Predictions about the end of the aircraft carrier are a lot like those we hear about the decline of American power – they occur often, continue to be incorrect, and provide a great opportunity for spirited debate. A new discussion about the decline of the carrier fleet has ensued this winter as rumors made their way around Washington that the Pentagon and White House are negotiating a reduction of the nuclear-power aircraft carrier (CVN) fleet from 11 to 10. While the Pentagon now insists a decision on the USS George Washington’s future will be put off until next year, if it’s budget does not actually provide funding for a Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) for the ship, then the decision to scrap the “GW” is already well on its way to being made. Given the ongoing debate about the future of our carrier force, I thought I would take the chance to offer my own thoughts on our nation’s carrier fleet and its enduring utility to U.S. foreign and defense policy (Rear Admiral Michael Manazir offers another excellent defense here). I want to thank Ryan Evans and War on the Rocks for the opportunity to write in this forum and I look forward to any responses this piece may generate.
I understand that some will dismiss me and my arguments right out of the gate. They will say I am from Virginia, where they don’t just build aircraft carriers, but also homeport several at Norfolk Naval Station, so of course I would line up to defend the carrier. Indeed, I was born and raised in the Commonwealth of Virginia, where our nation has constructed carriers and been proud to homeport them for the better part of the last eighty years. However, I am not a carrier supporter simply because I am a Virginian; I am a supporter of a robust, forward-deployed defense for the United States because I believe that is the only assured way to defend our homeland and our interests abroad. I believe aircraft carriers play an enduring role in providing this capability to our country. Just as I support the carrier because it can provide our Commander-in-Chief with truly global presence and reach, I am also a steadfast supporter of other forms of American power-projection, like our Air Force’s long-range strike and heavy-lift assets, as well as our Marine Corps’ amphibious capabilities.
Carrier skeptics submit a set of arguments focused on cost, utility, and the size of today’s fleet to bolster their case. I hear everything from CVNs are too expensive, to they are vulnerable and outdated, to suggestions that the Pentagon’s shrinking budget demands we make do with one, two, or even three fewer in our Navy’s current fleet. I build my argument for the carrier as our front-line power-projection tool by addressing the prevailing criticisms levied against it.
First, cost appears to be the most difficult question to respond to. A carrier costs billions of dollars to construct and billions more to operate. Building and maintaining a carrier fleet is no small decision for any nation to make, even one of the size and economic stature as the United States. Yet when you consider the contributions a carrier can have relative to this cost, I believe it is a national investment worth making. Indeed, both Republican and Democratic Presidents have continued to build, maintain, and call on carriers since the USS Langley became our country’s first dedicated aircraft carrier nearly a century ago. When it comes to calculating a return on investment, carriers give the United States 50 years of service. Think about that – that is a half-century of providing U.S. policymakers with unparalleled global reach. In an unpredictable and competitive international system, America’s 11-carrier fleet gives it the capacity to deploy two or three CVNs to the Pacific and Indian Oceans and keep them continuously forward and present where and when the President chooses, while still retaining surge capabilities to meet a crisis. This provides the nation with a visible symbol of diplomatic strength to project America’s intentions to both friends and competitors during, for example, missile tests on the Korean Peninsula, tensions in the Straits of Hormuz or South China Sea, or an election in Taiwan. The carrier’s mobility and striking power make it both an unrivaled means by which to demonstrate diplomatic resolve and a powerful tool of military coercion. No other country has been able to field such a powerful and ready carrier fleet, the end result of which has been the continued ability to manage a peaceful, prosperous international order.
Second, critics argue that the carrier has lost its utility because today’s modern threat environment has made it increasingly vulnerable. Even if a carrier can provide so much capability, the investment comes at too great a risk, according to this line of thinking. It is well known that the People’s Republic of China is developing the means to harness the power of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) to target naval assets at ranges up to 950 nm from its coasts. Analysts have called this development a “game changer” for U.S. defense policy in the Indo-Pacific region. Yes, this technological development has introduced new risks for the surface Navy. However, the offense-defense technological competition is no different today than in the past when Soviet submarines, mines, bombers, missiles, and nuclear weapons were labeled potential “carrier killers.” The right technological or doctrinal changes can once again help the carrier face down these new threats. In a similar example, the Air Force has not stopped investing in tactical fighters because China has a large, modern ballistic missile force that can hold their bases at risk across the Indo-Pacific. Instead, it is adjusting its posture and considering a mix of hardening, dispersal, and missile defenses to continue to operate its assets across the East Asian littoral, despite Chinese missile investments.
