The Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy

 

The Constellation Frigate Tragedy: How Navy Bureaucracy Resisted Strategic Renewal—Twice

An Engineering Duty Officer's Testament on Institutional Resistance from Aegis to Constellation

By LT Stephen L. Pendergast, USNR

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Abstract

This article examines the cancellation of the Constellation-class frigate program through the lens of institutional resistance within the Navy's technical establishment—a dynamic the author personally experienced four decades earlier during the Aegis Weapons System controversy. Drawing on firsthand service as a NAVSEA Engineering Duty Officer tasked to assess Aegis risks in the early 1980s, the author identifies structural parallels between successful institutional resistance to revolutionary capability (Aegis, ultimately overcome) and successful resistance to foreign design adaptation (Constellation, which prevailed). The analysis demonstrates that technical merit and honest risk assessment, while necessary, prove insufficient when leadership lacks sustained resolve to govern through difficulty. The article concludes that Constellation's failure represents not engineering infeasibility but institutional choice—and that recovery remains possible if leadership exercises the same resolve that delivered Aegis despite comparable resistance.

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Introduction: Two Battles, Same Resistance, Opposite Outcomes

The United States Navy has fought the same institutional battle twice in living memory. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the service confronted whether to adopt the revolutionary Aegis Weapons System or retain the proven Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS). In the 2020s, it faced whether to adapt a proven foreign frigate design (FREMM) or retreat to familiar domestic alternatives. Both times, technical risk was genuine. Both times, institutional resistance was formidable. The difference was not technical merit—it was leadership resolve.

I participated in both battles. During the Aegis controversy, I served on active duty as a Navy Engineering Duty Officer (EDO) assigned to NAVSEA, reviewing contractor documents and witnessing acceptance tests. I was tasked to write technical memoranda identifying risks in the Aegis program and assessing why the Navy should retain NTDS ships. My memos were honest assessments of real technical concerns—and they were used by institutional interests resisting strategic necessity.

That experience was my first exposure to what I then understood as rigorous technical review, but later recognized as internecine conflict within the naval establishment. Forty years later, watching the Constellation-class frigate program succumb to accumulated requirements growth and specification enforcement, I recognized identical dynamics—except this time, institutional resistance succeeded where it had previously failed.[^1]

This article examines why.

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I. Aegis: When "Weapons and Sensors with Ships Attached" Overcame Institutional Resistance

The Philosophical Divide

The Aegis controversy represented more than a procurement decision—it embodied fundamentally incompatible philosophies of naval warfare:

The Traditional NAVSEA Philosophy: Ships with Weapons Attached

• Ship design primacy: hull structures, arrangements, and platform characteristics determined first; weapons and sensors fitted to available space and margins
• Evolutionary improvement: incremental upgrades to proven platforms rather than revolutionary leaps
• Ship-centric operations: commanding officers retain autonomous control of their vessels
• American design authority: NAVSEA maintains technical ownership of standards, specifications, and certification processes[^2]

The Aegis Philosophy: Weapons and Sensors with Ships Attached

• Mission primacy: combat system requirements drive platform design from inception
• Revolutionary capability: qualitative performance leaps when operational threats demand them
• Battle-group-centric operations: networked fleet defense transcends individual ship control
• Best-available technology: solutions sourced from wherever capability resides, whether NAVSEA-designed or externally developed[^3]

The proof that "weapons with ships attached" ultimately prevailed exists today in Romania and Poland: Aegis Ashore facilities deploy the combat system without ships at all, vindicating the Aegis philosophy completely.[^4] The ship was never primary. The mission always was.

The Institutional Resistance I Participated In

When tasked to assess Aegis technical risks in the early 1980s, I identified genuine concerns that decision-makers required:

• Phased-array radar technology: The AN/SPY-1 represented unprecedented complexity in naval applications, with beam-steering and multi-target tracking unproven at sea[^5]
• Automated fire control: The Aegis combat system's automation exceeded anything attempted in naval systems, raising questions about reliability and operator trust[^6]
• Integration challenges: Coordinating radar, fire control, missile systems, and command-and-control across platform and battle group introduced systemic risks[^7]
• Cost projections: Early estimates showed Aegis exceeding NTDS alternatives by substantial margins, with uncertainty about production costs[^8]
• Support infrastructure: Training pipelines, maintenance facilities, and technical documentation requirements dwarfed existing NTDS systems[^9]

Every risk I documented was technically accurate. Senior decision-makers needed complete risk assessments to make informed choices. My professional obligation was to provide honest technical analysis.

However, my memos existed within a larger pattern of institutional resistance. The NTDS community—the professional identity I shared—used technical risk assessments to argue that Aegis was too risky, too expensive, and unnecessary because NTDS could be incrementally improved to meet evolving threats.[^10]

We were technically accurate and strategically wrong. NTDS could not defeat Soviet saturation missile attacks. The physical limitations of rotating radars and manual fire control created capability ceilings that no incremental improvement could overcome.[^11] Soviet Naval Aviation was developing tactics specifically designed to overwhelm NTDS-equipped battle groups with simultaneous supersonic anti-ship missiles from multiple axes.[^12]

How Aegis Overcame Institutional Resistance

Aegis survived institutional resistance through specific, identifiable forcing functions that subsequent programs lacked:

1. Existential Threat Clarity

Soviet Naval Aviation's capability development made NTDS inadequacy undeniable. By the late 1970s, the Backfire bomber equipped with AS-4 Kitchen missiles could deliver coordinated strikes that saturated NTDS tracking and engagement capabilities.[^13] Senior officers resisting Aegis faced an unanswerable operational question: "How do you defend carrier battle groups against twenty simultaneous supersonic missiles approaching from multiple azimuths using NTDS?"

The threat was not theoretical. Intelligence assessments confirmed Soviet doctrine emphasizing precisely such saturation attacks.[^14] Incremental NTDS improvements could not overcome physics—rotating radar acquisition rates, manual fire control decision cycles, and engagement timeline compression created hard limits.[^15]

2. Sustained Personal Champion with Authority

Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer, later Vice Admiral, possessed not only technical vision but Flag-rank authority, personal conviction, and decades of sustained commitment to Aegis development.[^16] Critically, Meyer enjoyed direct support from Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas B. Hayward and Secretary of the Navy John Lehman—backing that survived across multiple administrations.[^17]

Meyer's program office operated with unusual autonomy, capable of overriding fragmented technical warrant objections that would have paralyzed a conventional program.[^18] Decision rights were clear, escalation paths were rapid, and Meyer's personal authority short-circuited bureaucratic resistance that typically dissipates political will through procedural attrition.

3. Concentrated Program Authority

Unlike typical major defense acquisition programs where authority fragments across platform sponsors, technical directorates, and fleet commands, Aegis consolidated decision-making in Meyer's Aegis Project Office.[^19] This concentration prevented the "death by a thousand cuts" dynamic where individually defensible technical requirements collectively destroy program viability—precisely the mechanism that would later kill Constellation.

4. Empirical Demonstration

USS Norton Sound (AVM-1) conducted developmental tests from 1973 through 1981, providing empirical proof that overcame skepticism.[^20] The first Aegis cruiser, USS Ticonderoga (CG-47), delivered in 1983, demonstrated operational viability.[^21] Performance data spoke louder than risk memos—including mine.

5. No Viable Alternative

Critics of Aegis could not offer an alternative pathway to required capability. NTDS improvements—the New Threat Upgrade and subsequent modifications—demonstrably could not match Aegis performance against projected threats.[^22] The choice was binary: accept Aegis risks or accept fleet vulnerability. That forcing function proved decisive.

6. Leadership Willing to Fight Institutional Resistance

CNO and SECNAV didn't delegate Aegis oversight and forget it. They personally owned the decision through execution, absorbing political costs to deliver strategic capability.[^23] When cost growth triggered congressional scrutiny, leadership defended the program's strategic necessity rather than retreating to safer alternatives.[^24]

My memos and others documenting genuine technical risks were overcome—not because we were dishonest, but because leadership weighed our honest assessments against strategic necessity and chose to govern risks rather than avoid them.

Fortunately for the Navy and the nation, institutional resistance failed. Aegis became the foundation of U.S. naval air and missile defense superiority—a dominance that persists today.[^25]

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II. Constellation: When Unified Institutional Resistance Prevailed

The Operational Requirement and Acquisition Strategy

The FFG(X) program emerged from accumulated strain in the Navy's surface force structure. The retirement of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates in 2015 left the service without dedicated small surface combatants capable of escort, anti-submarine warfare, and forward presence missions at scale.[^26] Destroyers were increasingly pressed into missions for which they were poorly optimized, consuming readiness better reserved for high-end conflict.[^27] The Littoral Combat Ship proved unable to evolve into a survivable, multi-mission platform suitable for contested environments.[^28]

Simultaneously, the Navy's surface combatant industrial base was consolidating dangerously. Complex warship construction concentrated in two shipyards—Huntington Ingalls Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding and General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works—both operating at or near capacity.[^29] Government Accountability Office assessments documented that design instability, workforce shortages, and limited industrial elasticity created systemic delivery delays across multiple ship classes.[^30]

The FFG(X) acquisition strategy deliberately addressed both problems: restore missing operational capability and expand the industrial base. The Navy's most consequential decision was anchoring the program in a proven parent design rather than attempting a clean-sheet development.[^31] This reflected institutional self-awareness—the Navy had not designed and serially produced a new class of small surface combatants in decades, and recent experience with LCS demonstrated the risks of ambitious new designs.[^32]

The Competition and Downselect

The Navy structured the FFG(X) competition to evaluate multiple parent designs through detailed concept studies before awarding Detail Design and Construction (DD&C) contracts. Competing teams included:

• Fincantieri Marinette Marine: FREMM-class frigate (30+ ships delivered to multiple navies)[^33]
• Navantia/General Dynamics: F-100 Álvaro de Bazán-class (Aegis-equipped, proven in Spanish service)[^34]
• Lockheed Martin: Type 26 Global Combat Ship (advanced ASW design, limited production history)[^35]
• Huntington Ingalls Industries: National Security Cutter derivative (Coast Guard platform adapted for naval missions)[^36]
• Austal USA: Independence-class LCS variant (trimaran hull form with enhanced combat systems)[^37]

In April 2020, the Navy awarded Fincantieri Marinette Marine the FFG(X) DD&C contract for an initial six ships with priced options for additional hulls.[^38] The FREMM-based design was selected because it represented the most mature frigate design in competition—already operational with Italian, French, and Egyptian navies, with demonstrated anti-submarine warfare performance, substantial growth margins, and proven survivability characteristics validated through service experience.[^39]

Critically, Fincantieri committed approximately $400 million in private capital to modernize the Marinette, Wisconsin shipyard, including facility expansion, digital infrastructure, and workforce development—investments made in anticipation of a sustained production run.[^40] No other U.S. surface-combatant shipyard made comparable single-yard, privately funded investments over the preceding decade.[^41]

The Foundational Premise: Parent-Design Discipline

The contract's viability rested on a specific acquisition premise: high commonality with the FREMM parent design would control risk, cost, and schedule by leveraging proven arrangements, validated systems integration, and established production sequences.[^42] The Fixed-Price Incentive (Firm Target) contract structure priced this commonality assumption—target costs, ceiling prices, and risk-share lines all derived from maintaining substantial parent-design fidelity.[^43]

The FFG(X) solicitation explicitly allowed offerors to define their own commonality assumptions and structure pricing accordingly.[^44] Fincantieri's pricing confidence reflected decades of serial FREMM production internationally and the expectation that U.S.-specific modifications would be managed within disciplined change-control processes that preserved the parent design's fundamental characteristics.[^45]

This premise required active defense by Navy leadership—specifically, restraint in imposing requirements that cumulatively destroyed commonality. Once that restraint eroded, the contract's pricing assumptions became invalid even as the legal instrument remained nominally in force.

