Surface Navy Association 2025

In January 2022, Commander, Naval Surface Forces released “The Competitive Edge” to drive improvement and alignment among our stakeholders, the Surface Force, the Surface Warfare Enterprise (SWE), and most importantly, our warfighting Sailors. 

This strategy led to an increase in force readiness while bringing to light new challenges to overcome. As the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) highlighted in the 2024 Navigation Plan, after we take a fix and evaluate our progress, we must be prepared to adjust course and speed. Similarly with the original Competitive Edge and our North Star Goal of 75 Mission Capable Ships, we learned and made improvements, and we also learned how prepared to adapt we must remain. 

Since The Competitive Edge was released, conflict has erupted in Europe and the Middle East, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has continued to aggressively sow instability and grow combat capability in the Western Pacific, and our adversaries have increased their collaboration. This combination compounds our strategic and operational risk. Additionally, Congress altered the Navy’s Title 10 mission to include not only operations incident to combat at sea, but also those activities that serve the peacetime security and prosperity of our nation. 

Admiral Franchetti set our Navy on a course to contend with this challenging security environment by prioritizing Warfighting, Warfighters, and the Foundation that supports them. In the NAVPLAN, CNO has called for 80% of our warships to be combat surge ready by 2027. It will take all of us working together to achieve and sustain that goal. The Competitive Edge 2.0 (CE 2.0) is the Surface Force’s approach to implement at speed the CNO’s direction.