Doc's note: It took 200 years for the Danish to grow the oak trees needed for their ships... and by then, it was too late.
As my good friend Joel Litman – from our corporate affiliate Altimetry – explains, by the time the trees were large enough for building ships, the industry was far too advanced. But naval defenses are a critical part of many countries' military forces. And specialized suppliers are helping build better, faster ships...
Copenhagen glowed red beneath a rain of British rockets...
Denmark spent the start of the Napoleonic wars trying to stay neutral. But that position grew harder to maintain with every French victory.
By 1807, Napoleon had conquered or allied with just about every major power in mainland Europe. Between Spain, France, and Russia, his combined fleet could take on any nation in the world besides Great Britain.
Denmark controlled the tipping point. The Danish navy included around 20 ships of the line and 18 frigates. And its position between the North Sea and the Baltic gave it critical strategic value.
If Napoleon took over that fleet, France could tighten its grip on northern Europe... an outcome Britain couldn't afford. It tried to offer Denmark an alliance.
But when that was rejected, Britain took action...
The nation sent roughly 400 ships carrying more than 25,000 sailors and soldiers toward Copenhagen.
The British arrived in Copenhagen in August. Most of Denmark's army was stationed farther south to guard against a French invasion.
That left Copenhagen under the protection of just 5,000 troops.
British warships opened fire from the water. Congreve rockets soared over Copenhagen's defenses before crashing into homes and businesses.
The attack killed nearly 200 civilians in four days. Denmark was forced to surrender the capital and its entire fleet.
The British took possession of the warships and added many of them to the Royal Navy. Weeks later, Danish sailors and civilians gathered along the harbor as their fleet sailed away under British control.
And a navy forged over generations vanished in a matter of weeks.
But Denmark's troubles were just beginning...
The loss created another problem – one that cannon fire alone could never solve...
In the age of wooden warships, oak was a critical resource. A single warship could consume around 2,000 mature oak trees. Oak served the same basic role that oil would play in wars a little more than a century later.
A nation with access to mature oak could build naval power. But Denmark's forests were depleted after centuries of felling. So it couldn't build a replacement fleet.
Three days after the British departed, the Danish government banned the export of oak. Later that year, the crown claimed every oak suitable for shipbuilding... whether the tree was standing in the forest or already on the ground.
Crown Prince Frederick, the future King Frederick VI, ordered the planting of roughly 90,000 new "fleet oaks," grown for the express purpose of rebuilding Denmark's naval strength.
Here's the thing... Large warships required huge, high-quality timbers...
Oaks capable of producing them needed around 200 years to mature.
Frederick knew the trees wouldn't be ready during his reign. He was preparing a fleet for his descendants. But while the fleet oaks grew, steam engines and iron hulls became the status quo. Denmark rebuilt a capable navy using newer materials.
It wasn't until 2007 that the Danish Nature Agency informed defense officials that the trees were finally ready.
The forest had arrived on schedule... but it was still too late. The world had moved on.
Two of the old fleet oaks were eventually felled in 2017. Instead of becoming part of a new Danish armada, the timber went toward the reconstruction of a Viking trading ship for a museum.
It might seem like a story unique to preindustrial times...
But while shipbuilding happens a lot faster these days, it still takes years to do it right.
And that brings us to an issue across the ocean from Denmark – right here in the United States.
America's shipbuilding and repair capacity has fallen to roughly one-third the size it was just 30 years ago. At the same time, we're starting our most ambitious fleet expansion in decades.
Every U.S. ship ordered today depends on facilities and supplies assembled years earlier. That means we can't afford to wait until a threat is sailing toward us.
We have to up our shipbuilding capacity. And we have to do it fast.
Sometime in the past decade, the U.S. lost the lead it had held since World War II in terms of naval fleet count. China now has far more vessels.
According to the Department of Defense, China now has roughly 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the U.S.
President Donald Trump has responded with a record $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal for 2027. That includes $67 billion for building new ships and submarines – a 146% increase over last year.
The spending will fund 18 new combat ships as part of what the administration is calling the "Golden Fleet." It's the country's largest naval shipbuilding request since 1962.
But building the fleet is only part of the battle...
Every warship depends on thousands of specialized components.
The major contractors can put the ships together... But they still rely on an entire network of smaller companies to supply the critical technology inside.
Denmark's lesson from 1807 still applies. A fleet isn't just the ships that make it up – it's an entire supply chain of materials that compose the ships. When demand surges faster than the industrial base can handle, the companies that remove bottlenecks benefit the most.
And right now, the bottleneck isn't just shipyard space... It's the specialized suppliers that keep the entire defense build-out moving.
That's the exact opportunity we're focused on today. A small group of companies sits at the nexus of the defense supply chain – each one has access to specialized technology that larger companies don't.
These aren't household names. But they're exactly the kinds of businesses that stand to benefit as trillions of dollars flow into America's defense systems in the coming years.
That's right – trillions. And these smaller businesses will be the ones with the most to gain... and their stock prices will reflect that.
We'll start to see where some of this money will go as soon as October 12. I went live last week to explain more in my urgent America Unleashed briefing. Click here to catch up on everything you missed.
As this tidal wave of cash helps the American military rebuild, you could multiply your money by up to 23 times... as long as you stay ahead of it.
Regards,
Joel Litman
