S8 Ep336: HEADLINE: Moneyball for the Navy: Balancing the Fleet GUEST AUTHOR: Jerry Hendrix SUMMARY: Applying a "Moneyball" baseball analogy, Hendrix argues the current U.S. Navy is "top-heavy," relying on expensive "home run" carriers while lacking "base hitters"—
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
SUMMARY: Applying a "Moneyball" baseball analogy, Hendrix argues the current U.S. Navy is "top-heavy," relying on expensive "home run" carriers while lacking "base hitters"—smaller ships for daily presence. He notes the fleet has under 300 ships but needs constant forward deployment to maintain peace. To fix this, he advocates for a high-low mix: acquiring the new Constellation-class frigate to serve as a versatile "pickup truck" and refurbishing older Arleigh Burke destroyers. This approach aims to rapidly expand capacity to counter the immediate Chinese threat without waiting decades for new technology.
1900 DEPLOYED TO THE BOXER REBELLION
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| 0:34.4 | with Indeed. do it the right way with indeed i'm john bachelor this is the new john bachelor |
| 0:47.8 | show represented by cbs news radio it's a pleasure to continue a conversation with my colleague |
| 0:53.4 | jerry hendricks the author my colleague Jerry Hendricks, the author |
| 0:55.1 | Jerry Hendricks, to provide and maintain a Navy, why Naval Promise is America's |
| 1:00.7 | first best strategy, asking the question, what Navy do we need? Or as Jerry puts it very |
| 1:07.2 | plainly, what is the correct mix? Jerry, how would you characterize the mix of the U.S. |
| 1:13.4 | Navy today at under 300 ships? What is its mission and can it adequately supply what is |
| 1:19.9 | needed in this changing world? Thank you, John. And great questions, once again. So the Navy has two essential roles that it has to do on a day-to-day basis. And in one of those missions or roles, is unique to the U.S. Navy, which is the requirement to provide persistent naval presence around the world. No other force, the Air Force, the Army has a requirement to be |
| 1:47.5 | persistently forward-deployed in order to uphold American interests. And this approach isn't |
| 1:54.4 | unique to the United States in history. The British did this. The Romans did this, where they would |
| 1:58.9 | use their navies to uphold their interests. |
| 2:01.5 | But for right now, the United States is sort of the ruling top on the beat in the world |
| 2:06.7 | on the idea of upholding rules and norms. And so we need a fairly substantial Navy in order to |
| 2:13.8 | be persistently out there. In fact, we need about 150 ships to be at sea on any given |
| 2:20.1 | day in order to satisfy all of the presence requests and requirements that have been identified |
| 2:25.8 | by our regional combatant commanders. And by that I mean things like the Supreme I allied commander in |
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