Trump Orders Navy To Rank Oldest Technology As Most Advanced

President Donald Trump ordered the Navy on Thursday to classify older equipment as more advanced than newer equipment, establishing age as the service’s primary measure of innovation. The directive requires officials to prepare a 60-day plan for replacing electromagnetic aircraft catapults with steam systems, beginning with the future USS Doris Miller, whose electromagnetic launch equipment is already about half installed. Removing it could consume billions of dollars, require extensive redesign and postpone completion for years, meeting the administration’s three principal standards for government efficiency.

“Magnets are very mysterious because nobody sees them working, and nobody knows where the electricity goes,” Trump said. “Steam is hot, it makes clouds, and when sailors can see clouds, they know the carrier is doing a tremendous job.” Electromagnetic launch systems can reportedly be operated by two sailors, while steam catapults require roughly a dozen. Administration officials described the additional personnel as a productivity gain because any machine needing six times as many people is plainly six times more effective.

General Atomics, which developed the electromagnetic system, has warned that changing designs during construction could create major engineering, scheduling and cost problems. Navy officials dismissed those concerns as products of the obsolete belief that a carrier is eventually supposed to be completed. Under the new doctrine, repeated redesign will serve as a strategic capability, preventing rival nations from determining when American vessels will deploy by ensuring the United States cannot determine it either.

Defense planners are also reviewing paper charts for navigation crews, brass telescopes for radar operators, mechanical typewriters for cyber units and sealed envelopes for procurement requests. Each proposal would increase staffing, lengthen delivery schedules and protect sailors from the dangerous expectation that modern equipment should work better than the equipment it replaced. Older technology is now the most advanced technology in the United States Navy.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.