The US Navy retired its frigates to concentrate on a revolutionary new vessel that it envisioned in their role: the littoral combat ship. This was a mistake.

“Frigates”—generally described as escort vessels with intermediate size, larger than corvettes but smaller than destroyers—are versatile mid-sized surface combatants. The warships’ flexibility has led to their widespread adoption, and most modern navies operate them. Yet the United States, which has the most powerful navy in the world, does not have a single frigate in its fleet.

The US retired its final remaining frigates in 2015 and has yet to commission a replacement. This leaves a notable gap between the US Navy’s small patrol vessels and its large Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, amphibious assault ships, and Nimitz– and Ford-class supercarriers. That gap was intentional at the time, but the Navy is now having second thoughts; it is spending billions to reverse that decision and field something capable of bridging the middle ground.

Why America Gave Up on Frigates

For much of the Cold War and the early 21st century, the US Navy relied on the Oliver Hazard Perry class of frigates, which entered service in the late 1970s. Built as an affordable, multi-mission escort, the Perry class fulfilled a range of roles for the Navy: convoy escort, anti-submarine warfare (ASW), maritime security, counter-piracy, and protecting logistics ships. This allowed expensive destroyers and cruisers with more pressing mission sets to focus on high-end combat. More than 50 Perry-class vessels were built, making them one of the Navy’s most successful Cold War surface combatants.

After the Cold War, the Soviet naval threat abruptly vanished, and America’s defense budgets tightened considerably. Faced with a friendly geopolitical environment in the 1990s, the Navy concluded that a large blue-water escort fleet was simply no longer a necessity. Missile launchers were removed from the remaining Perry-class ships, significantly reducing their combat capability, before the final frigate was retired in 2015. This strategy assumed a new generation of ships would replace them.

At the time, that strategy was centered on the littoral combat ship (LCS), a fast, modular, and (at least in theory) inexpensive vessel optimized for coastal operations. The LCS’ mission packages were intended to allow for rapid conversion between mine warfare, ASW, and surface warfare. Reality proved more complicated; the LCS had mechanical reliability problems from the outset, and the mission modules took far longer to swap than expected. Limited armament reduced survivability in high-intensity combat. The entire program is regarded today as a massive flop, costing the Navy tens of billions of dollars and delivering almost nothing in the way of combat capability.

A perhaps more pressing problem than the failure of the LCSes themselves has been the capability gap they failed to fill. Without larger numbers of escort vessels—the role the Perry-class frigates once held—the Navy’s Arleigh Burke destroyers are increasingly tasked with performing lower-end missions. It is a waste of resources to have multibillion-dollar destroyers routinely conducting maritime security, escort operations, and anti-piracy patrols that do not require the Arleigh Burke’s capabilities and are better suited to smaller, cheaper, and weaker vessels. Sending valuable destroyers on low-end missions also consumes the hull life and maintenance capacity on some of the Navy’s most capable warships. 

The Navy Canceled the Constellation-Class Frigate—Now What?

The Navy had acknowledged the capability gap, and was working to address it through the creation of a new mid-sized vessel: the Constellation-class frigate (FFG-62), the first new frigate since the retirement of the final Perry-class frigates. Based on the proven European FREMM frigate design, the Constellation was expected to be equipped with the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System, Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR), a modern ASW suite, and long-range air-defense and strike capabilities.

However, in a stunning turnaround, the Constellation program was itself canceled in November 2025, with only two ships scheduled for future completion. Construction delays had slowed the program, while shipyard workforce shortages and repeated late-stage design modifications drew out schedules. The Navy’s new tentative plan is to rely on the upcoming FF(X) frigate, based on the US Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter; it plans to order around 50 of the vessels, with first deliveries scheduled for 2028.

Until that happens, the US Navy will be forced to operate without a frigate force—an anomaly amongst modern, high-end navies. The Arleigh Burke destroyers will need to continue bridging the gap—an unfortunate state of affairs, particularly as renewed competition with China and Russia makes the tasks traditionally assigned to a frigate all the more important. 

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a writer and attorney focused on national security, technology, and political culture. His work has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, The Hill, The Spectator, and The Cipher Brief. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global & Joint Program Studies from NYU. More at harrisonkass.com.

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