"Construct all the ships you want, but where do you get the sailors for them afterwards?"
As I understand it, the next generation of Navy ships will require next to 0 sailors, proportionally compared to current ships.
Spent 11 years in the US Navy. Any job the needs to be done typically requires at least four more sailors than actually necessary because of the paperwork and safety concerns, never mind actually doing the job at hand.
Automation is a wondeful thing (I'm an automation programmer) but occasionally, it fails. The systems that run the automation fails, software upgrades don't work as planned, etc. Of course, you still need people to plug the holes and repair combat damage on this "next generation" of ships, don't you? Who feeds those sailors? Who sees to their medical needs? Who makes sure the machinery is maintained? Who manually operates the ship when the systems fail?
You still need people standing on the deck.