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US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has announced a “strategic shift” away from the troubled Constellation Class frigate program, cancelling the remaining four planned ships, leaving the US Navy short on much-needed general purpose frigates.
The US Navy’s Constellation Class frigate program emerged from a hard lesson: after two decades of chasing exquisite, highly specialised ships like the Littoral Combat Ship, the fleet found itself short of reliable, cost-effective, multi-mission escorts.
In response, the Navy pivoted back to a more balanced, workhorse frigate, one that could plug the growing gap between high-end destroyers and smaller patrol assets while bringing credible lethality, endurance and survivability.
Built on an evolved Italian FREMM design, the Constellation Class is intended to be a dependable blue-water escort that can operate with carrier strike groups, amphibious ready groups or independently on forward presence tasks.
The ship emphasises proven systems and a low-risk design philosophy: the Aegis-derived combat system, SPY-6(V)3 radar, 32 Mk 41 VLS cells, a towed array for undersea warfare, and a flight deck sized for the MH-60R. It is not meant to replace destroyers but to free them for higher-end missions while still carrying enough firepower to matter in contested environments.
Strategically, the program reflects a shift in US naval thinking. Faced with a rising China, overstretched destroyer numbers and mounting operational tempos, the Navy needed a ship that could be bought in quantity without sacrificing capability. The Constellation Class is designed to restore fleet depth, improve escort availability for the Pacific and Atlantic, and provide a platform that can be fielded and maintained at scale.
However, the program has fallen victim to cost and schedule overruns as a result of design changes from the base FREMM design resulting in the US Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, announcing an immediate cut to the program, heralding a “strategic shift” in the way in which the US Navy “reshapes” the fleet it fields.
Secretary Phelan said, “From day one I made it clear: I won’t spend a dollar if it doesn’t strengthen readiness or our ability to win. To keep that promise, we’re reshaping how we build and field the fleet – working with industry to deliver warfighting advantage, beginning with a strategic shift away from the Constellation Class frigate program.”
As a result, Secretary Phelan has formally cut four ships, originally planned as part of the first “flight” of ships under the US$22 billion (AU$33.8 billion) program, effectively ending the program with two ships to be built, the USS Constellation and USS Congress, with the first ship expected to be delivered in 2029.
Secretary Phelan detailed the strategic logic in this pivot, adding, the new framework as part of this “strategic shift” would “put[s] the Navy on a path to more rapidly construct new classes of ships and deliver the capability our warfighters need in greater numbers and on a more urgent timeline. This is an imperative, and I hope to have more to share very soon”.
This conveniently brings me to a piece I put together off the back of conversations I had during Indo-Pacific 2025, in which I detailed some of the scuttlebutt I heard on the floor of the expo where I was told repeatedly that the US Navy was actively pursuing a version of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s evolved Mogami Class frigates, once Australia had made some final design input.
As I said just a couple of weeks ago, “Enter the upgraded Mogami” and the potential for a trilateral partnership between Australia, Japan and the United States, where each nation operates a common platform, with a common sensor suite based on and centred around the SPY-7 radar platform, leveraging the long-range discrimination radar technologies.
“Despite the final details needing to be ironed out on the ‘upgraded Mogami’, especially around the final sensor configuration and Japan’s existing contract with Lockheed Martin to supply the SPY-7 radar system for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s Aegis System Equipped Vessel.”
With this announcement by US Navy Secretary Phelan, maybe I was on to something...
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
