re: Trump has approved two new battleships to be built

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So for clarity, the U.S. military should all new tech through you before implementing anything?

My assumption is that we would not allocate that type of funding for WW2 era battleships.

My assumption is that the U.S. military would like to be on the cutting edge of advanced technology.

My assumption is that one battleship in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific would be priceless in a geo-political sense IF it has next gen capabilities.

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The question is whether concentrating enormous cost, people, and symbolism into a massive surface hull makes sense in a threat environment dominated by missiles, subs, sensors, and drones. Those constraints don’t disappear just because technology advances. In many cases, they get worse.

Why should the default assumption be that the tech must exist, rather than that it needs to be demonstrated before committing tens of billions of dollars and thousands of lives to it?

At what point does “IF it has next-gen capabilities” become something concrete enough to justify funding, instead of something you're asking me to imagine into existence?

Because if the government is asking the public to pay for an 11-figure program per ship, isn’t the burden on them to justify the cost, rather than on the public to invent reasons for them why it might be a good idea?

I’m not arguing the military shouldn’t pursue advanced technology. I’m arguing that concentrating enormous cost, personnel, and symbolism into a massive surface platform requires justification that goes beyond “trust us, bro, it’s gonna be super cutting edge.”

If there are defined capabilities that overturn the known vulnerabilities of large hulls, what are they? And if they can’t be articulated publicly at even a conceptual level, why should “priceless if next-gen maybe” be enough to proceed?

Asking those questions isn’t skepticism. It’s basic due diligence.