Big Enough to Cross an Ocean?

This author argues for smaller warships to get numbers for the Navy, using the 2,000 ton Russian Steregushchiy-class corvettes as an example. I sympathize with this view, and have long argued that the Navy needs to pick a number and then use the appropriated money to build a high-low mix to get it.

Yet while small ships, like Cyclones or smaller, are useful in the Persian Gulf, I don't believe that small ships like the Russians and a lot of our allies build are possible for the Navy because our ships pretty much have a minimum hull size just to be able to cross an ocean to the patrol area without the hull being pounded to pieces.

And a small ship really designed for coastal waters or enclosed small seas where they will be in combat maybe ten minutes sailing distance outside of their home port isn't appropriate for America.