https://crsreports.congress.gov
Updated November 15, 2022
Defense Primer: Naval Forces
“Naval Forces” Refers to Both the Navy
and Marine Corps
Although the term naval forces is often used to refer
specifically to Navy forces, it more properly refers to both
Navy and Marine Corps forces, because both the Navy and
Marine Corps are naval services. For further discussion, see
CRS In Focus IF10484, Defense Primer: Department of the
Navy, by Ronald O'Rourke. For a discussion of the Marine
Corps that focuses on its organization as a ground-combat
force, see CRS In Focus IF10571, Defense Primer:
Organization of U.S. Ground Forces, by Barbara Salazar
Torreon and Andrew Feickert.
U.S. Strategy and Naval Forces
U.S. naval forces give the United States the ability to
convert the world’s oceans—a global commons that covers
more than two-thirds of the planet’s surface—into a
medium of maneuver and operations for projecting U.S.
power ashore and otherwise defending U.S. interests around
the world. The ability to use the world’s oceans in this
manner—and to deny other countries the use of the world’s
oceans for taking actions against U.S. interests—constitutes
an immense asymmetric advantage for the United States.
As discussed elsewhere (see CRS In Focus IF10485,
Defense Primer: Geography, Strategy, and U.S. Force
Design, by Ronald O'Rourke), the size and composition of
U.S. naval forces reflect the position of the United States as
a Western Hemisphere power with a goal of preventing the
emergence of regional hegemons (and otherwise defending
and promoting U.S. interests) in Eurasia. As a result, the
U.S. Navy includes significant numbers of aircraft carriers,
nuclear-powered attack submarines, large surface
combatants, large amphibious ships, and underway
replenishment ships.
Navy Ship Types
The Navy’s ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) are
dedicated to performing a singular mission of strategic
nuclear deterrence. The Navy’s other ships, which are
sometimes referred to as the Navy’s general-purpose ships,
are generally multimission ships capable of performing a
variety of missions other than strategic nuclear deterrence.
The principal types of general-purpose ships in the Navy
include attack submarines (SSNs); aircraft carriers
(CVNs); large surface combatants, meaning cruisers
(CGs) and destroyers (DDGs); small surface combatants,
meaning frigates (FFGs), Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs),
mine warfare (MIW) ships, and patrol craft (PCs);
amphibious ships, whose primary function is to transport
Marines and their equipment and supplies to distant
operating areas and support Marine ship-to-shore
movements and Marine operations ashore; combat logistics
force (CLF) ships, which perform underway replenishment
(UNREP) operations, meaning the at-sea resupply of
combat ships; and other support ships of various types.
The Navy’s aircraft carriers embark multimission carrier air
wings (CVWs) consisting of 60+ aircraft—mostly fixed-
wing aircraft, plus a few helicopters. Each CVW typically
includes 40 or more strike fighters that are capable of air-to-
ground (strike) and air-to-air (fighter) combat operations.
Size of the Navy
The total number of ships in the Navy is a one-dimensional
metric that leaves out many other important factors bearing
on the Navy’s size and capabilities. Even so, observers
often cite the total number of ships in the U.S. Navy as a
convenient way of summarizing the Navy’s size and
capabilities.
The quoted number of ships in the Navy reflects the battle
force ships counting method, which is a set of rules for
which ships count (or do not count) toward the quoted
number of ships in the Navy. The battle force ships
counting method was established in the early 1980s and has
been modified by subsequent legislation. Essentially, it
includes ships that are readily deployable overseas, and
which contribute to the Navy’s overseas combat capability.
The Naval History and Heritage Command maintains a
database on numbers of ships in the Navy from 1886 to the
present. (It is available here: https://www.history.navy.mil/
research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html.)
Since this database extends back to 1886, it uses a different
counting method that is more suitable for working with
older historical data. This alternate counting method,
however, produces, for the 1980s onwards, figures for the
total size of the Navy that are different than the figures
produced by the battle force ships counting method. For this
reason, using figures from the NHHC database to quote the
current size of the Navy can cause confusion.
Navy Force-Level Goal
The Navy determines its force-level goal—the size and
composition of the fleet it would like to reach and maintain
in coming years—through a Force Structure Analysis
(FSA). FSAs are conducted every few years. For each type
of ship, the FSA calculates the number required for
warfighting, and the number required for maintaining day-
to-day forward-deployed presence overseas.
In December 2016, the Navy released a force-structure goal
that calls for achieving and maintaining a fleet of 355 ships
of certain types and numbers. The 355-ship goal was made
U.S. policy by Section 1025 of the FY2018 National
Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 2810/P.L. 115-91 of
December 12, 2017). The 355-ship goal predates the Trump
and Biden Administrations’ national security and national
defense strategies and does not reflect the new fleet