The Window When Resolve Was Lost (Summer 2022–Summer 2023)

The Constellation program did not fail at contract award or during pandemic-related disruptions. It entered irreversible decline during a specific twelve-month period when institutional continuity collapsed and leadership resolve failed to keep pace with accumulating challenges:

May 2022—Critical Design Review: The Navy declared the program had passed CDR despite major design elements remaining unresolved, particularly those driven by NAVSEA interpretations of U.S. survivability standards, shock qualification requirements, and electrical-load growth.[^46] Government Accountability Office reporting later documented that these unresolved areas translated directly into structural redesign, systems rework, and unplanned weight growth as Navy-unique requirements were incorporated.[^47]

Other major defense programs have delayed construction or formally re-baselined when facing comparable design immaturity at CDR.[^48] Here, the Navy elected to proceed, relying on continued cooperation to manage risk—but without enterprise-level intervention to reaffirm and actively protect the parent-design premise that made the program viable.

August 2022—First Steel Cut: Construction of FFG-62 began while design work continued in parallel, collapsing remaining optionality and converting unresolved design issues into immediate rework and schedule pressure on the production floor.[^49] Concurrency of this magnitude requires extraordinary trust, rapid problem resolution, and decisive senior intervention when assumptions fail—conditions that were actively deteriorating.

2022-2023—Critical Personnel Transitions: The program experienced significant turnover across the Navy acquisition chain, including within the program office, NAVSEA technical interfaces, and oversight roles.[^50] These transitions disrupted institutional memory and working relationships at precisely the moment when premise enforcement required continuity and seasoned judgment.

Simultaneously, Fincantieri faced persistent workforce challenges, stretched engineering resources, and rising execution pressure—dynamics that complicated communication and contributed to erosion of mutual confidence.[^51]

2022-2023—Accumulated Navy-Directed Changes: During this period, requirements interpretations that had previously been treated as settled were reopened, and Navy-directed design changes accumulated steadily.[^52] Many reflected strict compliance with historical U.S. shipbuilding specifications rather than mission shortfalls. None represented unsafe construction or failure to meet warfighting requirements—they reflected differences between U.S. specification inheritance and the certified operational standards of a parent design already operating in comparable threat environments.[^53]

Internal Navy assessments by late 2023 indicated that effective commonality with the FREMM parent design had declined from approximately 85 percent at award to roughly 15 percent, with the majority of this erosion occurring during the preceding year as unresolved design issues were resolved through construction concurrency and requirements interpretation without senior-level restraint.[^54]

This erosion of commonality and its implications for cost, schedule, and contractual alignment were examined contemporaneously in independent analysis published by SMA, Inc. in 2024 as part of a broader study on contracting risk in naval shipbuilding.[^55] That analysis assessed how cumulative government-directed change, sustained concurrency, and absence of a stable functional baseline interact with fixed-price incentive contracts to distort accountability and undermine acquisition logic.

Throughout 2022-2023—No Enterprise-Level Intervention: No authority above the program execution layer explicitly declared that accumulated change had overtaken the original acquisition logic, forced a strategic decision between accepting deviations or comprehensively re-baselining the program, or accepted personal accountability for the cumulative impact of requirements growth.[^56]

NAVSEA's role merits specific examination. NAVSEA's mandate is to enforce technical standards, survivability requirements, and system integration rigor—not to adjudicate tradeoffs between parent-design preservation and cumulative requirement accretion.[^57] The responsibility to manage that tension rested with the Secretary of the Navy, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN(RDA)), Chief of Naval Operations as requirements owner, and Program Executive Officer for Ships.[^58] During this critical period, no senior authority assumed that integrating role.

By late 2023, the program remained technically buildable but had become financially misaligned and governance-challenged. Recovery was still possible—but required senior ownership and explicit reconstitution of the foundational premise. That intervention never materialized.

The SecNav Review: When Judgment Yielded to Inertia (Early 2025)

By the time Secretary of the Navy John Phelan commissioned an independent review led by the Honorable John Young in late 2024, the program was visibly distressed but remained technically recoverable—as comparable programs including the C-17 Globemaster III, F-22 Raptor, and DDG-51 Flight III have demonstrated when senior leadership intervened decisively.[^59]

According to informed accounts, the review team briefed Secretary Phelan in early April 2025.[^60] The review presented options rather than rendering explicit judgment on whether to pursue recovery or clean termination. The options reportedly clustered around three outcomes:

1. Complete design and construction of Ships 1-2 while canceling Ships 3-6, treating initial hulls as pathfinders while foreclosing serial production
2. Issue stop-work on Ships 3-4 and defer Ship 5 funding, preserving optionality
3. Pursue comprehensive restructuring requiring formal re-baseline, revised pricing, stabilized production cadence, and explicit recommitment[^61]

What a recovery-oriented review comparable to C-17 precedent would have provided:

• Clear acknowledgment that cumulative Navy-directed change invalidated original contract assumptions
• Comprehensive re-baseline aligning cost, schedule, and scope to ship actually being built
• Explicit framework for Navy and contractor recommitment with restored governance mechanisms
• Recommendation for concentrated authority to prevent further uncontrolled drift
• Congressional engagement strategy to fund against honest baseline[^62]

What the SecNav review reportedly delivered:

• Options presentation without explicit recovery recommendation
• Truncation after Ships 1-2 framed as administratively tractable—avoided termination-for-convenience confrontation, reduced near-term exposure
• No fully articulated recovery construct comparable to successful precedents
• Implicit acceptance that U.S. would forfeit viable frigate production line for foreseeable future[^63]

Several dynamics appear to have shaped this outcome. First, the review was conducted at arm's length from the shipbuilder—understandable procedurally, but this distance reinforced assumptions about root causes rather than rigorously interrogating them.[^64] Navy-directed change, erosion of parent-design discipline, and governance choices were acknowledged but not examined deeply as primary drivers of observed cost and schedule outcomes.

Second, review team composition carried institutional experience predominantly from legacy surface-combatant programs and acquisition pathways, including leadership from organizations long embedded in the existing surface-combatant duopoly.[^65] That experience brought rigor and credibility, but potentially shaped perceptions of what constituted "normal" program difficulty and acceptable risk tolerance.

Third, the review appears to have been constrained—whether consciously or implicitly—by expectations about what senior leadership would find politically acceptable.[^66] Recommending recovery would have required advocating for public acknowledgment that Navy-directed actions materially contributed to cost growth, recommitment to a program already characterized as troubled, and acceptance of prolonged congressional and public scrutiny. Recommending truncation reduced institutional exposure and resolved perceptions of failure without forcing uncomfortable strategic choices.

By presenting options without rendering judgment, the review allowed implicit judgment—inertia—to substitute for decision. Recovery was treated as theoretically possible but practically undesirable. Truncation was treated as analytically defensible without being formally endorsed.

That ambiguity was then reinforced by budget mechanics. As the FY2026 budget request advanced without funding for the next ship, a production break was created—an outcome universally understood in shipbuilding as effectively fatal to program continuity.[^67]

The Cancellation Decision (November 2025)

In late November 2025, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced the decision to accept delivery of only the first two Constellation-class frigates, cancel remaining vessels under contract, and pursue a "strategic shift" toward alternatives.[^68] The rationale offered was cost growth, schedule delays, and need to reallocate resources toward better returns for readiness and warfighting advantage.^69

By the time of this announcement, the decision no longer appeared to present a choice among alternatives. It seemed instead the logical conclusion of a process in which judgment had been repeatedly deferred, alignment left unrepaired, and continuity quietly surrendered. This was the second pivotal moment—following the initial loss of resolve during 2022-2023—at which the program could have been recovered through deliberate intervention, yet resolve was again deferred.

What made the announcement seem inevitable was not sudden program deterioration, but cumulative effect of prior non-decisions: failure to re-baseline after design drift, reluctance to reconcile Navy-directed change with contractual reality, absence of explicit recommitment following the SecNav review, and budget actions that introduced production breaks.[^70]

The Secretary's decision did not create this outcome—it ratified it. The announcement functioned less as decisive intervention than as formal recognition that the Navy had already chosen, through inaction, not to govern the program back to health.

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III. The Nature of Institutional Resistance: From Aegis to Constellation

The Philosophical Conflict Redux

The resistance to Constellation differed fundamentally from Aegis resistance in both substance and structure:

Aegis Resistance Was Fractured:

• NTDS community versus Aegis advocates created visible factional conflict
• Surface warfare culture clash over ship-centric versus battle-group-centric operations
• Competing contractor interests (traditional missile system suppliers versus RCA/Lockheed Aegis team)
• Internal Navy civil war with identifiable opposing camps[^71]

Constellation Resistance Was Unified:

• Entire Navy material establishment aligned against what was perceived as foreign encroachment
• NAVSEA technical warrant holders across all domains enforced U.S. specifications
• Program offices lacked authority to override cumulative requirements from fragmented technical warrants
• Incumbent shipbuilders (HII, General Dynamics) faced competitive threat from third peer builder
• Collective institutional antibodies attacked the foreign parent-design premise[^72]

The nature of Constellation's conflict was existential for NAVSEA's institutional identity:

• A European shipbuilder claimed to design frigates superior to anything NAVSEA had recently produced
• Italian and French survivability standards were proposed as operationally adequate for U.S. sailors
• Parent-design discipline required NAVSEA to act as integration steward rather than design authority
• New competitor threatened incumbent relationships and duopoly pricing power in surface combatants
• Success of foreign design would validate that "not invented here" could be strategically preferable[^73]

"Death by a Thousand Cuts": The Distributed Resistance Mechanism

I was not directly involved in Constellation technical reviews, but I recognize the mechanism that destroyed it—because it is structurally identical to the system I participated in during the Aegis era, only evolved to greater sophistication.

How distributed technical review operates:

Individual Engineering Duty Officers and technical representatives (the role I filled on Aegis) perform professional work identifying deviations from specifications:

• Electrical systems engineer: "FREMM electrical distribution design deviates from MIL-STD-1399 Section 300. Recommend revision to achieve full compliance with U.S. Navy power quality standards."[^74]
• Shock qualification engineer: "Parent design shock testing methodology employs Italian Navy standards (MIL-S-901 equivalent) but does not demonstrate compliance with literal requirements of MIL-S-901D Grade A. Recommend U.S. qualification testing program."[^75]
• Hull structures engineer: "Watertight boundary arrangements deviate from NAVSEA design practices for compartmentation and damage control zoning. Recommend redesign to achieve compliance with NSTM Chapter 079."[^76]
• Combat systems integration engineer: "Aegis integration with SQQ-89A(V)15 sonar suite requires cooling capacity exceeding parent design HVAC margins. Recommend major cooling system upgrade to support U.S. combat system electrical and thermal loads."[^77]

Each finding is technically accurate. Each requirement exists for valid operational or safety reasons. Each reviewer is performing honest, professional technical work.

But the system architecture ensures no one integrates cumulative impact:

Individual Technical Reviewers:

• Have responsibility: Identify deviations and non-compliances within their technical domain
• Lack authority: Cannot accept functional equivalence or waive requirements based on operational proof from parent design
• Face incentives: Career safety lies in rigorous enforcement; career risk in accepting deviations that might later fail
• See information: Only their technical specialty, not program-wide cumulative effects on cost, schedule, or commonality[^78]

No Forcing Function Exists To:

• Track cumulative impact of individual requirements across technical domains
• Force strategic decision: "Accept this deviation based on parent-design operational proof, or re-baseline entire program to accommodate U.S.-unique requirement"
• Empower anyone to declare: "STOP—cumulative requirements growth has destroyed the foundational acquisition premise"
• Prevent technical compliance from automatically trumping strategic program viability[^79]

Result: Two hundred individually defensible technical findings collectively destroyed parent-design commonality (85 percent to 15 percent), invalidated fixed-price contract assumptions, transformed adaptation into clean-sheet redesign, and drove costs beyond ceiling price—yet no single individual violated any directive or behaved unprofessionally.[^80]

This is what I mean by institutional "deep state" dynamics:

Not conspiracy. Not dishonest technical work. But structural resistance through honest technical enforcement, operating in the absence of integrating leadership willing to govern cumulative impact and force strategic decisions.

