“During its 11-month deployment [mostly in the Middle East] which ended in May, and was the longest for a[n aircraft] carrier since the Vietnam War, the USS Gerald R. Ford conducted more than 11,000 aircraft carrier launches using electromagnetic catapults, more than carriers with steam [aircraft launching] systems could achieve…But perhaps the biggest benefit of the electromagnetic catapults are their lower cost and lighter personnel requirements. With the Navy running out of operating funds, and retention likely to plummet in the aftermath of the war with Iran, the fleet needs to make the most of every dollar and sailor.”

Writing that opinion piece in The Washington Post last Wednesday was Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer who at one time served as Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations and Director of his Commander’s Action Group. Currently, Clark is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute.

I am using Clark’s article because it provides information that challenges a recent military step contained in an August 13, President Trump Presidential Memorandum which ordered “the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall provide to the President… a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of [aircraft carrier] CVN-81[USS Doris Miller], including timelines and resourcing requirements.”

Electromagnetic catapult systems accelerate aircraft more smoothly and gradually, thus putting less stress on airframes. They also recharge faster than steam catapults which need to pressurize gases and they eliminate the need for boilers and other plumbing equipment needed to create steam.

Trump, who never served in the military, has been obsessed for years with the way that steam propels fighter jets off the decks of carriers and where a carrier’s tower structure or “island” is located.

I will point out, according to former Defense Department officials the Navy designers moved the island from the middle of the carriers to the back of the vessel to make more space for moving jet fighter aircraft around on the flight deck, in order to increase the number of flights or “sorties” that the carrier could generate.

These Trump aircraft carrier views apparently first came to him less than two months after he took office based on a March 2, 2017, tour he had on the then-under-construction USS Gerald Ford being built at the Newport News shipyard in Virginia.

Two months later, in a May 8, 2017 wide-ranging, 100-minute interview over dinner with Time Magazine editors and reporters, Trump at one point apparently brought up his visit to the Gerald Ford at Newport News where he was shown the catapult system for launching aircraft from the deck.

According to TIME, the conversation went, “Sir, this is our digital catapult system…we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I [Trump] said, ‘You don’t use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I [Trump] said, Ah, how is it working? Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air.’”

The TIME transcript then has Trump saying, “It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I [Trump] said -- and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I [Trump] said what system are you going to buy -- Sir, we’re staying with digital. I [Trump] said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”

I should note, at the time Trump visited and for months thereafter, there were issues with ghe new electromagnetic catapults, but fixes were made, although not in Trump’s mind.

Before I continue with Trump, let’s turn back to Heritage’s Bryan Clark, a real Navy expert, who wrote, “The biggest benefit of the electromagnetic catapults are their lower cost and lighter personnel requirements.”

Clark also noted, “The Ford’s crew is about 500 sailors smaller than its predecessors, largely because it is an all-electric ship outside of the engine room. Because they needed steam for catapults, older carriers also used steam for a variety of other functions throughout the ship — such as cooking equipment and water purification…And the steam catapults have so many moving parts and failure modes that they require about 10 more sailors per catapult — there are four catapults on a modern carrier — than electromagnetic systems.”

A Navy February press release said preliminary reports from the Sortie Generation Rate test program for aircraft show that the flight deck design in conjunction with electromagnetic systems and arresting gear “have contributed to an increased sortie generation rate compared to that of a Nimitz-class carrier.”

However, Trump over the years has kept calling for a return to steam catapults and retelling the story of his 2017 visit to the Gerald Ford.

For example, at a November 2, 2023 campaign rally in Houston, Texas, Trump was talking about shipbuilding and veered off to tell about a ship that was “in trouble” because “it was $10 billion over budget, and I wanted to go and see this ship that was costing so much money.”

At that Houston rally, Trump went on, “And I landed with a helicopter on top of this massive, incredible ship [USS Gerald Ford] being made in Newport News. And I said to the people…I want to meet the catapult people, the people that have done the catapulting.”

Trump continued, “I want to find out what the hell happened because the catapults weren't working. So for 50 years, we used steam more. And that beautiful scene, that steam goes off, and that plane gets thrown the hell off, the power, beautiful, and it's cheap.”

