The Pentagon’s 60-day game of chicken over aircraft carriers
When President Donald Trump issued an executive memorandum directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to draft a plan to rip the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) off the future USS Doris Miller, the administration set a strict 60-day clock to force a return to legacy steam. As that mid-October deadline looms, the mainstream is scanning the horizon for signs of a public bureaucratic mutiny. They are looking in the wrong place.
TL;DR
- President Trump directed a 60-day plan to remove EMALS from the future USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) in favor of legacy steam catapults.
- The Department of Defense is counteracting this by signing new contracts, making the reversal too costly.
- The USS Doris Miller is designed with an integrated electrical core, not the infrastructure for legacy steam catapults.
- Recent contracts include $49.3 million for EMALS energy storage and $562 million for the MQ-25A tanker, which relies on EMALS.
- Reversing the EMALS decision would incur massive breach-of-contract penalties, billions in sunk costs, and significant delays.
- The Navy's procurement actions have made compliance with the executive order logistically and financially unfeasible.