Where an Anglo-American destroyer programme might converge

Could Britain and the United States develop a joint future destroyer?

Possibly, especially for shared systems, but a common design depends heavily on whether U.S. crewing and requirements move closer to British practice.

Future destroyer cooperation looks most plausible at the systems level. A common ship design would be harder because the U.S. Navy would need to accept substantially lower crewing assumptions. British and Australian requirements are closer to one another in this respect than either is automatically to American practice. Collaboration on combat systems therefore appears more realistic than sharing an entire warship design.