Latest news with #JohnC.Phelan
UPI
19-06-2025
- General
- UPI
Navy meets 2025 recruitment goal months ahead of schedule
Midshipmen sing during the Naval Academy graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md., in May 2024. The Navy says it has already met its recruiting goal for 2025. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo June 19 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy is saying it has already met its recruiting goal for 2025 and did so earlier than expected. Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan said that he is "proud to announce that we have met our Fiscal Year 2025 recruiting goal three months ahead of schedule," in a post to X Wednesday evening. "A total of 40,600 future Sailors have stepped up to serve," he added, who will be sent to its Recruit Training Command by September. In an accompanying video, Phelan credited the efforts of naval recruiters, team innovation and "the courage of thousands of who stepped forward to serve" in regard to its having reached its enlistment target so quickly. The Navy further stated in a press release that it had also surpassed its 40,600 recruitments aim in 2024 by 378 people, and those 40,978 recruits were the most contracted since 2002. The Navy Recruiting Command's Rear Admiral Jim Waters said of the naval recruitment process in the release that "It shows that when we remove barriers, accelerate processes, and meet people where they are, the right individuals answer the call." He also noted that "Meeting the recruiting target is not the finish line," but instead a signal that "we're on the right course and ready to keep building the force of the future." The Navy has made moves in the recent past to help attract potential sailors, such as having raised its maximum enlistment age to 41 in 2022, and as of 2024 allows those without a high school diploma to join as long as they achieve a score a 50 or higher on the Armed Forces Qualification Test.
Japan Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
U.S. secretary of the navy weighs ‘dual-use' shipbuilding with Japan
To counteract China's maritime and naval industrial dominance, the U.S. secretary of the navy is considering building commercial ships with Japanese support that would also be suitable for military use in an emergency. In an interview with Nikkei Asia , Navy Secretary John C. Phelan said he was planning to discuss the idea of "dual-use" shipbuilding with Defense Minister Gen Nakatani during a meeting on Monday in Tokyo. Phelan, who arrived in Japan on Sunday, was also expected to visit Japan Marine United's Isogo Works shipyard in Yokohama later in the day before flying to South Korea, where he is slated to visit several other shipbuilders as he reportedly seeks to pitch them on investing in U.S. shipyards. The navy secretary said in the interview that the U.S. must 'look at all options" when it comes to faster shipbuilding and deterring China — including building 'dual-use' ships. In a conflict, commercial ships will be required to support combat vessels, as was widely seen in the two world wars, he said, adding, "We need to be thinking along those lines.' Considering that the U.S. Navy and the Maritime Self-Defense Force often operate jointly, Phelan suggested the two sides "try to build that into both our commercial and our military shipbuilding." "I would love to understand ways we could incent Japanese companies to come here (the United States) and look at potentially investing," Phelan said. Japan is the world's third-largest commercial shipbuilder behind China and South Korea. It remains unclear whether the proposal is separate from the work of Ship Repair Council Japan — part of a broader effort between the two navies to coordinate ship maintenance and repairs at private Japanese shipyards. Launched in January 2024, the council — which is linked to the bilateral Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment (DICAS) forum — aims to ease the maintenance backlog at U.S. shipyards, allowing them to focus on building new vessels while enhancing deterrence by keeping forward-deployed U.S. Navy ships in service and in the region for longer periods. South Korea is already stepping in to support Washington's efforts to expand U.S. shipbuilding capacity while expanding its own footprint in the United States. For instance, Hanwha Ocean acquired a major U.S. shipyard in Philadelphia for $100 million last year and, more recently, it announced the completion of its first-ever overhaul of a U.S. naval vessel. In addition, South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries and Huntington Ingalls Industries, the largest military shipbuilding company in the United States, signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this month designed to explore opportunities to 'accelerate ship production in support of defense and commercial shipbuilding projects.' Washington's idea appears to be aimed at attracting investment from allies and partners, particularly shipbuilding powerhouses Japan and South Korea, to strengthen the U.S. shipbuilding industry and start closing the gap with Beijing. China's ability to convert commercial ships for military use 'at least on the surface, appears to be pretty quick,' Phelan said, warning that without the right steps, 'it gets very, very hard to catch up.' In just a few decades China went from 4.7% of global commercial ship completions by gross tonnage in 2000 to 51.9% of open-order gross tonnage in 2023. That same year China beat Greece to become the world's largest shipowning nation by tonnage . Last year Chinese shipyards booked 74% of all new-build orders by tonnage, according to the Marine Insight magazine, making it the undisputed leader of the global shipbuilding industry. The United States is currently in sixth place. China's shipbuilding capacity and expertise have also transformed the Chinese navy from a modest coastal force into the world's largest, featuring a vast, modern fleet with global reach that is tilting the regional balance of power in Beijing's favor. This is even more concerning to Washington given that, since 2015, China has also been building certain commercial ships to the technical standards and design specifications of the People's Liberation Army, ensuring they can be used by the military in a crisis. Part of China's civil-military fusion drive, the shipbuilding regulations includes five categories of vessels: container, roll-on/roll-off, multipurpose, bulk carrier and break bulk ships. Large PLA naval or amphibious exercises now regularly include some type of civilian ship, particularly when training for a potential Taiwan invasion.
