The program passed through decades shaped first by confidence in peace and then by assumptions that serious naval warfare had disappeared. Those assumptions encouraged policymakers to minimize visible military tools and reduced the options available for managing conflict short of war. Deterrence depends on the psychology and perceptions of political leaders as well as the objective performance of weapons. A deployed Zumwalt could therefore have supplied a powerful warning: more forceful than routine diplomacy, but less escalatory than a carrier strike group.
Chapter · 44:58-47:24
The lost deterrent value of a full Zumwalt class
A full class could have signaled American technological dominance and intent below the escalation threshold of deploying an entire carrier group.