Strategic Homeport was a plan developed in the 1980s by

Secretary of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On March 25, 2025, John Phelan was confirm ...

John Lehman John Francis Lehman Jr. (born September 14, 1942) is an American private equity investor and writer who was secretary of the Navy (1981–1987) during the Reagan administration in which he promoted the creation of a 600-ship navy. Lehman is o ...

for building new

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

bases within the continental United States. It was proposed as part of the 600-ship Navy plan of the

Reagan Administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over ...

. It called for the construction of new ports for existing and newly commissioned ships. The plan was based on five strategic principles: #force dispersal to complicate

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

targeting #battlegroup integrity #wider industrial base utilization #logistics suitability #geographic considerations such as reduced transit times to likely operating areas The program was devised in part to achieve a political goal: to build support for the naval expansion program though the promise of new naval bases. The program enjoyed broad support both in Congress and in the Reagan Administration.

Stations

Stations opened under the program include: *

Naval Station Everett Naval Station Everett (NAVSTA Everett) is a military installation located in the city of Everett, Washington, north of Seattle. The naval station, located on the city's waterfront on the northeastern end of Puget Sound, was designed as a homepo ...

, Everett, Washington *

Naval Station Galveston Naval Station Lake Galveston, is a former United States Navy Naval Station. It was planned for operation in the 1980s during the creation of the Strategic Homeport program under the administration of President Ronald Reagan. It was recommended for ...

, Galveston, Texas *

Naval Station Ingleside Naval Station Ingleside was a United States Navy base in Ingleside, Texas. It was on the northern shore of Corpus Christi Bay, 12 miles northeast of the city of Corpus Christi, about 130 miles south of San Antonio and approximately 170 miles s ...

, Ingleside, Texas * Naval Station Lake Charles, Lake Charles, Louisiana * Naval Station Mobile, Mobile, Alabama *

Naval Station New York Naval Station New York was a United States Navy Naval Station on Staten Island in New York City, closed in 1994. Opened in 1990, it was part of the Reagan administration's Strategic Homeport program. The station had two sections: a Strategic H ...

, Staten Island, New York * Naval Station Pascagoula, Pascagoula, Mississippi

References

Cold War military history of the United States United States Navy {{US-Navy-stub