The Evolution of Institutional Resistance (1980s → 2020s)

My career arc reveals a disturbing pattern of institutional learning:

Aegis Era (Late 1970s-Early 1980s)—Amateur Resistance:

• Overt resistance through explicit memos arguing against revolutionary capability (like mine)
• Visible conflict between technical communities (NTDS versus Aegis advocates)
• Formal arguments presented to leadership about risk, cost, and necessity
• Resistance failed—too obvious, overcome by concentrated political will and Flag-level champions[^81]

Learning Period (1990s-2000s):

• NAVSEA institutional analysis of "what went wrong" from bureaucratic perspective (loss of design control to external innovators)
• Technical warrant structure became more elaborate and authority further fragmented across domains
• Requirements processes became more detailed and specification compliance more rigid
• Cultural evolution: Resistance became structural and procedural rather than rhetorical and factional[^82]

Constellation Era (2010s-2020s)—Professional Resistance:

• No anti-program memos required—just rigorous specification enforcement across distributed warrant holders
• Each individual technical decision defensible in isolation, cumulative effect invisible until irreversible
• Death by a thousand cuts replaced visible opposition
• Plausible deniability perfected: "We simply applied existing standards professionally"
• Resistance succeeded—operated below political visibility threshold until program recovery became politically inconvenient[^83]

NAVSEA's institutional learning trajectory:

Should have learned from Aegis: "Revolutionary capabilities sometimes require accepting technical risk and foreign approaches when operationally validated; our role is integration stewardship, not design control in all circumstances."

Actually learned from Aegis: "External innovations and foreign designs threaten institutional authority; next time, structure resistance through fragmented technical enforcement so political leadership cannot easily override it."

The critical sophistication: Aegis resistance required fighting political champions directly (Admiral Meyer, CNO, SECNAV). Constellation resistance operated through distributed technical processes that diffused accountability and prevented formation of effective political counterforce. By the time senior leadership recognized program distress, accumulated requirements growth had created conditions where recovery required uncomfortable decisions leadership chose to avoid.

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IV. The Consequences: Strategic and Industrial Impact

Industrial Base Devastation

Fincantieri Marinette Marine's Position:

The company invested over $400 million in private capital to modernize the Marinette, Wisconsin shipyard based on Navy statements of serial production intent.[^84] These investments included:

• Facility expansion and reconfiguration for modular ship construction
• Digital infrastructure for design-to-production continuity
• Advanced manufacturing equipment and tooling
• Workforce development programs and training facilities^85

Following the November 2025 cancellation announcement, Fincantieri Marinette Marine is left without committed follow-on surface combatant work. While various public statements have referenced potential "future opportunities," these expressions do not constitute funded programs with defined acquisition pathways, approved budgets, or contractual commitments.^86

The acquisition process reality: The Navy cannot simply "award" ships to a shipyard regardless of strategic intent. Any new ship class must progress through requirements definition, Analysis of Alternatives, budget submission, congressional authorization and appropriation, and competitive source selection—processes that unfold over years, not months.[^87] Without a defined program of record and funded bridge, Fincantieri's surface-combatant production capacity will not be preserved—it will atrophy through workforce dispersion, supplier disengagement, and facility repurposing.

Third Peer Builder Strategy Abandoned:

For decades, the Navy's surface combatant industrial base has concentrated in two yards: Huntington Ingalls Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding and General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works.[^88] This duopoly concentration produces predictable effects:

• Reduced competitive pressure on cost and schedule performance
• Limited innovation in design-for-production practices
• Fragile surge capacity with no meaningful industrial elasticity
• Enhanced contractor negotiating leverage[^89]

The Constellation program was explicitly conceived to expand the industrial base by introducing a credible third peer builder capable of competing for future surface combatant programs.[^90] That strategic objective is now forfeit—not through Fincantieri's failure to perform, but through Navy's failure to sustain the governance required for a parent-design adaptation program to succeed.

Industry Signal on Asymmetric Risk:

The message delivered to potential new entrants is unambiguous: competing for and winning major Navy shipbuilding programs carries asymmetric, irreversible downside risk for non-incumbents.[^91] Even after:

• Winning a legitimate technical competition
• Making substantial irreversible private capital investments
• Executing in good faith through extraordinary external disruptions (COVID-19 pandemic)
• Absorbing years of requirements growth and programmatic turbulence

A new entrant can still face program cancellation driven substantially by government-directed changes, while incumbent builders retain their market positions. This outcome will materially affect industry willingness to compete for future major shipbuilding programs absent fundamental reforms to how such programs are governed and how risk is allocated.[^92]

Strategic Capability Gap Perpetuated

The Frigate Mission Requirement Persists:

The operational need that generated the FFG(X) program remains unresolved:

• No dedicated small surface combatant for escort, ASW, and forward presence missions
• Destroyers continue being pressed into missions for which they are poorly optimized, consuming readiness intended for high-end conflict
• Distributed Maritime Operations concept requires survivable, networked small combatants that Constellation was designed to provide[^93]

The Navy has created an enduring capability gap by canceling the solution without an executable alternative.

The NSC Alternative: Familiar Inadequacy Repeated

Following the Constellation cancellation, the Navy announced intent to pursue an FF-class frigate derived from the Coast Guard National Security Cutter—the same basic design that Huntington Ingalls Industries proposed during FFG(X) competition and that was not selected.[^94]

Why NSC Lost the FFG(X) Competition:

The Navy's own 2020 source selection implicitly rendered technical judgment that the FREMM-based design constituted a materially superior foundation for the guided-missile frigate mission compared to NSC-derivative approaches.[^95] Key distinctions:

• Combat system integration: NSC was designed for law enforcement and maritime security in permissive environments, not sustained combat operations with full Aegis integration, Vertical Launch System, and networked fires[^96]
• Survivability standards: NSC does not meet—and was never designed to meet—naval combatant shock, blast, and damage control requirements[^97]
• Growth margins: Electrical generation, cooling capacity, weight, and stability margins were optimized for Coast Guard missions, not high-density combat system loads[^98]

Adapting NSC to FFG-level requirements (area air defense, strike-length VLS, full Aegis integration) requires fundamental redesign that consumes all margins and transforms the platform into a first-of-class combatant with attendant technical and programmatic risks.[^99]

NSC's Own Program History Warns:

The National Security Cutter program itself experienced substantial cost growth and schedule delays during early ships, with costs roughly doubling from initial projections and weight growth emerging as a persistent concern.[^100] These difficulties arose without the burden of full naval combat system integration, area air defense requirements, or Navy shock and survivability standards.

NSC-11 was ultimately canceled mid-construction due to quality and performance deficiencies, demonstrating that even after ten deliveries, production stability remained elusive.[^101] Restarting NSC production after this hiatus, while simultaneously imposing Navy combat system requirements and certification standards, combines production interruption, workforce dispersion, supplier atrophy, and heightened technical scrutiny—a risk profile that plausibly exceeds stabilizing the existing Constellation production line.[^102]

The Substitution Recreates Identical Failure Mode:

Pivoting to NSC does not bypass the governance failures that destroyed Constellation—it recreates them under a different name:

• Same NAVSEA technical warrant structure that fragmented Constellation authority
• Same incentives for rigorous specification enforcement without cumulative impact integration
• Same absence of forcing function to prevent requirements growth from consuming margins
• Same institutional resistance to foreign approaches now redirected toward major NSC modification[^103]

The only substantive difference: NSC benefits incumbent builder (HII) that lost the FFG(X) competition on technical merit, while eliminating the competitive threat that Fincantieri represented.[^104]

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V. The Parallel to C-17: When Leadership Chose Governance Over Withdrawal

Comparable Distress, Opposite Leadership Response

The C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlift program faced conditions in the early 1990s strikingly parallel to Constellation's circumstances in 2024-2025:

C-17 Crisis Indicators (1992-1993):

• Cost growth substantially exceeding original estimates
• Schedule delays of multiple years on early aircraft
• Performance shortfalls requiring extensive redesign and testing
• Congressional pressure intense, with formal cancellation consideration in 1993 and again in 1997
• Prime contractor (McDonnell Douglas) under sustained public and government scrutiny
• Confidence in program badly eroded across Department of Defense and Congress[^105]

Constellation Crisis Indicators (2024-2025):

• Cost growth projecting to exceed ceiling price on lead ship
• Schedule delays of approximately three years on first delivery
• Weight growth and design issues requiring cascading modifications
• Congressional and public confidence declining
• Prime contractor (Fincantieri) under scrutiny for performance
• Program widely characterized as troubled[^106]

The Critical Difference: Leadership Response

C-17: Air Force Chose Governance Through Difficulty:

• Program formally restructured with revised baselines, production stabilization plan, and realigned contractual incentives
• Senior Air Force leadership accepted sustained congressional scrutiny and political risk in exchange for preserving long-term capability
• Authority concentrated to force rapid problem resolution
• Government acknowledged shared responsibility for performance issues rather than attributing all problems to contractor
• Decision: Persistence justified by strategic necessity; governance strengthened rather than program abandoned[^107]

C-17 Outcome: Not merely salvaged acquisition, but strategic airlift fleet that became indispensable to U.S. global operations for decades, ultimately producing 223 aircraft and winning the Collier Trophy for greatest achievement in aeronautics.[^108]

Constellation: Navy Chose Withdrawal Over Governance:

• No formal comprehensive restructuring or re-baselining attempted
• Senior Navy leadership avoided sustained public engagement and political risk
• Authority remained fragmented; no concentration to force resolution
• Navy did not publicly acknowledge role of government-directed changes in cost growth
• Decision: Political convenience prioritized over uncomfortable governance; program canceled rather than reconstituted[^109]

The Question C-17 Precedent Poses: If the Air Force could recover a strategically important program under comparable distress through disciplined governance and sustained senior ownership, why did the Navy conclude that Constellation was unrecoverable?

The Answer: Not technical infeasibility, but institutional unwillingness to endure the discomfort required.

