The maritime strategy of the United States Navy has historically served as a central axis of the nation’s grand strategy for maintaining global dominance. In the late 19th century, U.S. naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan advocated a doctrine of sea control based on a powerful navy, expansive maritime trade networks, and globally positioned naval bases. His theory went beyond military superiority, positing that control over global maritime logistics was fundamental to both national security and economic prosperity. In this regard, Mahan’s ideas laid the conceptual foundation for America’s grand maritime strategy.
As the U.S. experienced the First and Second World Wars, its maritime strategy evolved through incremental adjustments. During World War I, the U.S. Navy shifted focus to the protection of maritime shipping routes in response to Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. In World War II, the Navy completely restructured around carrier strike groups, abandoning battleships as the core of naval power. This transition exposed the limitations of Mahan’s decisive battle doctrine. The U.S. Navy came to recognize that naval forces should not aim for a short-term tactical victory through a single decisive engagement but should instead contribute to long-term strategic success by securing maritime control and forward strategic outposts.
During the Cold War, the U.S. adopted a maritime strategy centered on global forward deployment, multinational exercises, and the securing of key sea lanes to counter Soviet naval expansion. In the late 1980s, this culminated in the formal articulation of The Maritime Strategy, which emphasized alliance cooperation as a means of enhancing U.S. naval presence worldwide. In the post-Cold War era, the rise of non-traditional threats and regional conflicts prompted further strategic adaptations. Documents such as From the Sea, Sea Power 21, and the 2006 A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Sea Power emphasized littoral operations, prepositioning of forces, and network-centric warfare. In 2020, Advantage at Sea was introduced, formalizing new concepts such as Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), aimed at countering China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy while deepening cooperation with allies.
Despite these strategic advancements, the U.S. now faces a stark acknowledgment of the critical deterioration in its shipbuilding industrial base. Even the Department of Defense has conceded that U.S. shipyards are no longer capable of producing more than two destroyers per year—a reality that constitutes not merely an industrial shortfall, but a national security vulnerability. Major U.S. media outlets such as CNN and CBS, as well as senior officials from the Department of the Navy, have praised South Korean and Japanese shipyards for their exceptional quality, rapid production capabilities, and competitive pricing. In fact, naval platforms designed and built in South Korea are being considered as realistic solutions to fill strategic gaps in the U.S. Navy’s force structure.
In recent years, the U.S. Navy has moved to certify South Korean shipyards to overcome limitations in its maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) capabilities. Moreover, legal foundations are being established to allow the construction of new naval vessels by allied nations. The Ensuring Naval Readiness Act, submitted to the U.S. Congress in February 2025, includes provisions enabling the construction of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels in allied shipyards. This legislative shift effectively nullifies the long-standing principle of domestic-only construction for U.S. naval vessels. Additionally, the SHIPS for America Act, introduced in December 2024, mandates that U.S.―origin cargo be transported on American or allied vessels, thereby opening opportunities for South Korean and Japanese shipbuilders to secure stable orders in the U.S. logistics sector.
While the U.S. shipbuilding industry teeters on the brink of collapse, South Korea has emerged as one of the few allied nations capable of meeting American strategic needs. South Korean shipbuilders possess highly integrated design and production capabilities, cutting-edge smart shipyard technologies, and advanced artificial intelligence-based simulation platforms. A notable example is the tri-party collaboration among Siemens, NVIDIA, and HD Hyundai, which resulted in the development of a three-dimensional design platform that integrates design, production, data storage, and engineering—an innovation that offers a decisive edge in future U.S.-ROK cooperation.
This evolving dynamic presents a unique opportunity to transform industrial cooperation into a full-fledged maritime strategic alliance. Today, maritime security is no longer confined to possessing naval firepower alone—it requires a comprehensive maritime capability that includes logistics, repair, production, and sustainment. The capabilities of South Korean shipyards can serve as vital assets in supporting the strategic flexibility and forward-deployment readiness of U.S. naval forces. As U.S.-China strategic competition intensifies, U.S.-ROK maritime cooperation is poised to evolve into a new form of security partnership. Now is the time to institutionalize and enhance naval shipbuilding collaboration between the two nations—not simply as a matter of procurement, but as a joint execution mechanism for maritime strategy and a platform for advanced technological alliance.
