Big or Bigger: How Large Should the U.S. Navy Be? America needs to ensure it can deter, and defeat, any enemies. Key point: The number of ships matters. However, it is a bad idea to only use that metric when deciding what kind of a navy is needed and how it stacks up vs other countries. The walking dead are ravaging Capitol Hill—again! I refer not to literal ghouls but to misleading ideas about navies that refuse to die in policymaking circles. The living dead shamble around during election season or just after—in other words, at times of political flux like this one, when one house of Congress has changed hands and the other is undergoing a leadership shakeup.