The Navy needs a leader. Now. It needs someone committed to fixing the unglamorous, boring issues preventing the service from accomplishing its core objectives. It needs someone with smart approaches and a firm grasp on how the Navy can rapidly adopt game-changing technology. Most importantly, it needs someone deeply invested in the Navy’s long-term health.
That’s why President Donald Trump needs to hurry up and nominate acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao for the permanent job. That a Democrat like me, who served Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro under former President Joe Biden, is saying as much should tell Trump all he needs to know about the sheer scale and urgency of the problems facing the Navy. It should also tell him that, despite Democratic misgivings, Cao is the sort of serious leader the Navy needs.
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Make no mistake, our Navy is treading water, and the sharks are circling. Virtually every shipbuilding project in the last quarter century has been over budget and behind schedule. Our ship maintenance backlog stretches over 20 years. Our defense industrial base is “crumbling,” and the Navy’s process for onboarding new technology, with some hopeful exceptions, is glacial. Our pacing threat, China, on the other hand, now boasts more warships than us and a defense industrial base that dwarfs ours. We are rapidly losing our ability to deter or, if necessary, defeat China at sea.
That dynamic invites a war.
Trump’s public criticisms of the Navy, then, have merit, particularly when he said “we really gave up the shipbuilding industry foolishly, many years ago.” It is precisely because the Navy has such a shipbuilding problem, however, that Trump should immediately nominate Cao.
Entrenched interests in the current system, from defense contractors who make more money when ships sit on the dock to uniformed and civilian personnel who do not want to undergo a major overhaul or be reassigned, can wait out any acting secretary. Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, acting secretaries can only serve 210 days, all but guaranteeing bureaucrats will slowwalk reforms until day 211.
Neither Cao nor any other acting secretary can make any progress on the president’s biggest Navy priority until he’s officially nominated.
That alone is reason enough to nominate Cao immediately, but there are others. Cao comes with serious solutions to serious problems. He knows, for instance, that we cannot continue to pour our resources into expensive ships that take ages to build; we need “good enough” options. He devoted his first speech as acting secretary to how we can better tailor our ship procurement to build what the Navy needs. Noting that we “can’t use a destroyer for everything,” Cao made the case for a high-low mix of ships. That sentiment reflects the recommendations of respected national security think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security.
Cao, contrary to his public persona, is willing to focus on dull yet vital reforms the Navy needs, such as acquisition policy and back-office modernization. He wants “new entrants” in defense contracting, which is only possible by expediting the contracting process. His existing duties and public statements hint at a man eager to tackle the ancient IT systems that hold back the Navy’s ability to measure, report upon, and improve its programs. Such failures at least partially explain the billions of dollars the Navy wastes every year. Old licenses for obsolete software are similarly expensive, and conflicting programs impede the Navy’s ability to onboard newer, better technology. Untying this Gordian Knot is difficult and dull. It’s also essential.
Cao’s son provides the biggest reason to nominate him. His son is a newly commissioned Marine Corps second lieutenant, and Cao made it his mission to ensure his son won’t go into battle “under-equipped,” as Cao had to during the Global War on Terror. Accordingly, there is no short-termism in Cao’s thinking. He isn’t looking for quick wins. He wants lasting change that will protect his son through decades of service.
Cao is not a perfect option. The Daily Show lampooned him for making bizarre or offensive comments. His focus on “alpha” sailors who “rip out their own guts, eat ‘em, and ask for seconds” is absurd machismo. I suspect that the things Trump likes about him (namely, his culture war grandstanding) are the things that give me misgivings.
HUNG CAO VOWS TO ACCELERATE SHIPBUILDING IN FIRST COMMENTS AS ACTING NAVY SECRETARY
Yet even if he’s not an ideal choice, he’s dedicated and knowledgeable. The Navy’s problems are so urgent that they need immediate attention — its problems are so entrenched that they need a secretary armed with political capital.
As Trump’s hero, Gen. George S. Patton said, “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than the perfect plan next week.” Cao is that good plan. Trump should heed his hero’s advice and nominate him now.
Neal Urwitz served as a speechwriter for and advisor to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro from 2021 to 2023. He is now CEO of Enduring Cause Strategies.
