One of the real concerns that our military is facing has been how exactly it will take on Russia and China, two countries that have taken advantage of America’s nearly two decades of fighting a global war on terror. One of the side effects of that focus has been a neglect of the U.S. Navy, which was already hurting from the “peace dividend” from the fall of the Soviet Union.

According to a report by Defense One, though, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, while he is rightly pursuing a larger fleet, is making one proposal that should be very concerning: The Navy would see its force of aircraft carriers go from the current total of 11 to as few as eight. If the carrier force fell to the lower end of Esper’s proposal, it would be the smallest carrier force since the end of 1942, according to the Navy’s history of its fleet size.