To build ships faster, the Navy needs to change how it designs them

Two days before Thanksgiving, Navy Secretary John Phelan announced the cancellation of the $22 billion 20 ship Constellation multi-mission frigate program. The ship was meant to be capable of conducting anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine and electromagnetic warfare both in littoral areas and on the high seas. The Navy had already spent about $2 billion of the $7.6 billion that the Congress had…