Trump said he asked a catapulter “Which is better, steam or electric? ‘Steam, sir.’ I [Trump] said why did they design electric? ‘Because it can keep going like this all day long, but it takes us 59 seconds to reload a plane. And when we reload the plane, the steam builds up, and it's all set, sir. It's perfect. It works so well. And we can fix it with a blowtorch if something happens. And if a wave hits it, it actually cools us down, sir. We love the waves hitting us. If a wave hits the electric [catapult], we're out of business, sir. We might -- we'll die with this thing.’"

Last July 15, at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., Trump again was talking about shipbuilding and switched saying, “I went to the ship [USS Gerald Ford], because I came into office and the ship was way over budget, built in Newport News, unfortunately, was way over budget.”

Trump went on, “I said, I want to meet the ‘catapultier’ and a man came over, along with four of his assistants. And I said, what's better, electric catapult or steam? He's been there for 25 years. He said, ‘Steam is better, sir. We can fix it with a hammer and a blowtorch. When the electric [catapult] goes bad, I have to send to MIT to get geniuses over here’…But I [Trump] said, so you're saying we spend billions of dollars extra to build electric catapults instead of using steam.”

Bryan Clark concluded his Post article saying, “Steam power was cutting-edge technology in the 19th century. It is the wrong choice for a Pentagon that is leaning into artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. The Navy should stay the course with electromagnetic catapults to keep the carrier fleet strong and deliver more firepower. It could use the savings to help refill the fleet’s weapons magazines.”

Clark told CNN the cost of changing catapults on the USS Doris Miller, already under construction, “will probably be into the billions” and it could delay the carrier — which was expected to be in service around 2034 — “until the end of the next decade.”

Clark also Clark said, “Nobody builds them anymore. There’s no steam catapult manufacturers in the…U.S. anymore so they’d have to restart that production line, which would cost tens of millions of dollars to get going and that’ll be, it’ll take years to start that up again and build the first catapult.”

To add insult to injury, various recent news reports have said Navy senior staffers are reviewing the name USS Doris Miller for CV-81.

Named on January 20, 2020 -- during the Trump first administration -- by then-Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly during a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day ceremony, it honored African-American Mess Attendant Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller, who received the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, where he manned an anti-aircraft machine gun without prior training and aided wounded crewmates.

In giving the new aircraft carrier Miller’s name, acting-Navy Secretary Modly said, “In selecting this name, we honor the contributions of all our enlisted ranks, past and present, men and women, of every race, religion and background.”

One name said to be under study to replace Miller’s is that of President Trump.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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In our previous article, we argued that overwhelming military superiority no longer guarantees strategic success.

Today, military and political outcomes have become increasingly disconnected.

As Carl von Clausewitz observed, war is fought to achieve political objectives, with military force only one instrument among many in statecraft.

Modern professional militaries are exceptionally proficient at identifying and destroying adversary military capabilities. Yet, they remain far less able to reshape the political, ideological, and social foundations that sustain an adversary's resilience.

The challenge confronting modern democracies is therefore not simply winning wars, but achieving what might be termed strategic translation—the successful conversion of military success into enduring political outcomes.

This predicament of strategic translation has intensified in recent years.

Operations involving Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza have once again raised questions about whether military success alone can produce durable political outcomes, echoing debates that followed the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Strategic rivals such as Russia and China have closely monitored these outcomes, adjusting their own strategies to exploit the gap between military supremacy and political consolidation discussed in this article.

The inability to translate military victory into a long-term political settlement has evolved from a tactical issue to a defining test of democratic strategic competency as information flows quicken and domestic audiences examine protracted wars in real time.

Democratic Institutions: Competing Cultures

The principal obstacle facing democratic societies is not a lack of military capability but the complexity of democratic governance itself.

Political authority is intentionally dispersed among elected governments, legislatures and independent public institutions, each possessing different responsibilities and professional cultures. While this diffusion safeguards liberty and accountability, it complicates the integration of national strategy.

Military power achieves its greatest strategic effect only when synchronised with diplomacy, intelligence, economic statecraft and political engagement.

Yet democratic institutions frequently develop these capabilities in parallel rather than as a unified enterprise. Foreign affairs, defence, treasury and justice each define success differently, compete for resources and optimise their own organisational objectives.

