Navies need sustained attention, not crisis spending alone

Which navy should be considered the second most incompetent after Russia?

That framing is misleading: navies move through cycles, and their capability often depends more on sustained government attention than on a permanent institutional ranking.

A fixed ranking of incompetent navies ignores how fleet effectiveness changes over time. Even capable services can decline when governments neglect maintenance, training, or funding, making the boundary between naval and political failure difficult to draw. Navies depend on sustained attention across long cycles, while politicians are often rewarded for visible crisis management.