The true ability of the carrier to overcome the current challenges rests with its modularity. A carrier is really just an advanced floating airfield that can adapt what capabilities are on its deck to the emerging threat environment. This modularity was on display a year ago when I attended the inactivation ceremony for the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), a storied ship that served our nation for over 50 years. Thanks to the Enterprise’s ability to support new strike-fighter innovations, it remained a front-line power-projection tool for a half-century. Today the F/A-18 and F-35C, while offering their own unique set of capabilities, lack the combat range to allow a carrier to operate from outside China’s or Iran’s area-denial network. Our response shouldn’t be to abandon the carrier, but to preserve its utility by investing in new platforms for the Carrier Air Wing with greater range and strike power. An effective 21st century sea-based power projection capability requires a future carrier-based unmanned combat air system that is stealthy, capable of automated aerial refueling, and has integrated surveillance and strike functionality. This would transform today’s carrier fleet from a capability with short tactical reach to a global naval strike and reconnaissance platform. A new dawn in naval aviation stands to preserve the indispensability of the carrier well into this century.
The final argument weighed against the carrier is about the size of our current fleet. I may have convinced you up to this point that we need the carrier and a new unmanned platform to extend its power-projection range, but just why are 11 carriers essential? To begin, there is enduring bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers. Last year the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to maintain a statutory requirement to retain 11 operational aircraft carriers by a vote of 318 to 106. More technically, the size of the Navy’s carrier fleet is determined by a complex relationship between requirements (both peacetime presence and war plan fulfillment), maintenance cycles, resources, and how we choose to employ it. Rotational naval forces have for decades maintained traditional six-month deployments. Today, the minimum deployment length is seven months, and 9-10 month deployments have become routine. According to Admiral Gortney, Commander of Fleet Forces Command, “Just a single ship really matters in our ability…to generate the forward presence that we need.” If the carrier fleet were reduced to 10 “we will go back to nine and 10 months deployments.” A smaller fleet will only lengthen deployments, increasing maintenance demands and placing a greater burden on our sailors. A global power committed to maintaining its interests throughout the international maritime domain and intent on using the seas as a maneuver space for projecting power ashore when necessary requires no less than 11 carriers.
For a nation dedicated to sustaining its international maritime posture, an enduring investment in American Seapower is the best insurance policy. With its mobility, modular striking power, and unique ability to telegraph diplomatic intentions, the carrier remains the true “capital ship” of the U.S. Navy and the most valuable chess piece in the Commander-in-Chief’s tool box. Working to sustain the 11 carrier fleet, including investing in a next-generation Carrier Air Wing, should be the primary task of defense planners in the years ahead.
Rep. Forbes is Chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee. He is currently co-leading a bipartisan Asia-Pacific Security Series for the House Armed Services Committee.
Image: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian Brooks
Scott Forster 
Charley 
RobM1981 
Duke 
Ilhan 
Dark Storm Cloud 
juris imprudent 
Mitch Negres 
Jim Suhr 
James 
While I agree that here is enduring relevance to carriers in DOD, the carriers of tomorrow will not look like the carriers of today. From above “An effective 21st century sea-based power projection capability requires a future carrier-based unmanned combat air system that is stealthy, capable of automated aerial refueling, and has integrated surveillance and strike functionality.” This insight raises the question that demands an answer: How big does a future carrier need to be if only unmanned aerial vehicles fly from them?
Large enough to launch F-14 / RA-5 sized UCLASS air vehicles, which means super carrier size: Nimitz / Ford class. L-class big deck amphibs are simply not large enough to operate multiple large UAS. Another reason is CVNs are faster and more robust – meaning the ability to absorb battle damage – than L-class ships.
The Congressman makes a rather standard argument, with a few interesting points.
As we shift to unmanned vehicles, what relevance does the carrier have? Much. As we can see, while unmanned vehicles do gain in capabilities as we remove the space/weight needed for a pilot, this isn’t a huge amount. The laws of physics haven’t changed – we still need a large airframe to carry a large weapon a long distance.
Are the carriers “targets?” Absolutely. How vulnerable they are remains a secret, but it continues to be unsettling whenever a foreign government publishes a photo of one of our carriers from one of their “obsolete” diesel-electric submarine periscopes during a war game.
Submarines are terrible for force-projection. People aren’t intimidated by what they can’t see… but there’s no denying that the submarine is the true hunter/killer out there. It’s also the spy that does, indeed, keep foreign leaders awake at night.
Do we need 11 carriers? Probably not. The congressman doesn’t ask the fundamental question: who are we projecting force against, and why? Given the amazing accuracy and power of modern guided weapons, it is unlikely that we will ever see another situation where a large group of American carriers “pound the defenses” of a beach prior to an amphibious landing. Inchon is likely the last of those.
If our target is a 300 vessel navy, should 1/30th of the vessels be CVN’s? That seems a bit high.
