“China has about 350 navy ships compared to the US Navy’s 298 vessels, and experts predict China’s navy could be twice the size of our fleet by 2030. In addition, Russia has plans to construct a dozen new icebreakers over the next decade, building on their already-huge advantage in the polar regions. If we do not ramp up shipbuilding dramatically, it will be more and more difficult to prevent a future conflict with our adversaries,” Wicker said in the article published in the Mississippi-based Daily Journal newspaper on Monday.

China, he added, presents the greatest threat to the US since it became the world’s largest navy, threatens the free flow of commerce, and undermines the stability of its neighbors.

At the same time, the US is losing influence in the Arctic Ocean to Russia, whose icebreaker fleet significantly outnumbers the American fleet by a 40 to 2 margin, he said. Besides that, last summer the Russian Navy conducted a massive military exercise off the coast of Alaska, Wicker added.

Wicker also calls on President Joe Biden to embrace the recent massive shipbuilding plan providing for 405 manned Navy ships by 2051.