Ironically, modern armed forces have become increasingly network-centric, integrating intelligence, logistics, cyber, space and operational planning within a single command framework. Governments, however, largely remain vertically organised.

Democracies have therefore become highly proficient at conducting limited tactical military campaigns while remaining less effective at integrating the broader instruments of national power necessary to convert battlefield success into enduring strategic advantage.

Selling Grand Strategy to Democratic Societies

Developing grand strategy is only half the challenge.

Democratic governments must also sustain public support over time. Unlike authoritarian systems, they must continually justify long-term strategic investment to electorates whose immediate concerns are economic security, healthcare, education and the cost of living.

Electoral competition naturally encourages governments to emphasise visible achievements—military operations, defence acquisitions, and capability announcements—rather than articulating the long-term political objectives these activities are meant to achieve.

Public debate therefore becomes centred on operations rather than strategy.

Without a compelling strategic narrative, public confidence gradually becomes tied to individual events rather than broader national objectives.

Procurement controversies, budget debates, and political disagreements increasingly dominate public discourse, making defence appear as a collection of expensive projects rather than as one component of an integrated national strategy.

Grand strategy that cannot be communicated to democratic societies cannot be sustained by democratic societies.

Democratic Time versus Strategic Time

Winning in combat requires strategic focus, but democratic politics inherently operates on short attention spans as highlighted by researchers in RAND Corporation. Electoral cycles, typically lasting two to five years, create strong incentives for governments to prioritise immediate, visible achievements over the sustained political, diplomatic, and institutional investments required to build long-term national power, as the UK Parliament's House of Commons Public Administration Committee has provided detailed structural barrier on this.

In coalition governments, differing party priorities and narrow parliamentary majorities can further complicate strategic continuity, encouraging short-term political compromise over long-term policy consistency.

The twenty-four-hour news cycle and social media amplify these pressures by encouraging governments to respond rapidly to headlines and shifts in public opinion, often elevating short-term tactical developments over long-term strategic objectives.

A single controversy, whether involving procurement, diplomacy or battlefield casualties, can dominate public debate and increase pressure for policy adjustments that disrupt strategic continuity.

This tension between political urgency and strategic reality was perhaps most evident in Afghanistan.

Throughout that conflict, successive US administrations increasingly balanced military objectives against domestic political pressures, with troop deployments and withdrawal decisions becoming closely linked to electoral cycles and public opinion.

President Obama's 2009 troop surge, while designed to reverse Taliban momentum, was accompanied by a July 2011 timetable for the start of withdrawal, signalling that the United States' commitment was not open-ended.

More than a decade later, the 2020 Doha Agreement established a fixed timeline for withdrawal despite persistent concerns over the readiness of Afghan security forces and the absence of a comprehensive political settlement.

In both cases, strategic decisions became increasingly shaped by political timelines, illustrating how democratic governments can struggle to align long-term national objectives with short-term domestic pressures.

Among NATO allies, these pressures were further compounded by divergent domestic political calendars and national priorities. France, for example, withdrew its combat forces in 2012 following President Hollande's election pledge, while Canada and several allies imposed national caveats that restricted how and where their troops could operate. NATO summits in Riga (2006) and Lisbon (2010) exposed persistent disagreements over troop contributions, burden-sharing and operational commitments, reflecting domestic political constraints as much as collective strategic planning.

As political priorities shifted across allied capitals, long-term strategic coherence became increasingly difficult to sustain.

Without stronger institutional continuity and bipartisan commitment, democratic grand strategy risks becoming reactive, fragmented and ultimately unable to translate military success into enduring political outcomes.

Winning the Peace Requires Political Campaign Design

If democracies are to prevail in limited wars, they must plan for peace before the first military operation begins.

Military campaigns should never exist independently of political campaigns. Governance, justice, policing, economic recovery, institution-building, and strategic communications must be integrated from the outset, rather than improvised after battlefield success.

Repeated strategic frustration also carries risks for democracy itself.

Failure to improve strategic integration may encourage growing calls for more centralised executive authority, expanded emergency powers and greater restrictions on civil liberties in the name of national security.

Democracies should resist this temptation.

Instead, democracies should strengthen institutions capable of ensuring long-term strategic continuity while remaining firmly accountable to constitutional government.