CVNs are essential for defense, and further shrinkage of the fleet (from 15 not so long ago) cannot be justified particularly when are shifting our strategic focus from Europe / SW Asia to the Pacific – which is, btw, mostly water. The problem is with the aircraft that compose the air wing. The Super Hornet is a fine aircraft, but lacks the range needed to operate efficiently in the theater. The upcoming F-35C adds a bit of range, but not nearly enough to justify its acquisition cost – which is 2-3 times that of a Super Hornet (continuing upgrades to Super Hornet sensors and the addition of CFTs will make it essentially equivalent to F-35, sans X-band stealthiness.) This means that another aircraft type is needed on deck to project power over long ranges. One approach is to develop a large, long range / persistence UCLASS with wideband stealth and a large internal payload, with the flexibility to perform other fleet housekeeping tasks. Another aircraft type to consider is large, long range tactical fighter like F/A-XX / NGAD, optimized for A-A, but retaining a strike capability. Developing another long range aircraft reduces the need for supporting tanker sorties needed for the short range F/A-18s and F-35s. But how can these new aircraft programs be afforded? The obvious answer is to allow the Navy to drop its participation in the JSF program, and start immediate development of a realistically spec’d F/A-XX unencumbered by the requirements of a multi-service / multimode jet, and continuing the development of a robust UCLASS. There will be pushback from the Usual Suspects, so perhaps the Navy could tamp down the squawking by procuring a small number of F-35Cs to support an interim mid-band stealthy strike capability, ala F-117. The other critical need is a longer range A-A missile, with a multispectral seeker, including an active image / library capability.
Hmmm, I think context is important when deciding on the continuing relevance of aircraft carriers. Now in the context of pre-nuclear, large-scale interstate warfare then yes, carriers are exceptionally powerful and relevant weapons that any state wishing to compete at such a level should posses, and the debate can cross into technical quibbling over capabilities of certain advanced weapons versus certain other advanced weapons.
But we live in a reality that is post-Hiroshima, though many, most even refuse to accept it, or can even comprehend it. Weapons like these are superfluous for two reasons:
1) All enemies that these carriers and their payloads are envisaged and designed to go to war with have nuclear capability; any possible victory -no matter how conventionally complete- these carriers help the USA to achieve can be reversed with the ‘push of a button’. Though we still like to harp on about ‘Nuclear strategy’ and whatnot this is an impossible scenario for a modern state (Of which fragility has now become a defining feature). Clausewitz, whom I regard certainly as the master of interstate warfare says that: “The final decision of the whole war is not always to be regarded as an absolute one. The defeated state often sees in it only a transitory evil, for which a remedy can yet be found in the political circumstances of a later day.” In a nuclear world, the final decision of a whole war is inevitably an absolute one because, as a state begins to taste defeat, as its enemies push into its territory and as its power structures crumble, war will move from a thing subordinated to policy into the realm of primordial hatred and enmity, a realm nuclear weapons seem tailored for.
2) The enemies and threats remaining to the USA when one removes large nuclear capable states are paltry in a technological sense and require a far different form of war fighting. Gen R Smith calls this form of war the antithesis of industrial warfare for good reason. It neutralises the most powerful industrial tech-based weapons and renders them far less effective than innovative and fluid forms of human-based warfare. As we have seen in Lebanon recently and all other theatres of war in which modern states have met this antithesis; its effectiveness and long-term decisive nature is in no way exaggerated. Any smaller states that find themselves on the receiving end of a modern state arsenal either collapse quickly and the fight is carried on in the way described above, or there follows a quick transformation and adoption of the way described above.
Western arsenals and ways of war seem to me to be designed with a certain battlefield in mind (Anybody who has been a member of a western army knows exactly which battlefield and which enemy this is). The modern enemy that we do find ourselves fighting has discovered that all he must do is deny us that battlefield to gain a quite astounding advantage. Frederick the Great’s father said that the power of a state is to be measured by its armed forces. I think we need to decide wether that power is defined in terms of effectiveness against our contemporary enemies, who are actually defeating us and forcing us to eventually quit the battlefield. Or the enemies we have designed our forces to fight, namely those who posses a weapon that makes interstate warfare suicide for victor and vanquished.
Thank you thank you thank you for being the voice of reason!
Another fact that is always overlooked in these kinds of discussions is reliability on technology.
Whoever has worked in an hight-tech environment knows that technology is not reliable. Period. Fullstop.
The reliability on technology gets much overestimated and analyzed in a perfect context where the enemy is doing nothing to disturb you.
“Human-centric” war was, is and will always be the only (important) kind of war.
Has anyone thought about a CVN with B2 bombers? Granted I do NOT know the dimensions of a B2; however, if a CVN could support a B2, then the range issue would no longer be an issue.
“I am also a steadfast supporter of other forms of American power-projection, like our Air Force’s long-range strike and heavy-lift assets, as well as our Marine Corps’ amphibious capabilities.”
