Ukraine Sees the Future of Naval Warfare. Trump Doesn’t.

Last week, Donald Trump announced a new class of U.S. Navy battleships , which will be named after him. The Navy said that the new warship type “will be the most lethal surface combatant ever constructed.” The president portrayed the move as a boost for American shipbuilding and vowed to be personally involved in the ships’ development. “The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these ships along with me,” he said, “because I’m a really aesthetic person.” Yet the “Trump class” battleship program seems optimized more to produce a scary-looking vessel than to address the rapidly changing threats to American military power on the open seas. Late last month, Ukraine’s military signaled a major shift in how wars between nations will be waged in the coming years. Using the country’s homegrown Sea Baby naval drones, Ukrainian forces badly damaged two oil tankers off the coast of Turkey, in the Black Sea. Shortly thereafter, another oil tanker was attacked , reportedly also by the Ukrainians, in waters thousands of miles away, in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Senegal. A similar attack on a tanker occurred earlier this month in the Mediterranean Sea. All of these vessels are believed to be part of the so-called shadow fleet of tankers that, despite multinational sanctions against Russia, have been sailing the world’s oceans and delivering large quantities of Russian oil. Disrupting the invader’s oil industry, thereby starving the Kremlin of revenue, has become essential to Ukraine’s survival, and the use of cheap weaponry to disable faraway oil tankers is a crucial part of the country’s military strategy. The conflict that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has revealed the erosion of many post–World War II norms, including on the high seas. After many decades of relative peace on the world’s oceans, one can easily forget that civilian ships were once a routine target of military operations during wartime. But long-range anti-ship technology has become so effective—and so cheap relative to other ways of attacking an enemy—that the risk to merchant vessels will rise sharply. Even countries such as Ukraine, which has limited means and minimal naval experience, can thwart their enemies’ maritime interests in ways that have been almost unthinkable for 80 years. Read: Ukraine’s most lethal soldiers Deliberate attacks on civilian shipping were widespread in the first half of the 20th century. Both world wars included major campaigns to destroy commercial shipping, resulting in the sinking of many millions of tons of merchant vessels. During both conflicts, German U-boats attacked vessels in waters all around the world, with the goal of starving the United Kingdom of supplies and forcing it to sue for peace. Over time, naval practices adapted to the submarine threat. By using convoys—large groups of merchant vessels protected by British, American, and Canadian escort vessels—the Allies were able to better protect their shipping. An intense technology race occurred between submarines and their pursuers. The development of sonar, radar, long-range aircraft, and self-guided weapons helped...

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