Sea Services Under Pressure: Budget Battles, Industrial Gaps & Unshakable Resolve

April 3, 2025

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Retired Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, Mike Stevens, paints a clear and compelling picture of the challenges facing the sea services. Now CEO of the Navy League, Stevens remains deeply connected to the issues impacting sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen today. His message is simple but urgent: the nation owes it to its uniformed men and women to ensure they have what they need—not only to perform the mission, but to do so safely, and to return home safely.

One of the biggest hurdles, he says, is the lack of a stable and timely budget. Operating under continuing resolutions, year after year, places the Department of Defense in a difficult position. It makes planning nearly impossible and disrupts the ability to build and execute long-term strategies. Stevens emphasizes that while this is a long-standing issue, it has very real and growing consequences for mission readiness.

Closely tied to this is the fragile state of the maritime industrial base. Stevens describes this as a massive challenge. The country is struggling to build and maintain the workforce and supply chain needed to support the Navy’s and the broader sea services’ goals. He references a recent book by the Center for Maritime Strategy, Return from the Tide, that highlights the commercial maritime sector’s difficulties and how they're mirrored globally. Building to a 390-plus ship Navy and strengthening the commercial fleet are admirable goals—but they’re out of reach without solving these industrial issues first.

Budget constraints and industrial bottlenecks trickle down to those on the front lines. Stevens notes that sailors and other service members are being asked to "do more with less"—a phrase many have heard for decades. But the current reality is more intense. The demand on crews continues to rise, and the ability to pull back or scale down simply doesn’t exist in the face of global threats. The people absorbing the brunt of this strain are those deployed at sea, doing the job with limited resources.

Stevens is deeply concerned about the long-term toll on service members. While today’s crews continue to perform heroically—intercepting drones, avoiding missile strikes, and adapting rapidly to new technology and tactics—the stress of a sustained high-alert environment isn’t always visible right away. The effects, he warns, may surface years down the line. The transition from combat operations to "normal life" can be jarring, especially after multiple intense deployments. That stress doesn’t simply vanish; it often accumulates over time.

Stevens closes with a powerful reminder: this is not a question of capability or will. Sailors and Marines will always find a way to get the mission done. But the question is—should they have to continue doing it with inadequate support? He hopes policymakers can come together to pass a sound, timely defense budget. "We owe it to them," he says. And in that statement lies the heart of the matter.

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