While the Navy’s growing appetite for large surface combatants-whatever they might turn out to be-is welcome news for the large surface combatant industrial base, the Navy’s inability to fix on a consistent plan is a public relations and strategic disaster. Large and small do not mean what they used to, and the Navy’s rating system probably should be redefined to better align with modern warfighting capabilities. An Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship, rated as a small combatant, is 418 feet long, just 87 feet shorter than the larger destroyer. The Constellation-class frigate, a ship type traditionally rated as a small combatant, is expected to clock in at over 7,400 tons, a mere 1,500 tons less than a Flight I Arleigh Burke destroyer. The line between large and small combatant, always fraught to begin with, is getting progressively tougher to distinguish. That failure is unfortunate, as America’s public and policymaker communities need clarity more than ever.
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