![The USS Lake Champlain.](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/us-navy-power-crisis-04172024.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
For more than a century, the ability to project naval strength on a massive scale has been the crucial lynchpin of U.S. global hegemony. Yet a structural crisis that is now overwhelming the U.S. Navy presents as much of a threat to Washington’s geopolitical position as the isolationist populism fueled by the rise of Donald Trump.