U.S. Navy Begins Design Work on Urgently Needed Next Generation Destroyer: What is Expected of the DDG(X)?

A recent report to the U.S. Congress by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has confirmed that preliminary design work on the DDG(X) next generation destroyer program was initiated in June 2025, and that the program is also conducting land-based test site construction activities and procurement of long-lead time materials. This follows confirmation in mid-June that the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee had directed the Navy to continue the program, with an explanatory report from the Committee's draft National Defense Policy Act for Fiscal Year 2027 stating that the ships will need to become operational in the 2030s as older variants of the Arleigh Burke class destroyer begin to be phased out of service. It was confirmed that although the Navy has yet to commit to a new date to begin construction of the lead ship or deliver an initial capability, it plans to continue building Arleigh Burke class destroyers while starting construction of the first next generation destroyers to ensure a smoother transition. 

Compared to the Arleigh Burke class, the next generation destroyer class developed under the DDG(X) program is intended to be more fuel efficient and to allow for future growth potential. The GAO reported that the Navy expects the next generation destroyer to integrate hypersonic missiles, directed energy weapons, and a more powerful radar system, while maintaining “sufficient size and power margins to enable greater flexibility to incorporate new systems as they become available.” The program has gained greater urgency due primarily to the successes of the Chinese Type 052D and Type 055 class destroyer programs, the latter which is widely assessed to have produced the most capable surface combat ships in the world, and to have been a key factor in stimulating the initiation of the DDG(X) program.

The GAO report noted that since the DDG(X) program was initiated in 2021, it has yet to develop an acquisition strategy, elaborating that this “is a program document that identifies the acquisition approach and key framing assumptions along with business, technical, and supportability strategies.” It warned that the program is currently progressing with design efforts “without an iterative development approach to guide its efforts,” which could have significant drawbacks. The report further advised that the development of a ‘digital twin’ for testing purposes could “provide opportunities to model and simulate different aspects of DDG(X) ship designs and inform design changes and technology updates.” It highlighted that the destroyers were projected to have a potential 60- to 100-year life cycle.

The U.S. Navy brought its first Flight III Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Jack H. Lucas, into service in December 2025, marking the beginning of the latest phase in what is by far the world’s oldest destroyer program. At the centre of upgrades to the design is the integration of the new AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar, replacing the SPY-1D(V) radar used on earlier Arleigh Burke class variants, which has a significantly greater tracking capacity, and can detect, track, and discriminate smaller, faster, and more complex threats at longer ranges. The Arleigh Burke class destroyer fleet has placed a growing emphasis on missile defence capabilities since the end of the Cold War, as challenges from adversary navies diminished, with the sophistication of recent Chinese and North Korean destroyer programs expected to lead to a reversal in this trend both for the future evolution of the design, and for the DDG(X) program.

The USS Jack H. Lucas is the 71st Arleigh Burke class destroyer to be brought into service, with the class making up the entire American destroyer fleet alongside three problematic Zumwalt class stealth destroyers. The first ship of the class, the USS Arleigh Burke, was laid down in 1988, with the design’s ability to continue to integrate upgrades having increasingly been brought into question. The U.S. defence sector’s ability to develop a next generation destroyer without significant delays and cost overruns remains in serious question, with its record on post-Cold War clean sheet high value programs having consistently been poor. The Zumwalt class destroyer, Littoral Combat Ship, and Gerald Ford class supercarrier have been notable examples, with all three considered very far from successful, while the first two have very limited viability for the combat roles they were developed for. The capacity of U.S. shipyards to produce complex new destroyers has also been brought into serious question, with their production rates for the simpler Arleigh Burke class ships already being inadequate.