Sea Control - Sea Control 603: Seaforth World Naval Review

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Seaforth World Naval Review 2026 Edited by Conrad Waters

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Ahoy, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. I'm your host, Jonathan Selling, and my guest today is Conrad Waters, editor of the Seaforth World Naval Review, which has recently released its 2026 edition of it, which we'll be discussing today. Conrad, welcome aboard, and could you first tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Well, Jonathan, first of all, thanks for the opportunity of speaking with you today. I would say that I'm firmly a civilian. My background is trained as a lawyer, and then I worked in banking as an analyst, as a financial analyst.

ended up running the London and European operations of a major Japanese bank in the form of risk analysis and assessment. Now naval history has always been an interest of mine particularly cruiser policy between the two world wars but partly by accident partly by design I was asked firstly to write a naval review of current annual developments for the journal Warship. And then that role developed into becoming the founding editor of Seaforth World Naval Review. Now, our first edition was published in 2010. So we're now on to edition number 17. And clearly, what we've been seeing over that time is quite a significant development in both the international environment, but also, of course, in the related naval environment.

Great. And as a reminder to our listeners, all views expressed are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organizations that we are otherwise affiliated with. Now, before we begin, could you give us a quick overview of the C4 World Naval Review? Yes. Thanks for the opportunity to plug the book, Jonathan. World Naval Review was devised, really, to provide an affordable but relatively comprehensive review of what's happening in the world's navies on a year-by-year basis. and when we started out with the project we saw effectively two types of publications in the market. There were very expensive compediums like James Fighting Ships which were really beyond the budget of most readers and then on the other hand at the time there was a lot of print media which was focused on monthly publication and really didn't have either the space or the time

to take a slightly more considered view given the demands of monthly publications. So what we wanted to do was to produce a publication which could be read by a wide range of people. It would be relevant to naval professionals, it would be relevant to industry, But it would also be of interest to the more informed readers that would give a considered view of what was happening across the world's neighbors each year and also could perhaps spend a bit more time and a bit more space looking at how particular fleets were developing, what the new technologies were, how warship design was evolving. and I guess perhaps also trying to give that some economic and political context as well. Great. We'll have a link to that in the show notes and let's get started. Okay, so let's start with a broad overview of naval developments over the last year. What trends have you noticed and what does the big picture look like?

Well, I think that it's very difficult to assess naval developments and wider international developments without looking at the influence of the second Trump presidency. Now, I need to stress in making that observation, particularly because we get lots of comments on this subject from particularly American readers, it's not my role as editor to say whether President Trump's return is a good or a bad thing for the American electorate. But clearly, the political administration in America has a significant impact on the international environment and, therefore, on world naval developments. Now, clearly, at the moment, what you're seeing is a shift from a system of long-term global alliances, but has held good amongst the Western nations pretty much since the end of the Second World War. And that system of alliance has been supported by a common economic and security vision, which many would argue has allowed quite a good level of security and also economic prosperity. Now, it's clear that the current administration of the United States has a somewhat different view of looking at the world.

And I think that their security vision is focused on a much more transactional approach. Now, clearly, a number of our politicians, particularly in Europe, given the dependency on the US for security, hope that that change is perhaps a temporary bump in the road and that normal service will resume in due course but at the same time it is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the international security environment is going to be very different going forward and that's clearly going to have an impact on how navies are funded and how navies are structured that has influenced for America's historic friends and allies, I think it also has an impact for the United States Navy as well. So if you were to look at America's allies, particularly in Europe, but also in the

Asia-Pacific, I think there's now much more uncertainty than there was previously as to whether or not the United States is a reliable ally. Now, that will probably result on those nations spending more on their own defence. They will acquire new naval capabilities. Particularly, they might look to acquire naval capabilities which were previously provided by the United States Navy, but which might not necessarily be available to them in future. I think also there will perhaps over time be less reliance on American technology

in favor of homegrown alternatives to make sure that there is security of supply. And perhaps in the longer term, you might see the creation of new alliances and new partnerships. And you can, for example, see that in the case of Japan, which has always really had an incredibly close relationship with the United States in military terms, but is now looking at partnerships with other countries in fighter aircraft with the United Kingdom and Italy. In naval terms, you can see the sale of the Megami-class frigate to the Royal Australian Navy and how that might develop in future. So I think significant changes from the point of view of those allies and those allies' navies. now and if you're turning to the United States there's a new national security strategy which has just been published I think that that perhaps heralds a more isolationist approach by the United States than we've seen since the second world war perhaps an increased focus on

