I'm John Batchel with Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang, my colleague and co-host of decades. And we welcome

our colleague, Rebecca Grant, the vice president of the Lexington Institute, to help us

understand the conversation underway in the U.S. Congress at the Senate and the House level

for the sea power of the United States Navy to take on a battleship

that is called the Trump class.

It, however, has all new mechanisms, and it would be inappropriate to compare and contrast

this to the big gun club of the 20th century, which proved to not be the deciding factor in the

second war. That was air power. This is surface warfare. Rebecca, a very good day to you. What are

the advantages of the Trump-class battleship that are now being debated, that are several, three of

them perhaps, being debated in the Congress. Good day to you.

Yes, this new battleship is not like the USS Missouri that retired back in 1992 or any other

of the big gun clubs because this battleship is first and foremost a missile platform.

It'll have what the Navy calls, VLS or vertical launch

tubes containing missiles both for offensive strike and for defense. Also, what we're hearing now

is this battleship would be nuclear powered, and that would give it really extended range,

plus the ability to generate enough electrical power to use laser

weapons and other electromagnetic techniques. It is really a departure in naval architecture and

design, and this new Trump class that the U.S. is Defiant, if it goes forward, would really

be something new in naval warfare. Gordon, you have a question.

Rebecca, is Defiant and the other missile trucks that the Navy is planning to build, are they

defendable?

That's an excellent question.

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