Visiting the USS Gerald R. Ford two years ago, U.S. President Donald Trump extolled the importance of an enlarged naval force featuring a dozen aircraft carriers--including the Ford, the most expensive ship ever built.

Having 12 of these behemoths--sometimes accompanied by a half-dozen other ships--would send an international signal of U.S. resolve and restore the fleet to its post-Cold War size during the 1990s.

The Pentagon's latest budget proposal, however, seems to do the opposite.

The Defense Department is seeking to--at least for now--shrink the carrier fleet, proposing that the USS Harry Truman be effectively decommissioned in 2024. This would mean that a multibillion-dollar, nuclear-powered super-carrier deployed in 2000 would be mothballed two decades before the end of its service life.