the Western Hemisphere. Alongside that, there might be a decrease in the United States and the United States Navy's ability to influence events elsewhere. Given that its approach to allies is far more transactional, it's not hard to see that the United States Navy might have less friends to rely on in the future if you're going back a decade or so the then chief of naval operations admiral mullen talked about the united states having a thousand ship navy and that was really based on the idea that those thousand ships would be provided both by the united states but also by its allies i think that if you were to look forward you could look at that as something of a concept which is now uh dead in the water and i think also given with the um greater instability

you see in international relations and perhaps a breakdown or at least a loosening of some historic ties um you could see that potential enemies may feel that they are more empowered to take riskier actions and i think that in the medium to longer term might have relevance for how things are playing out for example in the pacific yeah yeah those changes have really been shown up i want to get into our how the united states's allies are responding to this but first we should probably um touch on on china which has been called uh the united states's pacing challenge So how has the People's Liberation Army Navy, or the plan, developed over the last year? I think, Jonathan, that it's been a year of continued progress for the People's Liberation Army Navy

as they effectively undertake the steady long march to a much longer-term plan. Now, if you were to look at headline developments, I think perhaps the most newsworthy event has been the commissioning of the Type 003 aircraft carrier Fujian in November this year. I think that demonstrates how China wants to rival US naval power in the Pacific on a like-for-like basis, obviously with the aim of being able to extend its reach beyond its immediate waters throughout the western Pacific. Now, Fujian clearly isn't as capable as, say, a Nimitz or a Ford-class aircraft carrier, but it does show considerable progress from what they've achieved with previous aircraft carriers that they put into service and I think that it's also important

to put Fujian in the context of increased People's Liberation Army Navy capabilities right across the spectrum so yes the newspapers might focus on the Fujian but if you look at Other developments over the last year, you've seen the first Type 076 amphibious assault ship, Sishuan, commence its sea trials within the last month or so. That's a very large amphibious assault ship. It's got some similarities in its design to the British Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. It's equipped like Fujian with an electromagnetic catapult system, which is rumoured is going to be used to launch uncrewed aerial vehicles. So quite a powerful increase in capacity in the amphibious sphere.

And again, another clear indication of a direction of travel. elsewhere you've been looking at ongoing production and delivery of type 055 and type 052 destroyers you've seen delivery of the first type 054b frigates alongside continued construction of type 054a class vessels and you've seen quite a lot of innovation in terms of experimental ships be they drone carriers or be they uncrewed surface vessels and I think you've also got to look at this in the context of the underpinning of the largest and arguably most efficient shipbuilding industry in the world with a capability I think now to outproduce any rival should it so choose. now of course so far as china is concerned it's not all good news there are still areas where

it's got relative lack of capabilities particularly compared with the u.s navy i think that if you are an analyst you would look at the underwater domain you would look at nuclear power submarines now as of yet uh china has not yet moved to serious production of these type of vessels they have been building prototypes in the form of the type 093 uh shang class um the advent now of the type 093b shang 2 derivative might herald a move towards serious production but we've not quite seen that yet. And I think that the other area where China perhaps lacks some capacity is in the lack of real-world operational experience. The plan's capabilities look very good on paper, but whether they would actually perform in line with that appearance if it came

to a real-world Pacific conflict is perhaps something of a different matter. Yeah. Now, in response to the growth of the Chinese Navy and America's, you know, questions of America's reliability, how have the East Asian nations allied with the United States, particularly Japan and Taiwan, responded to these changes? well i think if you're looking at the east asian nations generally i believe it's true to say that they're in a difficult position because they're conflicted by the need to balance the importance of china as a trading partner so a partner that's very important to their economic prosperity

with the need to ensure their own security and different countries in the East Asian region are clearly going to be taking varied responses to that and varied naval responses to that dependent on their own political inclinations and also their financial capacity. Now you talk particularly about japan and taiwan i think if you we take first japan i think it's true to say that japan has seen the most dramatic shift in its defense posture um in recent years and that's been fueled by a very significant growth in the amount of money that the country is allocating to defense spending and the jmsdf has been a big um benefiter of that i think um it's important to look at uh the jmsdf in terms of developing new capabilities um i think that that is perhaps

most evident in the steady integration of fixed wing aircraft capabilities for the izumo class we see only quite recently that japan is following the lead of south korea in examining the potential of nuclear-powered submarines something clearly that they would be um quite capable of doing um if they wish to and meanwhile you're seeing in line with longer term plans with a serious production of um both diesel electric submarines and also uh surface combatants now in the the current um edition of uh world naval review um our author and japanese correspondent tomohiko tada actually focuses on the Megami class, which are the latest JMSDF frigate design, which is quite an interesting and innovative ship in a number of ways.

