Uncompromising Honor (Honor Harrington, #14)

by David Weber

“Which is why we have to maintain a strong military posture. I don’t see any way in hell we could maintain the fleet strength we have right now. There are megatons of totally valid domestic reasons to cut naval funding now that the League’s not a threat and we’ve pretty much established we can kick anybody’s ass,” Elizabeth said bluntly. “Manticore has enough of a naval tradition, and enough interstellar commitments, that maintaining a powerful fleet won’t be that great a challenge. Maintaining one as powerful as the one we have now is likely to be impossible, though. Oh, we’ll keep a couple hundred capital ships in commission. A lot of the others can go into reserve—and unlike the Sollies we will rotate ships in and out to keep them up to date—but we’re going to need a lot more cruisers and battlecruisers than SD(P)s in our post-war fleet. And Haven’s navy will probably be under even more pressure to retrench. Partly, I’m afraid, because the Havenite Navy acquired a lot of…negative associations under the Legislaturalists that the Royal Navy’s never had to deal with.”