One possibility would be an independent National Strategy Commission, bringing together diplomatic, military, economic and informational expertise to preserve institutional memory and support integrated strategic planning across successive governments.

Conclusion

Democracies do not need to lose their democratic character in order to become more strategically effective.

Authoritarian systems maintain continuity through control, whereas democracies must maintain it through design.

Instead, the task is to create long-lasting institutions, such as an independent National Strategy Commission, that can sustain strategic memory across changing governments without consolidating authority or undermining accountability.

This requires achieving cross-party consensus on essential national goals and integrating diplomatic, military, economic, and informational tools from the outset, rather than improvising after victory.

Failure results in continued frustration and increasing demands for concentrated power.

In a period of limited conflict, success will be defined not just by battlefield successes, but also by long-term political effects.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

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North Korea is strategically closer to Russia and China than any time since the Korean War, while the U.S. does nothing to challenge the growing power of the Axis of Authoritarians (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea). The irony is that North Korea has, since 1994, wanted a normal relationship with the U.S., yet the U.S. appears incapable of addressing the North Korean nuclear threat.

On July 19, 2026, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and declared that North Korea “stands by Moscow until victory in the war with Ukraine is achieved. Ties with Russia are a strategic priority for Pyongyang.” I’ve worked with Ms. Choe, a fluent English speaker, from 2003 to 2016, and know she –and others – would prefer dialoguing with the U.S.

And from July 10 to 12, 2026, North Korean Premier Pak Thae Song was in Beijing meeting with Wang Huning, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the fourth highest member of the Politburo Bureau Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, for the 65^th anniversary of China’s defense treaty with North Korea – The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Defense.

The visit of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Beijing in September 2025 to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and participate in the Victory Day parade with Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin, followed by the June 2026, visit of Mr. Xi to North Korea for a state visit are clear indicators that North Korea is working hard to improve relations with China, while maintaining a close military relationship with Russia.

Russia reportedly is asking for another 30,000 troops and ballistic missile launchers from North Korea. The additional North Korean troops would reinforce frontline operations, doubling previous deployment estimates. This, while North Korea prepares to transfer new ballistic missile launches to Russia. The deepening military cooperation with Russia, pursuant to the 2024 mutual defense pact between Russia and North Korea, is not only a growing threat to Ukraine but, also, to the nations in Asia within range of North Korean missiles.

I have written often in this column about Norea’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons – over 100 by 2030 – and the sophistication of their ballistic missiles, especially the long-range missiles – Hwasong 15, 17,18,19 and 20 – all capable of targeting the U.S. and their progress with short-range missiles that can target South Korea and Japan. Recently, we talked about progress with nuclear-powered submarines, but we didn’t discuss the progress North Korea is making with establishing a nuclear triad – land, sea and air-based nuclear weapons. And with Russia’s assistance, this is achievable in the not-too-distant future.

What are we doing to address this real and expanding threat? We’re watching the Axis of Authoritarian States become more united and seemingly forgetting that since 1994 North Korea wanted a normal relationship with the U.S. (The Agreed Framework); in September 2005 with the Six Party Talks Joint Statement and the historic June 2018 Singapore Summit of President Donald Trump with Chairman Kim Jong Un. Since then, and after the failed February 2019 failed Hanoi Summit and the June 2019 symbolic DMZ meeting, there were no further substantive developments with North Korea.

Since 2020, our failed policy of “strategic Patience” kicked in and we’ve seen North Korea exponentially increase its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, while embracing Russia with a Mutual Defense Treaty and military assistance to Russia for its invasion of and war with Ukraine.

It’s time for the U.S., with support from its allies in South Korea and Japan, to decide if we want a normal relationship with North Korea; a relationship that will weaken the Axis of Authoritarian States, or if we want to persist with a “do-nothing” policy toward North Korea.

And if we want to do something, that means de facto recognition of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state – a reality we can’t deny – and entering into negotiators with Pyongyang to get North Korea to stop building more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, economic development assistance and a path to normal bilateral relations.

It’s time to address the North Korean nuclear threat.

The author is the former Special Envoy for Six Party Talks negotiations with North Korea (2003-2006) and the former Associate Director of National Intelligence. All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. government.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief