Exporting the River?
By Moderator, 15 April 2026
In Canada we tend to focus on the problems with our own shipbuilding but we’re not the only ones who have issues. The US Navy has had a few bad years. Aside from the problematic Littoral Combat Ships, the Constellation-class frigate replacement program was cancelled in November 2025.
To summarize the birth and death of the Constellation-class project, in 2020 the French-Italian FREMM design was selected by the USN for the program. The plan was that relatively few changes – 15% was the number – would be made to the design. But things went off the rails and after a few years it seemed that only 15% of the original design had not been changed. There were delays, cost increases and multiplying problems. After the program was cancelled, the USN announced that it wanted a new design quickly, and one that was not a paper design but actually existed. The decision to go with the US Coast Guard National Security Cutter as a basic design was made within a month. This would mean a smaller and less capable ship.
There’s an interesting article by Jonathan Cassels, “A River Runs Through It: The River-Class as an Option for the US Navy.” He argues that there is a better choice for the USN. And that’s the River-class destroyer that Canada is in the process of constructing. Because Canada and the United States militaries have worked so closely together over the years, the adoption of a Canadian design would (in theory) need less work to ‘Americanize’ it. He makes a good argument. He concludes that “The case for the River-class is not that it is perfect, cheap, or tailor-made for the US Navy. It is that it can be built now, meeting urgent fleet needs, while preserving the option to pursue greater ambition later.” You can read the article starting at p. 36,
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Latest CNR: Vol. 21 No. 3 (2026)
Happy New Year! Now that January is here, we all need something to look forward to – other than bills for all those things you bought for Christmas! Fret no longer, you can look forward to the upcoming CNR issue.
As usual, the new issue of CNR contains a variety of interesting articles. Our first article was the winning essay of the 2025 CNMT Essay Competition. It’s called “Pirates and Partnerships: An Examination of Maritime Non-State Actors,” by Edward Khitab. Khitab uses the example of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to examine the nature and increasing number of maritime non-state actors -- and concludes that the RCN needs to start paying attention to them.
The second article, “The Strategic Utility of Aircraft Carriers in China’s Ambitions in East Asia,” discusses the rapid growth of China’s aircraft carrier capability and how and where Beijing would likely use them in the case of war. The third article is “Why Does Canada have a Navy? Reflecting on the Canadian Leaders at Sea Program.” In this article, the author addresses a simple question that was asked while he was participating in the CLaS program, and considers what a navy represents and why Canada has one. The final essay, “SS Nerissa: A Tragic Footnote to History,” tells the little-known story of the last voyage of SS Nerissa that was sunk by a U-boat while transporting troops and civilians across the Atlantic in the Second World War.
If that isn’t enough to spark your interest, we have our usual Making Waves commentaries. We have a commentary about hydrography in the Arctic. Sound boring? It’s not. If Canada is getting submarines that are expected to operate in the Arctic, Ottawa needs to act now to map the seafloor there. We have a commentary about the many historic discussions about moving the Coast Guard into the defence department. We have a commentary about the unthinkable – i.e., having naval ships that can act as ‘tripwires’ in the event that the United States decides to blockade Canada. We have an account of a conference in Australia, Canadian interest in East Asia, and preparing for Russia in the Arctic.
And, of course, we have our regular columns. “A View from the West” looks at North Korea’s increasing focus on its navy. “Dollars and Sense” examines the defence-related parts of Budget 2025, and “Warship Developments” updates us on several interesting recent naval decisions.
In addition to all this great information, we have our usual amazing photos!
Stay tuned. In a few weeks, the issue will be in the mailbox of people who are lucky enough to be subscribers! It’s not too late for you to subscribe. See here for the Table of Contents.
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Looking for Books about Maritime Matters?
Over the last 20 years, Canadian Naval Review has published over 180 book reviews. These books cover a variety of topics but they all relate to maritime matters, history, or security and defence at sea. This is an amazing resource. Go through the list of reviews, pick out a few books that look interesting, read the reviews, and then order the books from your nearest bookstore or from the publisher. See the list of book reviews at https://www.navalreview.ca/book-reviews/