In July 2016, a multinational gathering of warships off the coasts of Hawaii and Southern California marked the world’s largest naval exercise, with over two dozen nations participating alongside the United States. Nations like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and others sent fleets of destroyers, aircraft carriers, and warplanes, forming impressive displays of maritime power and prestige.

Among this armada was the USS Freedom, a vessel from a new class known as littoral combat ships (LCS). These ships were touted as technical marvels: small, fast, and agile, capable of confronting sea-based threats, detecting mines, and countering submarines.

However, the LCS program was already showing signs of becoming one of the military’s costliest and most underperforming ventures. Two of these $500 million ships had experienced embarrassing breakdowns in the months leading up to the exercise. The Freedom’s participation in the exercise aimed to restore confidence in the LCS program, especially since it was the first ship of its kind, commissioned just eight years prior. Unfortunately, the state of the Freedom mirrored the program’s tarnished reputation. Many onboard systems required repairs, and training crews for these new vessels proved more challenging than expected. Sailors aboard the Freedom hadn’t even passed exams to operate critical ship systems.

As the launch date approached, the pressure mounted. Top officers visited the ship repeatedly, emphasizing the “no fail mission” with a “no appetite” to remain in port, according to Navy documents obtained by ProPublica.

The investigation into the engine’s breakdown took months, but one thing was clear from the start: the Freedom’s fate was a glaring example of how the Navy had invested billions in ships with debilitating flaws.

The LCS program’s issues had been well-documented for years, with cost overruns and mechanical failures plaguing each ship. ProPublica aimed to uncover why such flawed vessels received unwavering support from Navy leadership for nearly two decades. They examined thousands of public records and interviewed naval and shipbuilding insiders involved at every stage of construction.

The investigation revealed that top Navy leaders repeatedly ignored or dismissed warnings about the ships’ flaws. Some politicians fought to build more LCS ships even as they faced breakdowns and system failures. Advocates within the Navy bypassed checks meant to ensure these billion-dollar vessels could perform their intended tasks. Contractors, keen on profiting from the program, spent millions lobbying Congress to secure more ship orders, and Congress members, in turn, pushed for additional ships to be built in their districts, despite mounting evidence of problems.

The LCS program is a prime example of how the military-industrial complex, as President Eisenhower once described it, perpetuates wasteful spending in the defense sector. Despite spending astronomical sums on weapons systems, there is often a lack of accountability and a tendency to allocate more funds to troubled projects, rather than admitting failure.

The Defense Department has requested an enormous budget of $842 billion, nearly half of the federal government’s discretionary spending, to address security concerns. However, discussions on preventing future procurement disasters, like the LCS, are unlikely to take center stage. This would require acknowledging the misuse of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars across various military branches, such as the F-35 fighter jet, the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, and the abandoned Future Combat System.

The LCS program teaches a valuable lesson: once a massive project gains momentum and defense contractors get involved, it becomes politically challenging to halt it. People’s livelihoods are at stake, and admitting to massive wastage of taxpayer funds is difficult. Even when the Navy stated it only needed 32 littoral combat ships, Congress forced the Pentagon to purchase three more.

Former Lt. Renaldo Rodgers, who worked on the Freedom, recalled the ship’s continuous breakdowns and expressed disappointment, viewing the LCS program as a missed opportunity. Many LCS ships are being retired prematurely, despite being designed to last 25 years.

In response to questions, the Navy acknowledged that the LCS was not suitable for confronting peer competitors like China, lacking the necessary lethality and survivability for high-end combat.

John Pendleton, a retired military analyst, estimated that the lifetime cost of the LCS class could exceed $100 billion, a figure that troubles him deeply. He sees the LCS program as one of the most wasteful projects in his 35-year career.

The LCS program’s trajectory aligns with a recurring problem in military innovation: the persistence of flawed projects due to vested interests and political inertia. As Dan Grazier, a Pentagon reform advocate, notes, when so much money and political capital are involved, it becomes challenging to stop such projects until their problems become insurmountable.

The LCS program’s dual narrative – political support in Congress and operational failures at sea – became increasingly evident during a ten-month period when five LCS vessels suffered breakdowns worldwide, further confirming critics’ concerns. The extensive Navy investigation into the Freedom’s failure stands as a stark example of the program’s difficulties.