Something that you haven't yet touched upon, but which is an influence and quite a challenge for many navies currently, is the demographic challenge the challenge of actually being able to recruit enough sailors into their navies and with the megamis the um the japanese have focused on optimal manning to meet this uh demographic challenge the ships um typically can be operated by far fewer than 100 crew members and in wartime actually considerable less than that so that um that design and the introduction of those ships um in numbers um will allow japan to increase its maritime capacity whilst at the same time um being able to manage that with a uh a population that is shrinking i think also the megami class um is quite um interesting in that through uh

the export contract that it's gained with the royal australian navy it becomes the first major warship export contract that japan has signed since the end of the second world war and again touching upon the point that we talked about earlier, I think that's illustrative of new potential partnerships beyond a framework of US-led alliances. Turning to Taiwan, I think the situation is somewhat different. I think the process of change there has been less dramatic as the armed forces are constrained both by internal and external factors, both political and asymmetric. Clearly, Taiwan's Republic of China Navy is adopting an asymmetric strategy

to protect the Taiwan Strait. I think you can see that in their focus on acquisition on missile boats, on fast mine layers and of course we'll eventually see a new class of submarines after really decades of efforts to achieve that capability with the Haikun prototype submarine at the moment engaged in a very extensive set of sea trials. So Taiwan are taking steps but I don't think the change has been as dramatic as seen by japan's jmsdf and then across the region you know you could look at australia indonesia singapore south korea you know they're amongst i think nearly all the regional navies which are in the progress at the moment of conducting

significant naval modernization. Yeah. Now, if we shift to Europe, where the United States and other major allies are, how have they been reacting to this change in the international security situation, and how has the effort for European rearmament affected the naval realm? Well, clearly, Europe has been undergoing a process of rearmament. I think that that has been gaining momentum for the last few years, but the task is really so great after years of peace that it will be some years before its impact is fully felt. I think if you're looking particularly at the naval domain, the two traditional major European naval powers, which are France and the United Kingdom, still face financial constraints.

And that means that they face challenges to recapitalize their fleets, particularly since both of those countries have got major funding commitments in terms of renewing their underwater strategic deterrence. and just as it's impacting the United States Navy to an extent. Really, the vast investment which is needed in producing a new generation of strategic submarines is having a distorting impact on the overall balance of the naval construction budget and actually making some difficult challenges that need to be faced. So there is an impact in terms of rearmament, but I think that in terms of naval force structure, it's perhaps a little slow in being felt. I think also what you've got to look at is really the significant effort that needs to be made

to recapitalize shipbuilding and maintenance infrastructure and also to rebuild the necessary workforce and again that won't be something which will be a surprise to your US listeners because a similar challenge is being faced with the US Navy and with US shipbuilding infrastructure but if we're turning it uh back to europe and just to give one example um of the challenge which is faced um the shipyard in barrow and furnace in cumbria united kingdom is the the prime facility for building submarines in this country now at the time of the cold war in the um early 1990s there was a workforce there of about 14 000 people now because of the peace dividend because of the cutbacks in the aftermath of the cold war that workforce fell to a low of under

5 000 workers over the last few years there's been a considerable process of reinvestment and retraining workers the workforce is now back to the cold war level and it's estimated that it will need to expand to 17 000 and more over the next few years to support new programs now clearly that has been a massive effort and it's an effort which will take time to realize and the benefits of which will probably not be felt for a decade or so from now and you know particularly in terms of looking at barrow the investment there is being used to support the ssn orcas project that is planned to almost double the british royal navy's nuclear powered submarine fleet And it will also have important impact on the development of the Australian Navy submarine force and also spinoffs in terms of benefits to the US Navy submarine construction program as well, given that there will be synergies in designing and operating submarines, which will share some critical key technologies across the nations.

