The Trump-class battleship risks becoming more of a prestige project than a practical answer to the US Navy’s longstanding challenges in fleet modernization, emerging technologies and power projection. The key question, then, is whether the Trump-class battleship’s concentration of firepower, survivability and operational independence can justify its extraordinary cost, industrial burden and vulnerability in an era of distributed, networked and increasingly asymmetric naval warfare. However, Dan Grazier mentions in a Responsible Statecraft report this month that the Trump-class battleship faces acute operational vulnerability in modern naval warfare, rendering the massive warship an inviting, high-value target. Operational viability is only part of the problem; there is also the question of how the Trump-class battleships would be built. Giltner highlights that despite the vessel’s slim likelihood of being built, defense companies will profit significantly from research and development funds before cancellation, delivering little strategic deterrence while enriching defense giants.