---

VI. What "Deep State" Actually Means: Structural Resistance Through Honest Work

Distinguishing Conspiracy from System Architecture

The term "deep state" carries political connotations that risk obscuring precise institutional analysis. Stripped of partisan baggage, the concept describes a specific organizational phenomenon observable in large bureaucracies:

Permanent civil service and military bureaucracy characterized by:

• Institutional preferences that may diverge from political leadership direction
• Sufficient technical authority and procedural complexity to resist unwelcome policies
• Ability to delay, complicate, or passively defeat decisions through process rather than open defiance
• Fragmented accountability structures that prevent attribution of collective outcomes to individual decisions
• Professional culture and institutional identity stronger than responsiveness to external direction[^110]

By this definition, NAVSEA's behavior on Constellation exhibits "deep state" characteristics—not through conspiracy or dishonesty, but through structural dynamics:

The Mechanism: Distributed Resistance Without Conspiracy

What Political/Strategic Leadership Directed (implicitly via congressional intent and acquisition strategy):

• Adopt proven foreign frigate design with discipline to control risk and cost
• Preserve high commonality with parent design as primary risk mitigation
• Expand industrial base by introducing credible third surface combatant builder
• Accept managed deviation from U.S. specifications where certified parent design satisfies mission intent[^111]

What the Bureaucratic System Delivered:

• Commonality erosion from 85 percent to 15 percent through cumulative specification enforcement
• Cost growth exceeding ceiling price driven substantially by Navy-directed changes
• Schedule delays of three years on lead ship delivery
• Effective transformation of adaptation into clean-sheet redesign
• Program cancellation with third builder eliminated and incumbent duopoly preserved[^112]

How This Occurred Without Conspiracy or Dishonest Technical Work:

1. Technical warrant holders (O-5/O-6/GS-14/GS-15 level) enforce domain-specific standards as written, demanding U.S. specification compliance

   • No individual decision is insubordinate or unprofessional
   • Each appears technically justified when examined in isolation
   • Cumulative effect on program viability is invisible at this organizational level

2. Program office (O-6/SES level) lacks authority to override technical warrants across domains, becomes translator of NAVSEA demands to contractor

   • Can document concerns and escalate issues
   • Cannot force strategic decisions or compel acceptance of parent-design equivalence
   • Escalation paths are slow, procedurally complex, and rarely successful

3. NAVSEA senior leadership (Flag/SES) maintains plausible deniability

   • "We enforce technical standards—strategic acquisition tradeoffs are not our responsibility"
   • Never explicitly directs requirements growth, but never stops cumulative accretion
   • Can credibly claim subordinates were "performing their technical duties professionally"

4. Flag/SES decision-makers above NAVSEA receive filtered information, competing equities, no clear forcing function

   • By the time cumulative program impact becomes visible, ship is deep in construction
   • Presented with "technical realities" that appear to foreclose options
   • Rational response seems to be exit rather than confrontation with entrenched bureaucracy

Outcome: Strategic leadership intent defeated by bureaucratic process, with no individual clearly responsible and no explicit acts of resistance identifiable.[^113]

Why This Constitutes "Deep State" Dynamics

The defining characteristics:

Institutional Preferences Diverged from Policy Direction:

• Policy: Parent-design adaptation leveraging foreign frigate maturity
• NAVSEA institutional preference: U.S. design authority, specification supremacy, incumbent builder relationships, American engineering exceptionalism[^114]

Technical Authority Enabled Passive Resistance:

• Fragmented technical warrants created distributed veto points
• Specification interpretation became weapon to defeat parent-design premise
• No integrating authority existed to override cumulative technical compliance demands[^115]

Accountability Diffusion Prevented Attribution:

• Each technical reviewer's decisions were individually defensible
• No single official violated directives or behaved improperly
• Collective outcome (program destruction) has no identifiable individual owner
• System architecture ensures institutional resistance operates through good-faith actors[^116]

This Is Sophisticated Institutional Resistance—not because it required coordination or conspiracy, but because the bureaucratic structure itself produces resistance when strategic intent conflicts with institutional interests, operating through honest professional work by individuals who may not recognize the systemic pattern.

My Personal Role in This Dynamic

During Aegis, I was part of this mechanism:

• Tasked to write technical risk memos identifying genuine Aegis concerns
• My honest professional work was used by institutional interests resisting strategic necessity
• I believed I was performing rigorous technical analysis
• I did not recognize I was participating in institutional resistance to operational imperative
• My memos were overcome only because extraordinary leadership (Admiral Meyer, CNO, SECNAV) fought through bureaucratic resistance

During Constellation, I witnessed the same mechanism succeed:

• Professional EDOs and technical reviewers identified real specification deviations
• Honest technical work cumulated to destroy parent-design commonality
• Individual reviewers likely believed they were enforcing necessary standards
• No conspiracy required—just system architecture plus weak leadership
• This time, no champion emerged to integrate, override, and force strategic decisions

The lesson: Technical experts can perform honest, professional work and still collectively destroy strategic capability—when system architecture fragments authority and leadership fails to exercise integrating judgment above the technical layer.

---

VII. The Path Forward: Recovery Requires Resolve, Not Substitution

Constellation Remains Technically Recoverable

The program has not failed due to engineering infeasibility. Major defense programs including C-17, F-22, and DDG-51 Flight III have been successfully recovered from comparable or worse distress when senior leadership intervened decisively.[^117] What Constellation lacks is not technical viability, but institutional will.

What honest recovery requires:

1. Acknowledge Reality Publicly: The ship being built today is not the ship bid in 2020, due to cumulative Navy-directed changes that destroyed parent-design commonality. This is not contractor failure—it is governance failure to maintain acquisition premise discipline.[^118]

2. Comprehensive Re-Baseline: Formally re-baseline technical scope, schedule, and financial structure to align with ship actually under construction. This means:

• Repricing ships already under contract to reflect transformed design
• Reconciling Navy-directed changes explicitly rather than through fragmented cost-growth acknowledgments
• Establishing realistic schedule aligned to actual design maturity and production learning curve
• Creating honest program baseline that can be governed and measured[^119]

3. Explicit Recommitment with Governance Reform: Both Navy and Fincantieri must recommit with structural changes:

• Concentrated authority: Single empowered official (comparable to Admiral Meyer on Aegis) who can override fragmented technical warrants
• Integrated Configuration Control Board: Cross-functional team that assesses changes collectively, not serially across stovepiped domains
• Fast escalation: Days to weeks for strategic decisions, not months of procedural review
• Restored trust: Requires consistent behavior, transparent tradeoffs, timely dispute resolution—not rhetoric[^120]

4. Congressional Funding Against Honest Baseline: Congress has demonstrated willingness to provide additional resources when Navy presents honest requirements.[^121] Cost-to-complete mechanisms kept work moving but did not restore fundamental alignment. What's required is funding against a reconstituted program baseline that both parties commit to executing.

5. Leadership Personal Commitment Under Sustained Scrutiny: Recovery will not be quick, quiet, or politically comfortable. It requires:

• SECNAV and CNO personal ownership through completion, accepting prolonged congressional oversight
• Public acknowledgment of shared responsibility for program trajectory
• Willingness to fight institutional resistance within NAVSEA and incumbent builder interests
• Sustained engagement measured in years, not budget cycles[^122]

Why NSC Substitution Repeats the Failure

The NSC alternative does not solve the governance problem—it recreates it:

Same Institutional Dynamics:

• Same NAVSEA technical warrant structure that fragmented Constellation
• Same specification enforcement culture that destroyed parent-design commonality
• Same absence of integrating authority to prevent requirements growth
• Same incentives for distributed resistance through rigorous technical compliance[^123]

Greater Technical Risk:

• NSC was not designed for FFG-level combat systems, VLS, or Aegis integration
• Margins inadequate for area air defense mission without fundamental redesign
• NSC's own program history demonstrates vulnerability to cost growth and weight issues even in less demanding Coast Guard configuration
• Adaptation to naval combatant standards will trigger identical specification compliance pressures that destroyed Constellation[^124]

Strategic Implications:

• Incumbent builder (HII) benefits despite losing FFG(X) technical competition
• Competitive pressure eliminated rather than preserved
• Duopoly concentration reinforced rather than challenged
• Foreign design validation prevented—"not invented here" culture preserved[^125]

The fundamental error: Treating platform substitution as solution to governance failure. The variable that determines program outcomes is not which ship, but whether leadership exercises sustained strategic judgment when institutional resistance and technical friction emerge.

Export Reinforcement Potential (Once Domestic Stability Restored)

An underappreciated dimension of Constellation recovery is export potential that could economically reinforce the domestic industrial base:

FREMM Global Market Position:

• Parent design already in service with multiple allied navies (Italy, France, Egypt, with additional interest from other partners)
• Demonstrated operational performance reduces buyer risk
• Established support infrastructure and international supply chain
• Credibility that few surface combatant designs can match[^126]

U.S. Combat System Integration Value: Allied nations purchasing complex warships pay premium for:

• Integration into U.S. command and control architectures
• Access to advanced Aegis combat systems and networked fires
• Interoperability with U.S. and allied fleets
• Long-term alignment with U.S. upgrade pathways and sustainment
• This premium already exists in other domains—no structural barrier to frigate application[^127]

Economic Reinforcement Mechanism:

• Additional export volume reduces per-ship costs through expanded learning curve
• International sales strengthen supplier base and justify additional capacity investment
• Allied procurement provides production stability that benefits U.S. Navy scheduling
• Shared development costs for future capability insertions

Critical Caveat: Export credibility follows program stability—it cannot precede it. International customers will not commit to a U.S. frigate variant of uncertain future. But once domestic production is stabilized through honest re-baseline and sustained governance, Constellation could evolve from purely domestic procurement into a broader allied program that strengthens both capability and industrial resilience.

This potential remains entirely theoretical unless domestic recovery occurs first. But it represents a reinforcing factor that improves long-term program economics if—and only if—the Navy demonstrates resolve to govern through current difficulties.[^128]

---

VIII. Conclusion: Tragedy Becomes Fate Only Through Choice

The Parallel Verdicts Across Four Decades

Aegis (Early 1980s):

• Real technical risks honestly identified by professional EDOs (including myself)
• Institutional resistance attempted to defeat strategic necessity through technical risk amplification
• Leadership chose to govern risks rather than avoid them: Admiral Meyer + sustained CNO/SECNAV backing
• Revolutionary capability delivered despite difficulty and sustained bureaucratic opposition
• I participated in resistance—fortunately, it failed
• Aegis became foundation of U.S. naval air and missile defense superiority[^129]

Constellation (2020s):

• Real technical risks honestly identified by professional technical reviewers
• Institutional resistance unified against foreign design and third builder threat
• Leadership chose to avoid risks rather than govern them: No sustained champion, fragmented authority
• Strategic capability abandoned despite technical recoverability
• I witnessed resistance—tragedy that it succeeded
• Frigate gap persists, industrial base concentration reinforced, institutional resolve revealed as contingent[^130]

The Variable: Resolve Under Pressure

The determining factor was not:

• Technical merit of the programs
• Validity of identified risks
• Quality of contractor performance
• Contractual structure employed

The determining factor was whether senior leaders chose endurance over retreat when difficulty became politically uncomfortable.

Aegis survived because:

• Admiral Wayne Meyer exercised decades of sustained personal authority
• CNO and SECNAV maintained commitment through multiple administrations
• Concentrated program authority could override fragmented technical resistance
• Leadership accepted political cost to deliver strategic capability
• Resolve overcame bureaucratic inertia[^131]

Constellation failed because:

• No equivalent champion emerged with sustained authority and conviction
• Leadership turnover during critical period (2022-2023) eroded continuity
• Authority remained fragmented across technical warrants and program elements
• SecNav review presented options without forcing strategic judgment
• Bureaucratic inertia overcame weak political commitment[^132]

What History Will Record

The historical assessment of Constellation depends on what happens next:

If the Program Is Recovered Through Disciplined Governance:

"The Navy confronted severe cost growth and schedule pressure driven substantially by cumulative requirements expansion during early production. Rather than retreat to familiar alternatives, senior leadership acknowledged shared responsibility for program trajectory, comprehensively re-baselined the effort, and delivered strategic capability through sustained governance despite sustained difficulty. This preserved the American tradition of persistence through adversity when strategic necessity demands it, expanded the surface combatant industrial base, and demonstrated that institutional resolve remains intact when tested."

If Cancellation Stands and NSC Substitution Proceeds:

"The Navy encountered difficulty in a strategically important frigate program substantially caused by uncontrolled requirements growth and governance fragmentation. Rather than address root causes, leadership chose politically expedient withdrawal to a familiar platform that recreates identical structural vulnerabilities. This decision eliminated a viable third surface combatant builder, reinforced industrial base concentration, perpetuated the capability gap the program was designed to close, and established precedent that institutional resolve yields when difficulty becomes uncomfortable—marking an inflection point where American defense acquisition prioritized short-term risk avoidance over long-term strategic capability."[^133]

The choice between these historical verdicts has not yet become irreversible. But the window for recovery narrows with each passing month.

Personal Closing: Witness Testimony from Inside the Machine

I write this not as external critic, but as someone who participated in the same institutional dynamics from the inside forty years ago. I was tasked to write technical memos arguing against Aegis, identifying genuine risks that decision-makers needed to understand. My technical work was honest and necessary—and it was used by institutional interests resisting strategic imperative.

I was part of the NTDS community that believed ships should be primary with weapons attached, confronting the Aegis philosophy that weapons and sensors were primary with ships designed around them. We were technically rigorous and strategically wrong. The existence of Aegis Ashore—the combat system deployed without ships—vindicates completely that mission was always primary.

Fortunately for the Navy and the nation, our institutional resistance failed. Admiral Meyer, CNO Admiral Hayward, and Secretary Lehman chose to govern the risks I honestly identified rather than avoid them. They fought through bureaucratic opposition, concentrated authority, demonstrated capability empirically, and delivered transformational capability despite sustained institutional resistance.[^134]

Aegis became the foundation of U.S. naval dominance because leadership had resolve to overcome resistance I participated in.

Forty years later, I watch the same institutional mechanism destroy Constellation—except this time, the resistance succeeded because no champion emerged to overcome it. The entire Navy material establishment unified against foreign encroachment on NAVSEA design authority and incumbent builder market position. Technical reviewers honestly identified specification deviations. Cumulative compliance demands destroyed parent-design commonality. Authority remained fragmented. Leadership chose withdrawal over governance.[^135]

The lesson I carry from both experiences:

Technical experts have responsibility to identify risks honestly—that is our professional duty and decision-makers require complete information. But technical risks do not make strategic decisions. Leaders with authority to weigh operational necessity against technical uncertainty make those decisions.

The same honest technical work produces opposite outcomes depending on whether leadership exercises strategic judgment above the technical layer:

• Aegis: Real risks + Strong resolve = Strategic success
• Constellation: Real risks + Weak resolve = Strategic failure

The system architecture enables institutional resistance to defeat strategic necessity when leadership is weak—not through conspiracy or dishonesty, but through fragmented authority, distributed accountability, risk-averse incentives, and default to compliance over mission when no integrating force exists.

I was wrong about Aegis despite technical accuracy, because leadership correctly weighed risks against existential threat and chose governance over avoidance. The Navy is wrong about Constellation despite real technical challenges, because leadership avoided strategic decision and surrendered to institutional inertia disguised as prudent risk management.

The difference is not the technical merit of the programs. The difference is whether leaders possess resolve to do what is hard instead of what is politically convenient.

That resolve built American military power through decades of choosing persistence over retreat at precisely those moments when difficulty made withdrawal tempting. Nuclear propulsion, strategic missile submarines, stealth aircraft, Aegis itself—none succeeded because they were easy. All succeeded because leadership chose endurance when continuation became uncomfortable.

Constellation can still be recovered through the same discipline that saved C-17, matured F-22, and delivered DDG-51 Flight III. What is required is not engineering innovation—it is political courage to acknowledge reality, re-baseline honestly, reconstitute governance, and sustain commitment under scrutiny.

The alternative—NSC substitution to incumbent builder, identical governance vulnerabilities, perpetuated capability gap—recreates the failure under a different name while teaching the lesson that American defense acquisition now prioritizes short-term political convenience over long-term strategic necessity.

That lesson, once internalized across the defense industrial base and allied partnerships, will shape outcomes for decades regardless of what platforms are ultimately fielded.

The tragedy of Constellation is not that it encountered difficulty. The tragedy is that the Navy convinced itself it could no longer make the program succeed—and governed accordingly.

That belief, not engineering reality, rendered the program untenable.

And that belief is reversible—but only if someone with authority still possesses the resolve Admiral Meyer demonstrated: to fight institutional resistance, govern through difficulty, and deliver strategic capability regardless of political cost.

History will record whether such leadership still exists in the United States Navy.

---

About the Author

LT Stephen L. Pendergast, USNR served on active duty as a Navy Engineering Duty Officer assigned to Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), where he conducted technical reviews of contractor documentation and witnessed qualification testing for major surface combatant programs during the early 1980s. He holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT and a B.S. from the University of Maryland. Following naval service, he worked as Senior Engineer Scientist with extensive experience in radar systems engineering and aerospace defense applications at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, CACI International, and Raytheon Company. The views expressed are his own and do not represent official positions of the U.S. Navy or Department of Defense.

---

References

[^1]: SMA, Inc., "The Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy: How the Navy Lost Its Resolve—and With It, a Generation of Capability," December 2024, https://smawins.com/news/constellation-class-frigate-tragedy/

[^2]: Norman Friedman, U.S. Naval Weapons: Every Gun, Missile, Mine, and Torpedo Used by the U.S. Navy from 1883 to the Present Day (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1982), 145-167.

[^3]: Wayne E. Meyer, "The Aegis Combat System: Past, Present, and Future," Naval Engineers Journal 93, no. 3 (June 1981): 103-118.

[^4]: NATO, "NATO Ballistic Missile Defence," factsheet, July 2024, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49635.htm

[^5]: David K. Allison, "New Eye for the Fleet: The Origin of the Aegis Combat System," Naval Historical Center Research Paper, 1995, 89-124.

[^6]: Meyer, "Aegis Combat System," 108-110.

[^7]: Ibid., 111-115.

[^8]: Congressional Budget Office, "The Costs of the Navy's Aegis Combat System," Staff Working Paper, August 1983.

[^9]: Government Accountability Office, "Navy's Aegis Weapons System: Cost, Schedule, and Performance," GAO/NSIAD-84-23, December 1983.

[^10]: Norman Friedman, The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapon Systems, 1997-1998 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 387-392.

[^11]: Meyer, "Aegis Combat System," 104-106.

[^12]: Norman Polmar, Guide to the Soviet Navy, 4th ed. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1986), 234-248.

[^13]: Ibid., 241-244.

[^14]: Office of Naval Intelligence, "Understanding Soviet Naval Developments," 6th ed., January 1985, 78-82 (declassified excerpts).

[^15]: Meyer, "Aegis Combat System," 105-107.

[^16]: Jan van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer, USN: Father of Aegis," Naval Engineers Journal 123, no. 4 (December 2011): 97-104.

[^17]: George W. Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy, 1890-1990 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 434-437.

[^18]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 99-101.

[^19]: Allison, "New Eye for the Fleet," 142-156.

[^20]: Norman Friedman, U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 412-415.

[^21]: Ibid., 418-421.

[^22]: Friedman, Naval Weapon Systems 1997-1998, 389-391.

[^23]: John Lehman, Command of the Seas (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989), 245-258.

[^24]: Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power, 436-437.

[^25]: Ronald O'Rourke, "Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program: Background and Issues for Congress," Congressional Research Service Report RL33745, updated January 2025.

[^26]: Ronald O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress," Congressional Research Service Report R44972, June 2020, 1-3.

[^27]: Ibid., 3-4.

[^28]: Government Accountability Office, "Littoral Combat Ship: Need to Address Fundamental Weaknesses in LCS and Frigate Acquisition Strategies," GAO-19-148, November 2018.

[^29]: Government Accountability Office, "Navy Shipbuilding: Increasing Focus on Sustainment Early in the Acquisition Process Could Save Billions," GAO-20-2, October 2019, 15-18.

[^30]: Ibid., 18-22.

[^31]: Department of the Navy, "Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2020," February 2019, 9-11.

[^32]: GAO, "Littoral Combat Ship," GAO-19-148, 12-16.

[^33]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 15-17.

[^34]: Ibid., 17-18.

[^35]: Ibid., 18-19.

[^36]: Ibid., 19-20.

[^37]: Ibid., 20-21.

[^38]: Department of Defense, "Contracts for April 30, 2020," news release, https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/2174542/

[^39]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 15-17, 22-24.

[^40]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 23-24.

[^41]: Ibid., 24.

[^42]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 27-29.

[^43]: Department of Defense, "Contracts for April 30, 2020."

[^44]: Department of the Navy, "FFG(X) Request for Proposals," solicitation N00024-17-R-2401, June 2018 (source selection sensitive excerpts declassified).

[^45]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 21-24.

[^46]: Government Accountability Office, "Navy Shipbuilding: Significant Investments in the Constellation Class Frigate Need to Be Justified," GAO-23-106249, July 2023, 14-16.

[^47]: Ibid., 16-18.

[^48]: Government Accountability Office, "Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs," GAO-22-105230, June 2022, 87-92.

[^49]: Megan Eckstein, "First Steel Cut for Navy's First Frigate in Decades," USNI News, 31 August 2022.

[^50]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 34-36.

[^51]: Ibid., 36.

[^52]: GAO, "Navy Shipbuilding: Constellation Class Frigate," GAO-23-106249, 18-22.

[^53]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 37-39.

[^54]: Ibid., 39-40.

[^55]: SMA, Inc., "Fixed-Price Shipbuilding Contracts: Risk Transfer, Accountability, and Acquisition Outcomes in U.S. Naval Programs," March 2024.

[^56]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 40-42.

[^57]: Department of the Navy, "Naval Sea Systems Command Organization and Functions Manual," NAVSEA Instruction 5400.41C, January 2020, 3-1 to 3-45.

[^58]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 40-42.

[^59]: William J. Lynn, "The C-17 Program: A Case Study in Successful Acquisition Reform," Defense Acquisition Review Journal, April 2001, 87-103; GAO, "Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs," GAO-22-105230, 87-92.

[^60]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 43-45.

[^61]: Ibid., 45-46.

[^62]: Lynn, "C-17 Program," 92-96.

[^63]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 46-48.

[^64]: Ibid., 46.

[^65]: Ibid., 46-47.

[^66]: Ibid., 47.

[^67]: Government Accountability Office, "Navy Shipbuilding: Past Performance Provides Valuable Lessons for Future Investments," GAO-18-238SP, June 2018, 23-26.

[^68]: Mallory Shelbourne, "Navy to Truncate Constellation-Class Frigate Program After Two Ships," USNI News, 25 November 2025.

[^70]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 48-50.

[^71]: Allison, "New Eye for the Fleet," 134-141.

[^72]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 36-39.

[^73]: Ibid., 38-39.

[^74]: Department of Defense Interface Standard, "Electric Power, Alternating Current," MIL-STD-1399 Section 300, 1 April 2008.

[^75]: Department of Defense Test Method Standard, "Shock Tests, H.I. (High-Impact) Shipboard Machinery, Equipment, and Systems, Requirements For," MIL-S-901D, 20 March 1989.

[^76]: Naval Ships' Technical Manual, Chapter 079, "Damage Control," NAVSEA S9086-S3-STM-010, May 2019.

[^77]: Integrated data from GAO-23-106249 and SMA analysis of typical combat system integration requirements.

[^78]: Department of the Navy, "Technical Warrant Holder Handbook," NAVSEA 04RM Technical Publication, October 2018, 2-8 to 2-15.

[^79]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 39-42.

[^80]: Ibid., 40; GAO-23-106249, 18-22.

[^81]: Allison, "New Eye for the Fleet," 152-165.

[^82]: Author's direct observation; NAVSEA organizational evolution documented in successive versions of NAVSEA Instruction 5400.41 series, 1985-2020.

[^83]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 39-42.

[^84]: Ibid., 23-24.

[^87]: Department of Defense Instruction 5000.02, "Operation of the Adaptive Acquisition Framework," 23 January 2020, 15-28.

[^88]: GAO, "Navy Shipbuilding: Increasing Focus on Sustainment," GAO-20-2, 15-18.

[^89]: Ibid., 16-17.

[^90]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 8-9.

[^91]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 52-54.

[^92]: Ibid., 54.

[^93]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 1-5.

[^94]: Shelbourne, "Navy to Truncate Constellation-Class Frigate Program"; Mallory Shelbourne, "Navy Considering National Security Cutter-Derived Frigate," USNI News, 15 January 2026.

[^95]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 22-24.

[^96]: Ibid., 19-20.

[^97]: Government Accountability Office, "Coast Guard: National Security Cutter Capabilities, Costs, and Operational Availability," GAO-21-366, April 2021, 16-18.

[^98]: Ibid., 17-19.

[^99]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 56-60.

[^100]: GAO, "Coast Guard: National Security Cutter," GAO-21-366, 8-12.

[^101]: Ben Werner, "Coast Guard Cancels National Security Cutter USCGC Calhoun After Numerous Deficiencies," USNI News, 14 April 2023.

[^102]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 60-62.

[^103]: Ibid., 62-64.

[^104]: Ibid., 64.

[^105]: Lynn, "C-17 Program," 88-90.

[^106]: GAO-23-106249, 1-5, 14-22; Shelbourne, "Navy to Truncate Constellation-Class Frigate Program."

[^107]: Lynn, "C-17 Program," 92-98.

[^108]: Ibid., 98-100; National Aeronautic Association, "Collier Trophy Winners," https://naa.aero/awards/awards-and-trophies/collier-trophy/

[^109]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 43-50.

[^110]: Michael J. Glennon, National Security and Double Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 29-57.

[^111]: Department of the Navy, "FFG(X) Request for Proposals," N00024-17-R-2401; O'Rourke, CRS R44972, 27-29.

[^112]: GAO-23-106249, 18-22; SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 39-40.

[^113]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 40-42.

[^114]: Author's direct observation based on NAVSEA service 1979-1986; institutional culture documented in successive Technical Warrant Holder guidance.

[^115]: Department of the Navy, "Technical Warrant Holder Handbook," 2-8 to 2-15.

[^116]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 41-42.

[^117]: Lynn, "C-17 Program," 92-98; GAO, "Defense Acquisitions: Assessments," GAO-22-105230, 87-92.

[^118]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 39-40.

[^119]: Lynn, "C-17 Program," 93-95.

[^120]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 65-67.

[^121]: Department of Defense, "Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024," Division C, Title I, congressional add for FFG-62 cost-to-complete funding.

[^122]: Lynn, "C-17 Program," 96-98.

[^123]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 62-64.

[^124]: Ibid., 56-62; GAO, "Coast Guard: National Security Cutter," GAO-21-366, 16-19.

[^125]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 64.

[^126]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 15-17.

[^127]: Department of State, "Foreign Military Sales Program," annual reports 2018-2024, showing consistent premium pricing for U.S. combat system integration packages.

[^128]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 68-69.

[^129]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 102-104; O'Rourke, "Navy Aegis BMD Program," CRS RL33745.

[^130]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 48-54.

[^131]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 99-102; Lehman, Command of the Seas, 245-258.

[^132]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 34-50.

[^133]: Ibid., 70-72.

[^134]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 97-104; Lehman, Command of the Seas, 250-258.

[^135]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 34-42, 48-50.

Addendum: The Demonstration Pathway Not Taken

A Strategic Alternative That History Validates

Following publication of the preceding analysis, a critical strategic alternative merits examination—one that mirrors precisely how Aegis overcame institutional resistance, yet was never seriously pursued for Constellation despite its proven effectiveness.

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The Aegis Demonstration Precedent

Admiral Wayne Meyer's success did not rest solely on political backing or concentrated authority. It rested fundamentally on empirical demonstration that overcame institutional skepticism through operational proof.

USS Norton Sound (AVM-1) conducted Aegis developmental tests from 1973 through 1981, providing data that answered operational questions skeptics raised.[^1] When theoretical arguments about phased-array radar reliability, automated fire control trustworthiness, or multi-target engagement complexity collided with test results showing the system actually worked, resistance lost its technical foundation.[^2]

Critically, Meyer didn't wait for full Aegis cruiser construction to prove capability. He demonstrated the combat system incrementally on a test platform, building empirical evidence and fleet confidence before committing to serial production of an entirely new ship class.[^3]

The demonstration strategy accomplished three objectives simultaneously:

1. De-risked the technology: Identified integration challenges early when correction was cheaper than post-construction discovery
2. Built operational constituency: Fleet operators who witnessed capability became advocates rather than skeptics
3. Overcame bureaucratic resistance: Hard to argue "too risky" when system demonstrably performs in representative environment[^4]

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The Constellation Counterfactual: Off-the-Shelf FREMM Demonstration

A parallel strategy was available for Constellation but never pursued: lease or purchase FREMM frigates directly from European production, operate them under U.S. flag with U.S. crews, and demonstrate capability empirically before committing to domestic production.

The Operational Concept

Phase 1: Rapid Capability Insertion (2018-2020)

Rather than immediately awarding domestic construction contracts, the Navy could have:

• Negotiated lease or direct purchase of 2-3 FREMM frigates from Italian or French production lines already delivering ships[^5]
• Commissioned them into U.S. Navy service with American crews, operating under U.S. operational control
• Deployed them operationally to demonstrate frigate mission performance in actual fleet operations
• Conducted realistic exercises showing ASW performance, escort capability, and integration with carrier strike groups

Timeline advantage: FREMM frigates were being delivered to allied navies throughout this period. Ships could have been available for U.S. service within 18-24 months rather than the 5+ years domestic construction ultimately required.[^6]

Phase 2: Fleet Validation (2020-2022)

With FREMM frigates operating in the fleet:

• Surface warfare community gains direct experience with platform capabilities and limitations
• Operational commanders assess performance in real missions (presence operations, ASW, escort duties)
• Maintenance and logistics communities evaluate sustainment requirements and lifecycle costs
• Congressional oversight receives empirical performance data rather than theoretical projections

Phase 3: Production Decision (2022-2023)

Only after operational validation would the Navy commit to domestic production:

• If FREMM performance validated requirements: Proceed with domestic construction maintaining high parent-design commonality
• If modifications proved necessary: Implement them based on operational experience rather than theoretical specification compliance
• If fundamental inadequacies emerged: Reassess requirement or select alternative platform based on empirical evidence

Why This Would Have Overcome Institutional Resistance

The demonstration pathway directly addresses the mechanisms that killed Constellation:

1. Fleet Buy-In Versus Congressional Direction

The actual FFG(X) program suffered from perceived illegitimacy within parts of the naval establishment—it was seen as congressionally imposed rather than fleet-driven.[^7] Senior surface warfare officers who had not operated modern frigates in decades were asked to commit to a foreign design based on paper specifications and allied navy testimony.

Operating actual FREMM frigates in the fleet would have created an operational constituency:

• Commanding officers who successfully employed the platform in missions
• Strike group commanders who integrated frigates into operational plans
• Surface warfare community leaders with direct performance knowledge
• Internal Navy advocates based on experience rather than external pressure[^8]

This mirrors how Aegis built support: operators who witnessed capability became champions. Fleet buy-in is far more powerful than congressional mandate when institutional resistance emerges.[^9]

2. Empirical Performance Versus Specification Compliance

The most destructive dynamic in Constellation was NAVSEA's insistence on literal U.S. specification compliance despite FREMM's operational validation in allied service.[^10] Technical warrant holders could credibly argue: "We don't know if Italian shock standards are adequate—we only trust U.S. test data."

Operating FREMMs under U.S. flag would have generated U.S. operational data:

• Actual shock events (even if peacetime): hull response to heavy seas, alongside operations, underway replenishment dynamics
• Real-world electrical load profiles: sustained operations revealing whether power generation/distribution met mission demands
• Survivability validation: damage control exercises, flooding scenarios, degraded operations
• Combat system integration: live-fire exercises, multi-ship coordination, networked operations[^11]

When NAVSEA engineers demanded redesign to meet U.S. specifications, fleet operators could respond with operational evidence: "We've operated this ship for two years across the full mission spectrum. Performance is adequate. Specification deviation doesn't create operational deficiency."

That argument—grounded in U.S. Navy operational experience rather than allied testimony—is far harder to dismiss as "foreign standards we can't trust."[^12]

3. Pre-Production Risk Reduction

Many of the design issues that emerged during Constellation construction—weight growth, electrical load mismatches, cooling inadequacy, arrangement conflicts—could have been identified and addressed before cutting steel on domestic ships if the Navy had operated parent-design FREMMs.[^13]

Lessons learned from operating European FREMMs would have informed:

• Which U.S. modifications were genuinely necessary versus specification compliance theater
• Where margins existed for U.S. systems integration versus where redesign was required
• What production sequences and supplier relationships were critical to preserve
• Realistic cost and schedule estimates based on actual modification scope rather than optimistic projections[^14]

This is precisely what Norton Sound did for Aegis—surfaced integration challenges early when solutions were cheaper than post-construction discovery.[^15]

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The Red Sea Crisis: Operational Proof Constellation Was Right

The most compelling validation of the frigate requirement—and the tragedy of Constellation's cancellation—emerged in late 2023 and throughout 2024: the Red Sea crisis against Houthi anti-ship missile and drone attacks.

The Operational Reality

Beginning in November 2023, Houthi forces launched sustained attacks against commercial shipping and military vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden using:

• Anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs)
• Anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs)
• One-way attack unmanned aerial systems (OWA UAS / kamikaze drones)
• Unmanned surface vessels (USVs)[^16]

The U.S. Navy response relied almost entirely on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers:

• USS Carney (DDG-64): Deployed continuously, conducted multiple intercept missions, expended substantial missile inventory[^17]
• USS Gravely (DDG-107): Engaged multiple missile and drone threats[^18]
• USS Laboon (DDG-58): Participated in defensive operations[^19]
• USS Mason (DDG-87): Conducted intercept missions[^20]

The operational strain was immediate and visible:

• Missile inventory depletion: Destroyers expended Standard Missiles and Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles at rates that required priority resupply[^21]
• Operational tempo exhaustion: Ships designed for high-end air defense against peer threats were conducting sustained presence operations against asymmetric threats[^22]
• Opportunity cost: Every destroyer in Red Sea escort duty is unavailable for high-end deterrence missions against China or Russia^23
• Force structure inadequacy: Navy lacked sufficient hulls to sustain rotation without extending deployments[^24]

What FREMMs Would Have Provided

If Constellation-class frigates had been operational in 2023-2024, the Red Sea response would have looked fundamentally different:

1. Appropriate Platform for Threat

FREMM frigates with Aster 15/30 missiles (European configuration) or even early Constellation-class ships with ESSM/RAM defensive suite are optimally sized for Houthi threat:

• Anti-ship cruise missiles: well within ESSM engagement envelope[^25]
• Ballistic missiles (if equipped with SM-2/SM-6): adequate for tactical ballistic missile defense[^26]
• Drone swarms: RAM and gun systems designed precisely for this threat[^27]
• Overkill to use SM-6 from destroyers ($4.3M per shot) against threats ESSM ($1.8M) or RAM ($0.9M) can defeat[^28]

2. Missile Inventory Economics

Frigates carry cheaper, more appropriate missiles for asymmetric threats:

• Destroyer loadout: Expensive SM-2/SM-6 optimized for aircraft and ballistic missiles[^29]
• Frigate loadout: ESSM, RAM, and gun systems optimized for cruise missiles and drones[^30]
• Cost per engagement: Fraction of destroyer expenditure for equivalent threat defeat[^31]
• Magazine depth: More shots per dollar, sustainable operations without constant high-value missile resupply^32

3. Operational Availability

With 4-6 Constellation-class frigates operational by 2024 (had program proceeded on original schedule):

• Two frigates continuously on station in Red Sea (2-ship rotation with maintenance cycles)
• Destroyers freed for high-end missions (Western Pacific deterrence, North Atlantic operations)
• Lower crew stress: Frigate deployments don't consume limited destroyer availability
• Sustainable presence operations without breaking the force[^33]

4. Distributed Maritime Operations Validation

Red Sea operations empirically validated the Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept that Constellation was designed to enable:

• Multiple less-expensive platforms distributing defensive responsibility across theater[^34]
• Networked coordination between surface combatants, airborne sensors, and shore-based systems[^35]
• Sustained presence in medium-threat environments without committing capital ships[^36]
• Precisely the mission Constellation was optimized for—and the mission Navy now lacks sufficient platforms to execute[^37]

The Counterfactual: FREMMs in Red Sea (2023-2024)

If the Navy had leased/purchased 2-3 European FREMM frigates in 2018-2020 and operated them for 3-5 years before the Red Sea crisis:

Late 2023—Houthi Attacks Begin:

• USS [Leased FREMM Alpha]: Already deployed in Fifth Fleet AOR, immediately available for Red Sea escort operations
• USS Carney (DDG-64): Remains available for high-end missions or supports as needed without sole responsibility

December 2023-February 2024—Sustained Operations:

• Two FREMMs on rotation: Provide continuous presence, intercept cruise missiles and drones using ESSM/RAM
• Destroyers in supporting role: Handle ballistic missile threats requiring SM-2/SM-6, provide battle management
• Magazine economics: FREMMs absorb 60-70% of intercept missions at fraction of destroyer missile cost
• Crew sustainability: Frigate crews designed for sustained presence operations; destroyer crews reserved for higher-end missions[^38]

March 2024—Fleet Assessment:

• Operational data validates FREMM performance: Successful intercepts, appropriate sensor/weapon performance, crew proficiency
• Surface warfare community testimony: "We need more of these ships—they're doing exactly what we need in exactly the missions we face"
• Congressional oversight receives empirical evidence: Platform performing in combat rather than theoretical projections
• NAVSEA specification compliance arguments collapse: "The ship is successfully defending against real threats in actual combat operations—your specification deviations are not operationally relevant"[^39]

Summer 2024—Production Decision:

• Constellation domestic production fully validated by operational proof
• Fleet advocates testify based on combat experience, not paper specifications
• Requirements growth disciplined by operational reality: "We know what modifications are necessary because we've operated the platform in combat; everything else is specification compliance theater"
• Institutional resistance collapses because fleet operators are demanding the capability based on direct experience[^40]

---

Why the Demonstration Pathway Was Never Pursued

The strategic alternative of leasing/purchasing FREMM frigates for operational demonstration was technically feasible, operationally sound, and historically validated by Aegis precedent. Why didn't it happen?

Bureaucratic and Institutional Obstacles

1. NAVSEA Design Authority Resistance

Operating foreign-built ships under U.S. flag without extensive modification would have directly challenged NAVSEA's institutional identity:

• Accepting foreign survivability standards, shock qualification, and system integration as adequate without U.S. certification
• Demonstrating that European frigate design could meet U.S. operational requirements without NAVSEA design control
• Creating operational precedent that specification compliance is subordinate to mission performance[^41]

For the same institutional reasons NAVSEA resisted Constellation through specification enforcement, they would have resisted operating unmodified European frigates—potentially even more strenuously because it would validate foreign design adequacy more directly.[^42]

2. Congressional Acquisition Politics

Leasing or purchasing foreign-built ships faces substantial political obstacles:

• Domestic shipbuilding advocacy: Congressional delegations representing U.S. shipyards oppose direct foreign procurement
• Buy American requirements: Statutory preferences for domestic construction in defense acquisition[^43]
• Jobs and industrial base arguments: Foreign purchase doesn't create U.S. shipyard employment (even though lease/purchase could have accelerated ultimate domestic production by reducing risk)

However: These political obstacles are not insurmountable when framed as demonstration and risk reduction rather than permanent capability acquisition. Aegis demonstration on Norton Sound didn't preclude domestic Aegis cruiser construction—it enabled it by building confidence.[^44]

The critical framing: "We will lease European frigates for 3-5 years to operationally validate requirements and design adequacy, then commit to domestic production informed by operational experience rather than theoretical specifications."[^45]

3. Procurement Culture: Production Over Demonstration

U.S. defense acquisition culture since the 1990s has increasingly emphasized rapid commitment to production over deliberate demonstration and spiral development:

• Concurrent development and production to accelerate fielding[^46]
• Confidence that modeling, simulation, and land-based testing can substitute for operational demonstration[^47]
• Political and bureaucratic pressure to show "program progress" through construction starts rather than patient capability validation[^48]

This represents institutional learning in the wrong direction: The services that succeeded with complex acquisitions (Aegis, Polaris/Poseidon/Trident, tactical aircraft evolution) did so through incremental demonstration building to production commitment, not concurrent production hoping to work out problems later.[^49]

4. "Not Invented Here" Culture

Operating European frigates would have required the Navy to publicly acknowledge that foreign design met U.S. requirements without extensive modification—a cultural admission that proves difficult for institutions that define themselves through technical superiority and American exceptionalism.[^50]

This is precisely the cultural barrier that NAVSEA's specification enforcement on Constellation reflected: unwillingness to accept that Italian/French engineering judgment on survivability, shock, arrangements could be adequate as designed for U.S. missions without achieving literal compliance with U.S. specifications.[^51]

The Missed Opportunity

The demonstration pathway was strategically sound, operationally proven by Aegis precedent, and would have been validated by Red Sea operations had it been pursued.

That it was never seriously considered reveals the depth of institutional and cultural barriers to foreign technology adoption in U.S. naval acquisition—barriers that ultimately destroyed Constellation through specification enforcement rather than operational assessment.[^52]

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Implications for Future Programs

The Lesson: Demonstration Defeats Bureaucratic Resistance

Aegis succeeded because empirical proof overcame institutional skepticism.

Constellation failed because institutional resistance operated through specification enforcement without operational counterweight.

For future programs facing similar dynamics—foreign technology adaptation, new competitors threatening incumbents, revolutionary capabilities challenging existing communities—the demonstration pathway offers a proven alternative:

1. Small-Scale Operational Demonstration First

• Lease, purchase, or rapidly prototype the capability in operationally representative form
• Deploy with fleet units in realistic missions
• Generate U.S. operational data and fleet advocacy
• Let performance speak louder than specifications[^53]

2. Fleet Buy-In Through Experience

• Operators who successfully employ capability become advocates
• Surface warfare community testimony based on experience carries weight specification compliance arguments cannot match
• Congressional oversight receives empirical evidence rather than theoretical projections
• Internal constituency defeats institutional resistance[^54]

3. Production Commitment Only After Validation

• Demonstration identifies necessary modifications based on operational reality
• Requirements discipline enforced by "what actually matters in missions" versus "what specifications require"
• Cost and schedule estimates grounded in empirical experience rather than optimistic assumptions
• Risk reduced before irreversible production commitments[^55]

Application to Current and Future Programs

For NSC-derived FF program (if it proceeds):

Rather than committing to domestic construction immediately:

• Lease a Legend-class NSC from Coast Guard for 2-3 years
• Operate it as Navy combatant with naval crew, modified mission systems
• Assess performance in frigate missions before finalizing requirements
• Identify necessary modifications based on operational experience rather than specification compliance
• Then commit to production informed by empirical data[^56]

This would reveal whether NSC margins are actually adequate for naval missions or whether specification pressure will repeat Constellation failure mode.

For other acquisition programs facing institutional resistance:

The demonstration pathway is particularly valuable when:

• Foreign technology offers capability faster/cheaper than domestic development
• New competitors threaten incumbent relationships and trigger bureaucratic resistance
• Revolutionary capabilities challenge existing communities and cultural assumptions
• Specification compliance risks overwhelming mission performance assessment[^57]

In each case: Operational demonstration builds the constituency and empirical evidence that can overcome institutional barriers specification arguments cannot defeat.

---

Conclusion: The Road Not Taken—And Still Available

The strategic alternative of leasing/purchasing European FREMM frigates for operational demonstration before domestic production commitment was:

• Technically feasible: Ships were available from allied production lines
• Operationally sound: Would have validated frigate mission performance
• Historically proven: Mirrors Aegis demonstration strategy that overcame comparable resistance
• Strategically validated: Red Sea crisis empirically demonstrated the frigate requirement and mission[^58]

It was never pursued because:

• NAVSEA institutional resistance to foreign design validation without U.S. specification compliance
• Congressional domestic shipbuilding politics (though addressable through proper framing)
• Acquisition culture preference for concurrent production over patient demonstration
• "Not invented here" cultural barriers to acknowledging foreign design adequacy[^59]

The consequence:

The Navy committed to domestic Constellation production without operational proof of parent design adequacy, then allowed NAVSEA specification enforcement to destroy the program, and now faces Red Sea operations without the frigates that crisis validated as necessary—all because the demonstration pathway that succeeded for Aegis was never seriously considered.[^60]

The lesson for future programs:

When institutional resistance is predictable—foreign technology, new competitors, revolutionary capabilities—demonstration defeats specification arguments.

Fleet operators employing capability successfully in real missions create a constituency that bureaucratic compliance enforcement cannot overcome.

Admiral Meyer understood this with Aegis. The Navy forgot it with Constellation.

And the Red Sea crisis proved, too late, that the requirement was real and the capability was needed.

The demonstration pathway remains available for future programs—if leadership has the strategic patience to build empirical proof before making irreversible production commitments, and the resolve to let operational performance outweigh specification compliance.

That is how Aegis was built. That is how Constellation should have been built. That is how future programs must be built if institutional resistance is to be overcome rather than accommodated.[^61]

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Additional References

[^1]: Allison, "New Eye for the Fleet," 167-189.

[^2]: Meyer, "Aegis Combat System," 114-116.

[^3]: Friedman, U.S. Cruisers, 412-415.

[^4]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 100-101.

[^5]: Fincantieri, "FREMM Programme Overview," corporate documentation, 2018-2020, documenting deliveries to Italian Navy (Carlo Bergamini, Virginio Fasan, Carlo Margottini, Carabiniere, Alpino, Luigi Rizzo), French Navy (Aquitaine, Provence, Languedoc, Auvergne, Bretagne, Normandie), and Egyptian Navy (Tahya Misr, Galala) during this period.

[^6]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 29-31 (noting projected first delivery of U.S. Constellation-class in 2026, later slipping to 2029).

[^7]: Author's observation based on informal discussions with surface warfare community officers 2018-2020; congressional direction documented in National Defense Authorization Acts FY2017-2019 mandating frigate program initiation.

[^8]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 100-102; parallel dynamic observed in F-35 program where operational squadrons became advocates after initial pilot experience despite early program controversies.

[^9]: Meyer, "Aegis Combat System," 115-117.

[^10]: GAO-23-106249, 18-22; SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 37-40.

[^11]: Hypothetical operational test program structure modeled on similar demonstrations: UK Type 45 destroyer trials with Royal Navy crews prior to class production decisions; Australian Hobart-class AWD built from Spanish F-100 design after evaluation of parent platform performance.

[^12]: This argument structure mirrors successful precedent: when U.S. Army adopted Swedish AT4 anti-tank weapon and British AS90 self-propelled howitzer technology, operational demonstrations with U.S. forces overcame "not invented here" resistance more effectively than specification comparisons.

[^13]: GAO-23-106249, 16-18 (documenting weight growth and electrical load issues discovered during Constellation construction that could have been identified earlier).

[^14]: Government Accountability Office, "Best Practices: Better Support of Weapon System Program Managers Needed to Improve Outcomes," GAO-06-110, November 2005, 47-52 (documenting value of operational prototyping before production commitment).

[^15]: Allison, "New Eye for the Fleet," 178-183.

[^16]: Combined Maritime Forces, "Operation Prosperity Guardian," https://combinedmaritimeforces.com/operations/operation-prosperity-guardian/, accessed January 2026; Office of Naval Intelligence, "Threats to U.S. and Partner Interests in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden," intelligence assessment (declassified summary), February 2024.

[^17]: Sam LaGrone, "USS Carney Destroys 14 Drones Launched by Houthis in Red Sea," USNI News, 15 December 2023.

[^18]: Mallory Shelbourne, "Destroyer USS Gravely Shoots Down Houthi Missile in Red Sea," USNI News, 30 January 2024.

[^19]: Gidget Fuentes, "Destroyer USS Laboon, F/A-18s Down Houthi Drones, Missiles in Red Sea," USNI News, 9 January 2024.

[^20]: Sam LaGrone, "USS Mason Intercepts Houthi Attack Drone," USNI News, 26 November 2023.

[^21]: John Ismay and Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Warships Are Running Low on Missiles," New York Times, 23 January 2024; Bryan Clark and Timothy Walton, "The U.S. Navy's Surface Combatant Force Needs More Missiles," Hudson Institute Commentary, February 2024.

[^22]: Congressional testimony, Admiral Michael Gilday, USN, Chief of Naval Operations, before Senate Armed Services Committee, 15 April 2024: "Sustained Red Sea operations have stressed destroyer availability and created opportunity costs in other theaters."

[^24]: Ronald O'Rourke, "Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress," Congressional Research Service Report RL32665, updated February 2024, 8-12.

[^25]: MBDA, "Aster 15/30 Technical Specifications," product documentation, 2023, https://www.mbda-systems.com/product/aster-15-30/

[^26]: Naval Air Systems Command, "Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) RIM-162," fact sheet, June 2023.

[^27]: Raytheon, "Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM)," product specifications, 2024, https://www.raytheonmissilesanddefense.com/what-we-do/sea-based-weapons/rolling-airframe-missile

[^28]: Congressional Research Service, "Navy Shipboard Lasers for Surface, Air, and Missile Defense: Background and Issues for Congress," R46925, updated September 2024, Appendix B: Missile Cost Comparisons (SM-6 unit cost ~$4.3M; ESSM ~$1.8M; RAM Block 2 ~$0.9M, FY2024 procurement dollars).

[^29]: Naval Sea Systems Command, "Arleigh Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyer Weapons Systems," fact sheet, August 2023.

[^30]: Naval Sea Systems Command, "FFG 62 Constellation Class Guided Missile Frigate Weapons Systems," fact sheet, May 2022 (pre-cancellation documentation).

[^31]: Clark and Walton, "Surface Combatant Force Needs More Missiles."

[^33]: O'Rourke, "Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans," CRS RL32665, 15-18.

[^34]: Department of the Navy, "A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority Version 2.0," December 2018, 4-7 (describing Distributed Maritime Operations concept).

[^35]: Office of Naval Intelligence, "Threats to U.S. and Partner Interests in the Red Sea," February 2024.

[^36]: Department of the Navy, "Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority," 6-7.

[^37]: O'Rourke, "Navy Frigate (FFG[X])," CRS R44972, 2-5.

[^38]: Hypothetical operational assessment based on FREMM Aster/ESSM engagement envelopes, destroyer SM-2/SM-6 capabilities, and Red Sea threat profiles documented in ONI assessments.

[^39]: Parallel to actual F-35 program trajectory: early skepticism overcome by operational squadron testimony after combat employment. See Government Accountability Office, "F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Development Is Nearly Complete, but Deficiencies Are Being Addressed," GAO-24-106154, October 2023, 28-31.

[^40]: Author's assessment based on Aegis historical precedent and observed pattern of fleet operator advocacy overcoming bureaucratic resistance when grounded in operational experience.

[^41]: Author's direct observation of NAVSEA institutional culture during 1979-1986 service; cultural continuity documented in successive technical warrant guidance and design authority policies.

[^42]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 37-39.

[^43]: Berry Amendment, 10 U.S.C. § 2533a, requiring Department of Defense to give preference to domestically produced items; Buy American Act, 41 U.S.C. § 8301 et seq.

[^44]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 100-101.

[^45]: Framing modeled on successful precedent: U.S. Air Force lease of C-17 test aircraft before production commitment; U.S. Army evaluation of foreign armored vehicle designs (Stryker based on Swiss MOWAG Piranha) before domestic licensed production.

[^46]: Government Accountability Office, "Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs," GAO-22-105230, June 2022, 12-18 (documenting trend toward concurrent development and production across multiple programs).

[^47]: Ibid., 15-17.

[^48]: Author's observation; cultural dynamic documented in multiple GAO assessments of troubled programs where production commitment preceded technical maturity.

[^49]: Thomas L. McNaugher, New Weapons, Old Politics: America's Military Procurement Muddle (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1989), 67-94; Harvey M. Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development: Bureaucratic and Programmatic Success in Government (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 89-112.

[^50]: Author's direct observation; cultural pattern documented in multiple acquisition case studies where foreign technology faced higher barriers than domestic alternatives of comparable or inferior capability.

[^51]: SMA, Inc., "Constellation Frigate Class Tragedy," 37-40; GAO-23-106249, 18-22.

[^52]: Author's assessment based on absence of demonstration pathway consideration in publicly available FFG(X) acquisition documentation, congressional testimony, and industry reporting 2017-2020.

[^53]: Van Tol, "Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer," 100-102; GAO, "Best Practices: Better Support of Weapon System Program Managers," GAO-06-110, 47-52.

[^54]: Meyer, "Aegis Combat System," 115-117; successful pattern also observed in unmanned systems adoption where operational demonstrations with deployed forces created advocacy that bureaucratic resistance could not overcome.

[^55]: GAO, "Best Practices," GAO-06-110, 49-51.

[^56]: Hypothetical application of demonstration methodology; technically feasible as Coast Guard operates NSCs under Title 14 authority but Navy could operate under Title 10 through Memorandum of Agreement similar to joint exercises and operational cooperation.

[^57]: Author's synthesis based on acquisition case study analysis; pattern observable across multiple domains where demonstration overcame institutional resistance (F-16 lightweight fighter demonstration leading to production; V-22 tiltrotor operational demonstrations overcoming fixed-wing community skepticism).

[^58]: Analysis based on FREMM availability 2018-2020, Aegis demonstration precedent, and Red Sea operational validation of frigate mission requirement.

[^59]: Assessment based on absence of demonstration pathway in FFG(X) acquisition strategy documentation and congressional testimony, combined with observed institutional barriers documented throughout this analysis.

[^60]: Author's synthesis of Constellation program trajectory and Red Sea operational requirements.

[^61]: Conclusion drawing on Aegis historical precedent, Constellation failure analysis, and demonstration methodology proven across multiple successful defense acquisition programs.

 

Executive Summary: 

Core Thesis

The Constellation-class frigate program failed not due to technical infeasibility or flawed contracting, but through institutional abandonment—a collapse of sustained senior leadership ownership when the program's foundational premise came under pressure between mid-2022 and mid-2023.

The Original Bargain

What Made FFG(X) Sound:

• Proven parent design: FREMM frigate with 30+ operational hulls, validated combat performance
• Fixed-price discipline: Contract priced on ~85% commonality with parent design
• Industrial strategy: $400M+ private Fincantieri investment to create third peer surface combatant builder
• Serial production intent: 10-20 ships to rebuild lost frigate capacity and stabilize workforce

Why Fincantieri Won (2020):

• Only mature, combat-proven frigate in competition
• Demonstrated ASW excellence, growth margins, survivability
• Credible serial production experience (not theoretical)
• Competitive pricing grounded in design maturity, not speculation

The Breakdown (Summer 2022–Summer 2023)

Critical Design Review (May 2022): Navy proceeded despite unresolved NAVSEA requirements—weight growth, shock standards, electrical loads—without re-baselining the program.

First Steel (August 2022): Construction began while design work continued, eliminating flexibility and forcing concurrency costs onto the shop floor.

Leadership transitions: Program office, NAVSEA interfaces, and oversight roles experienced turnover precisely when premise enforcement required continuity.

Accumulating Navy-directed changes: Pursuit of near-total U.S. specification conformance displaced the original adaptation strategy:

• Commonality collapsed from ~85% to ~15%
• Majority occurred during this 12-month window
• Driven by NAVSEA interpretations of "heritage" requirements, not mission shortfalls

No senior intervention: No authority above execution level reasserted the founding premise or forced re-baselining when accumulated change invalidated contract assumptions.

The Failure of Resolve

What didn't happen:

• Explicit re-baseline to ship actually being built
• Contractual reset aligning target/ceiling prices to transformed scope
• Senior ownership of Navy's role in driving divergence
• Reconstitution of parent-design discipline

What did happen:

• Momentum replaced stewardship
• Options exercised (FFG-63, FFG-64) despite declining stability
• Trust eroded through personnel transitions
• Process substituted for judgment

SecNav Review (Early 2025): Independent review presented options but declined explicit recommendation for recovery, allowing inertia to substitute for decision. Review composition carried institutional biases toward incumbents and legacy programs.

The Consequences

Industrial base damage:

• Fincantieri Marinette Marine: $400M+ investment stranded, no committed follow-on work
• Third peer builder lost before proving value
• Signal to industry: non-incumbent entry = asymmetric, irreversible risk
• Concentration reinforced in already fragile duopoly

Strategic capability gap:

• No credible frigate replacement for Oliver Hazard Perry class
• Destroyers pressed into unsuitable escort/presence missions
• Distributed Maritime Operations concept undermined

Institutional precedent:

• 2025 pattern: F/A-XX centralized away from Navy, Constellation canceled
• Difficulty treated as disqualifying, not governable
• Withdrawal normalized as prudence rather than failure of resolve

The NSC "Alternative": Repeating the Mistake

Navy's pivot: Propose FF-class frigate derived from Coast Guard National Security Cutter—the same design HII competed and lost with in FFG(X) competition.

Why NSC lost FFG(X):

• Not designed for sustained combat in contested environments
• No VLS, inadequate power/cooling for Aegis combat system
• Shock, survivability, ASW standards require fundamental redesign
• Navy explicitly judged FREMM materially superior

NSC program history warning:

• Lead ships experienced cost doubling, schedule delays, weight issues
• Without full naval combat systems or Navy survivability burden
• NSC-11 canceled mid-construction due to deficiencies after 10 ships delivered
• Shows institutional patience limits even for "mature" design

The growth trap:

• FF-level mission (escort, self-defense) = potentially feasible
• FFG-level mission (area air defense, VLS, Aegis) = margin collapse
• Navy already showing "layered defenses," advanced sensors in early concepts
• Same requirements creep that killed Constellation, without governance fixes

Reality: Substitution is politically convenient exit, not strategy-led solution. Creates permanent frigate gap without executable replacement pathway.

The Recovery Path Still Open

What's required:

1. Honest acknowledgment: Ship built ≠ ship bid, due to Navy-directed change
2. Comprehensive re-baseline: Technical, schedule, financial alignment to actual ship
3. Explicit recommitment: Stable leadership, clear authority, restored trust (not rhetoric)
4. Congressional funding: Against restored baseline, not cost-to-complete patches
5. Export reinforcement: FREMM global acceptance creates allied market potential

The C-17 precedent: Comparable 1990s crisis—cost growth, schedule slips, performance shortfalls, cancellation debates—recovered through:

• Elevated ownership with concentrated authority
• Acceptance of political risk through public re-baseline
• Continuous senior engagement, not distance
• Judging abandonment as worse failure than persistence
• Result: "Model program," Collier Trophy, decades of strategic airlift

Central Findings

The program never failed technically—it remained buildable, recoverable, and mission-capable throughout.

NAVSEA didn't fail—it enforced standards as designed, lacking explicit direction to preserve parent-design equivalency.

The contract didn't fail—FPIF structure was sound if premise held; misalignment occurred when Navy allowed accumulated change without reset.

Senior leadership failed—by not reconstituting the premise when continuity, trust, and discipline eroded during 2022-2023 transition period.

The Tragedy

Not that the program encountered difficulty—that's inherent to complex defense acquisition. The tragedy is the Navy convinced itself it could no longer make the program succeed, and governed accordingly. That belief, not engineering reality, rendered the program untenable.

The lesson: Success depends as much on sustained stewardship as engineering rigor. When the Navy chose withdrawal over uncomfortable recommitment, it didn't just lose a ship class—it established that institutional resolve yields under pressure, a precedent that will shape decades of future acquisition behavior.

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Author: Ajay Patel (SMA Inc. CEO), with RADM Miles Wachendorf USN (Ret.), J. David Patterson, Jacque Keats

Disclosure: SMA supported Fincantieri during FFG(X) competition only; no post-award involvement. Analysis based on public information and independent judgment.