law of the land require the navy to construct a 355-ship fleet, up from just under 300 today. If properly funded and executed, Secretary Esper’s plan would produce a 355-ship fleet by 2035—but only as an interim step toward a 500-ship fleet in 2045.

‘MORE LETHAL, SURVIVABLE, ADAPTABLE, SUSTAINABLE’: Defense Secretary Mark Esper has unveiled his vision for a 500-ship Navy, the cornerstone of his “Battle Force 2045” plan to outpace China in the race for global military supremacy.

“Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday outlined a plan to grow the Navy to 500 ships by 2045, a major expansion for the sea service that he says will be paid for by using savings from Pentagon reform efforts,” Seligman reports.

The secretary of defense this week detailed an aggressive new plan to significantly boost the Navy fleet to more than 500 vessels, with an emphasis on attack submarines, unmanned ships and "light carriers."

On this episode of the DefAero Report Daily Podcast, sponsored by Bell, Amb. Eric Edelman, a former US ambassador to Turkey who is now a counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Amb. John Evans, a former US ambassador to Armenia, and Eugene Rumer, the director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discuss the combined Turkish-Azerbaijani assault on the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh.

According to the Department of Defense website, Esper announced the plan on Oct. 6 during the virtual Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments with the goal to have over 500 manned and unmanned ships in the fleet by 2045. Of that, Esper says the plan is to reach 355 traditional Battle Force ships by 2035.