but that will take time so in the meantime if you're again um looking at the royal navy as an example we are here attempting to look at short-term fixes to some of the risks and challenges that we face a program which is very much um in the news at this side of atlantic at the moment which is the Royal Navy's Atlantic Bastion Project. And that's intended to use a largely economical, both in terms of financial, but also in terms of manpower, fleet of uncrewed surface vessels and submersibles, networked with crewed maritime patrol aircraft and frigates and submarines,

both to control access to the North Sea and to protect critical underwater infrastructure. And I think that that is perhaps seen as the quick fix to the re-emergence of a Soviet maritime and particularly a Soviet underwater maritime threat in European waters. But of course, that's also been accompanied by some hard choices. again looking at the british example i think what we're seeing in our latest strategic defense review published earlier this year is very much a focus on a return to regional waters at the expense of the post-cold war expeditionary posture so really hard choices but in some ways a bit quite like to the like the united states doctrine there is a shift towards thinking more about the

home defense than before yeah your mentions of the issue with the the royal navy are really relevant on this side of the atlantic so we're recording this um the constellation class frigate It has recently been canceled or downgraded to, I think, two ships, which has surprisingly actually caused a little bit of an uproar. There was, in fact, a editorial in The New York Times on it. So we're starting to get some attention on this issue. Are these issues exclusive to the United States and Britain, or is it a more common situation as countries start trying to ramp up shipbuilding in this declining security situation? No, I certainly don't think the United States Navy's challenges are unique. I think first of all it's quite interesting to talk about the US Navy situation and it's clear

that it has had a bad track record recently in terms of warship design and there's been a number of dead ends hasn't there you know you can look at the Zumwalt design then you can look at the little combat ship which has proved again to be something of a dead end you've now got the latest debacle with the constellation class and also there's been a number of programs for the US Coast Guard which perhaps in their delivery haven't been quite optimal in the results that they've achieved and it's quite interesting um without having any particular inside view to consider why this has happened in the u.s now naval analyst norman friedman who is one of our longest contributors has said that in part the explanation is down to a decision to strip nazi

of a lot of their skills and expertise in the course of the post-Cold War rundown and the aim then was effectively to allow private industry to take up the slack. Now for whatever reason that hasn't worked out as well as was intended but it's certainly not a situation which is unique to the u.s navy again looking at the united kingdom as an example um we had a royal corps of naval constructors they were our professional warship designers but their skills were essentially dispensed with in favor of transferring design to the private sector and the same process was carried out in other countries too but looking at the European example including the United Kingdom that possibly worked out better for European navies than it did for

the United States because the private yards had much greater experience in designing warships for export than their US Navy counterparties had. So if you look at the example of Germany with for example the Mako technology and also the worldwide success of the type 209 patrol submarine you can see there the forerunner of technology which is now used in a lot of current day German navy designs. And then there are other navies, and I think that you could look at France as an example of that, and France's naval group, where the shipbuild is ostensibly a private yard. There is still a lot of state influence in the ownership and management of those operations. So possibly more continuity than we've seen in the United States. But to

encourage your U.S. listeners, I would say that there have also been problems in European construction, the recent German frigates, previously the Italian friend variant had to experience some redesign although you might argue that in Europe there's perhaps been more willingness to work through these problems than there has been in the United States and actually accept the problems maintain the programs and actually take them through to a successful solution And one program that we've covered in the past where you can see that being done is Spain's S-80 submarine, which, when it was first constructed, had the attribute, which is useful in a submarine, that it could submerge. but there was a big question as to whether it would ever surface again and perhaps ironically it was US design expertise in the form of General Dynamics electric boat

which actually allowed that problem to be resolved and you might question really whether the U.S. Navy might be successful if it were to give some of its concepts a little longer to reach maturity and actually prove their success. Now I know that one U.S. Navy program which has received a lot of criticism is that for the littoral combat ship and obviously that program has been truncated somewhat short of what was envisaged originally for it. Now, I'm probably quite rare in this, but I often wonder whether the literal combat ship was ever really given enough time to prove its worth. The idea of a sea frame, which could be used to carry out a number of different missions,

certainly had some operational challenges which needed to be overcome but in truth the original concept was never really implemented before it was decided that it actually wasn't relevant for the US Navy anymore and it was decided to do something quite different and one might argue that perhaps that was a reflection of the fact that the US military generally is far better funded than its European counterparts so there's more willingness perhaps rather than to work a problem through to solution to abandon a project and move on to the next new shiny toy. Unfortunately for the US Navy there has been a series of these new bright shiny weapon systems and it seems now that there's an unfortunate track record developing of each one being abandoned before it's actually

been worked through to prove its worth or not. But then finally looking at the US naval industry I think one would have to look at certain inefficiencies in a very much protected U.S. industrial base, which, unlike its European counterparts, has never really had to survive in world export markets. markets, because it's been able to rely on a steady flow of domestic orders, clearly also supported by the influence of quite powerful lawmakers for the relevant shipbuilding districts in Congress. I think that this is perhaps an area where the Trump administration is making progress. I think they are willing to look at the input of new ideas from outside, for example, in partnership with South Korea. And I think that might actually help the indigenous U.S. shipyards to revitalize their skills in the medium term, because clearly, like in some of the other countries, in the other Western countries, there is best practice that they could learn from to develop their own efficiencies. Yeah, the history of the United States Navy's development over the last 20 years is not, you know, it's, yeah