No mention of the Army? No wonder the Army pays the majority of the defense bill and 80% of the dead in our wars…
The Army is the true red headed stepchild without the technological bling or snazzy uniforms…
Wasn’t it bad enough that in an article about the relevance of the carrier he had to mention 2 of the 3 other services? Is it really necessary to stroke the ego of each one so they don’t feel left out? Apparently so.
LOL, I guess when your parents list the names of their kids and they don’t mention you, you don’t get a message? :)
First, a disclaimer: I was a rifleman in the South African National Defence Force for a few months and I’m not an expert.
Still, here’s what a U.S. Navy CVN means in South African terms:
1. Pre-1994 SADF (apartheid military) was the toughest and most feared military in Africa, which could deploy armies against three countries within a few days with a high probability of success. Nevertheless, at that time just ONE U.S. Navy CVN had more aggregate tonnage than the entire S.A. navy, more airplanes than the air force and had more firepower than the whole army.
2. Post-1994 SANDF (democratic military in which I served) has 1-3 C130 Hercules left, almost no qualified personnel for the frigates, subs and Grippen fighters it bought in 1999, troop levels dropped from 175.000 permanent and reserve in 2001 to 67.000 in 2014. It uses civil aviation firms to deploy and support 3-5 battalions on peace-keeping duties in central Africa and currently lacks the long range air transport, in-flight refueling capability, SAM suppression, C3I (like JSTARS) and sea-borne platforms to carry and launch the above even if they knew where a South African named Pierre Korkie (kidnapped in Yemen by al Qaeda in 2013) was and had the green light.
3. There will always be a contest between long range platforms and area denial weapons systems, along with an ever-changing cost and risk vs. reward calculation. Still, I believe carriers will have an interesting future due to advances in communications, artificial intelligence and UAV technology, whose use is limited only by the imagination of U.S. leaders and military.
The consequences of allowing such assets to be degraded, reduced or removed are probably shown in the decline of South Africa’s ability to project and employ power on the African continent as I’ve briefly outlined above.
Why would South Africa need to be able to wage war against three countries at the same time?
Before 1994, the apartheid government felt itself under siege and feared a combined attack by its neighbors. To that end, they developed nuclear weapons as a last gesture of defiance and deterrence.
I never saw the strategy documents related to that government’s end-game policies, but it seems reasonable to deduce the apartheid generals and politicians wanted the conventional means to disable their enemies rather than use nuclear weapons because their policy of legislated racism was so unpopular (globally) at the time, that using WMDs (even if justified) would be thoroughly condemned by the whole world. Nevertheless, the apartheid regime probably kept nukes to deploy in case they were about to be overrun and as a last act of spite- kind of like saying “if I can’t have it, neither can you”. I used the apartheid regime’s three country deployment capability to compare it with the greatly degraded democratic South African defense force and as an attempt to illustrate what happens to a nation’s political power if its military capabilities deteriorate.
Excellent article. Beware the assumptions when calculating CSG requirements. I was in the pentagon in the requirements business back during the Bottom Up Review (BUR) that determined that our requirement had been reduced from 15 to 12 carriers. From my perspective as a lowly Navy Captain in the pentagon at the time, budget realaties were the driver. My mission was to figure out how to develop the requirement for 12 after it was determined that 12 would be the right answer. I did some magic in the quatro-pro spread sheet we used back then to calculate the requirement. Three deployed, one in overhaul, maintenance and training cycles, average of 50% home port time, and all the other factors, including “tether rules” were built into the calculations. Tether rules specified how far away from the theater a carrier could be and be considered “on station.” We just increased the tether distances until we got the right answer. In theory, as I recall, the carrier assigned to the Med could turnover to its replacement as they passed someplace this side of the mid Atlantic ridge when we were finished.
I agree completely with the comments regarding deployment length. In the end, when you get the mission you go do the mission regardless of how the requirement was developed. As the number of deployable carriers goes down, the length of deployments goes up and the time between deployments goes down. No complex calculations required to figure that out.
Congressman,
RobM, above is correct: That’s a pretty standard argument. And while SeaPower advocates recopgnize and support them, they don’t offer the public a defense of 11. In fact, you end up with the uneviable task Jim Suhr explains above: The minute we agree that “X” will do, we immediately are left defending that number, and why can’t we make do with one or 2 less assets…
Here’s your missing argument: 11 Carriers is already dangerously low – because it means we only have 3 carriers available at any time for deployment.
1 on station means 1 just being relieved, with the third beginning it’s pre-deployment work-ups.
That’s 9, with the other 2 either building or in RCOH for a total of 11.
Three, Congressman. You’re talking about 3 Carriers on station, not 11. That’s the point you need to make your detractors defend if you want to ensure we hold the line at 11 Hulls: Ten takes us to 2.