One thing I would say in terms of the U.S. Navy's development is that although commentators, particularly in the United States, look at the failures they don't look so much at the successes and I think that that is probably a problem which happens the world over in that if you live in the United States you look at what your United States naval and military base has got wrong and that's what we do in Europe as well but I think that if you were to look at the United States navy successes in areas such as the development of radar and missile systems for naval applications also the way that they have developed operational concepts which have proved themselves for example

in the defensive operations against the Houthi rebels in the Red Sea it's only if you consider those that you look at the whole picture and i think it's clearly the case that although yes your shipbuilding has got obvious deficiencies there have been some very um big successes in the development and enhancement of sophisticated weapon systems which still ensures the united states navy's global leadership yeah that's uh that's actually a pretty good point um talk about naval development does focus so naturally focuses so much on ships but there are so many other aspects of it which is was something that is quite good that you know you're the naval review really did a good job of highlighting but uh before we wrap up i would

we've mostly here talked about the big you know hotspot regions europe asia but i'd like to give you the chance to talk about um any you know smaller or um less high profile uh developments that you'd like to talk about um you know the book does focus on the entire world so yes well i think that's a good question i'll look at two um nathies neither of them are small but perhaps neither of them have gained the profile or the correct profile that they should have done. The first that I'll talk about is India. I think the Indian Navy really has been looked down upon a little over recent decades, particularly because its politicians and its industry have struggled to deliver warships in a timely and efficient manner and

its industry has stood in quite stark contrast to the success of chinese industry in that regard and in the latest edition of world naval review a long-standing commentator on the indian navy Richunjoy Mazunda looks at the protracted acquisition and construction of the first indigenous Indian aircraft carrier the Krant and he explains the political decisions that led to the acquisition the problems that Indian industry had in developing and then constructing the carrier and how they actually managed to bring that process to a successful conclusion. But I think importantly, Indian industry is improving its performance on the back both of the lessons that it's learned and also the considerable investment in infrastructure

that we're now seeing elsewhere in the world. And you can see that in the way that deliveries such as the most recent Project 15B destroyers and Project 17A frigates have been speedier than previous Indian warship classes. So Indian industry is certainly not yet up to Chinese standards, but it is performing at a higher level than it has done previously. And turning again to Vikrant. I think we saw something of Vikrant's influence as a potential tool of power projection and deterrence during the recent 2025 Kashmir conflict, when India was able to put a large naval force to sea and effectively dominate the Indian Ocean, a time fortunately when hostilities quickly petered out and the other country that i would draw your listeners attentions to briefly

would be turkey because it's another country with big naval ambitions that often passes below the radar and again in our latest edition our turkish correspondent devrim yaylali looks at the progress of the milgium national ship project now that's been a project which has been a couple of decades or more in the making but it's delivered steadily increasingly sophisticated corvettes frigates and patrol vessels and it's now starting to secure exports for those vessels from countries such as pakistan malaysia and indeed ukraine and the last 12 months i've seen turkish first exports to nato navies it's exported fleet replenishment vessels to portugal and more recently a corvette to roumania so i think that shows something of the turkish naval industrial

development and how it's becoming influential as a supplier of capable but relatively affordable warships across the world. And just looking to the future, having succeeded with its first national ship program, Turkey is also in the course of developing a national aircraft carrier and also a national submarine project, which both are underway and which, again, will increase its influence and ability to project power in the future. Yeah, thanks for that. Now, unfortunately, that's all the time we have. So before we go, where can the listeners find you online and what else are you working on?

okay well the best um finding me through the seaforth website seaforth is who i do most of my writing for although i freelance for a number of publications including germany's group um beyond well naval review which is an annual task which takes about three months per year i continue to be involved in researching naval history i've been writing a series of books on british cruiser design during the interwar period looking at that both in a technical but also in a political context in the the navy's challenges both to defend the empire's trade routes but also to secure its fleet in a time of economic challenge in austerity at the moment i'm writing a third book in that series with the australian author peter cannon which will look

at the leander and um arethusa class cruisers of the interwar period which served in the royal royal new zealand royal australian navies and hopefully that book will be published in a year or so from now. We'll look forward to those. Conrad Ward, thanks again for joining us. Fair winds and falling seas. To listeners, thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.

Thank you. We'll be right back.