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The Pro-Carrier Argument the Navy Cannot Make

September 28, 2015

The U.S. Navy is deterred from making a more robust argument for the utility of the aircraft carrier by charges of stoking inter-service rivalry and antagonizing China. This needs to stop.

As it has been throughout its tenure as the center of Navy force structure, the aircraft carrier’s value and effectiveness are increasingly being challenged. The RAND Corporation released a study last week that (among other things) pointed to a mounting number of Chinese threats to the aircraft carrier and questioned continued U.S. emphasis on carriers in war planning.

Criticisms of the value of the carrier in high-end warfare — the kind that would be waged against China (and the kind studied by RAND) — raise important questions about its utility and effectiveness. These are questions that the Navy has been slow to answer and ineffective where it has tried. The effect is that the rhetorical battlefield has been ceded to carrier critics, who make little attempt to contest the Navy on the ground (or seas) where the Navy prefers to fight. For example, pointing to 54 days of carrier airpower being the nation’s only available strike option against the Islamic State in the summer of 2014 has been the Navy’s recent stock-in-trade answer to those who denigrate the carrier. Yet critics rarely attack the carrier on its ability to respond to crises in the littorals against weaker opponents, as its utility for these sorts of operations is self-evident. Critics prefer to raise questions about the carrier’s effectiveness in conflict with China and its anti-access/area-denial capabilities. There exists a strong and logical argument for the carrier’s role in conflict with China that has not yet been made.

That the Navy’s response to this more effective line of criticism has been muted is not illogical. Rather, it is the wholly foreseeable result of the two important foundational pillars of American national security: civilian control of the military, and jointness. While both pillars add great strength to our national security, their impact paradoxically handcuffs the Navy from making its most effective pro-carrier arguments in the public and unclassified sphere.

First, let’s consider civilian control of the military. It is clear that the Obama administration has pursued a careful policy of attempting to seek common ground with China where our interests are aligned, even as it raises questions about some of China’s more aggressive and less cooperative behaviors in the Western Pacific. There is wisdom in this approach, and time will tell how successful it will be. However, it is clear that talking in a direct and public manner about conventional conflict with China is discouraged. In recent years, Department of Defense officials routinely sought to assure the general public (and China) that the “Air-Sea Battle” concept was not aimed at any one particular country. This played out as evidence mounted of China’s growing focus on neutralizing U.S. advantages in maritime and aerospace power. Also reflective of this approach was an exchange former Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert had at the U.S. Naval War College “Current Strategy Forum” in June 2014, in which he warned a questioner seeking a dialogue on deterring China that such a discussion might “unnecessarily antagonize” that nation.

If discussions of conventional deterrence are seen as unnecessarily antagonizing, what then are discussions of how to fight and win conventional war with China? And if the discussion of how to fight and win such a war has a central place for the aircraft carrier, suppression of the conversation only reinforces the volume and effectiveness of carrier criticisms that do not recognize such a place.

On October 8, the Hudson Center for American Seapower will release a study entitled “Sharpening the Spear: The Carrier, the Joint Force, and High-End Conflict” at an event on Capitol Hill. In this report, my colleagues Timothy Walton, Seth Cropsey, and I make the argument that the Navy cannot make in a public and unclassified form: Conventional war with China is not likely to be deterred, contested, or — most importantly — won without a significant contribution by the nation’s carrier force. The report lays out not only the continuing importance of classic carrier contributions to sea control and scouting, but also argues that in the context of a conventional war with China, carrier-based naval aviation may in fact be the primary surviving element of American tactical airpower to support operations in the Western Pacific. The logic of this claim is what leads to the second roadblock to the Navy making this argument, and that is jointness.

For if naval aviation ends up being the primary method of providing tactical airpower en masse to the U.S. military and allied forces, questions arise about what has happened to U.S. Air Force land-based assets. We found that while the Air Force will continue to provide critical portions of the total airpower the joint force requires, current trends in enemy threats and the absence of meaningful, large-scale Air Force airbase resiliency measures suggest it will be hard-pressed to provide crucial tactical air support forward, where many first island chain bases have been effectively neutralized. Simply put, if you believe the carrier is vulnerable, then you must concede that those air bases are even more vulnerable. The carrier can move and evade, the airbases cannot. Our analysis demonstrates Air Force airpower is essential in terms of not only bombers and tankers, but also fighters; that said, current trends suggest naval airpower may play an increasingly important role that complements Air Force contributions.

Raising and reinforcing this point would open the Navy to charges of service rivalry and insufficient jointness, neither of which is considered career-enhancing these days. Yet thinking about war with China and how it can be waged raises and illuminates a strong case for continuing to build large, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers — ships that provide credible presence and deterrence and that would prove critical to war termination.

In essence, the Navy is prevented by law and custom from providing for wide consumption its most effective line of argument for continuing to build aircraft carriers. And so arguments that denigrate the increased sortie capability of the Ford class over its predecessor — arguments that question whether any future fight would make use of these sorties — go unanswered in the context of where those sorties would make a difference. And arguments that question the size and expense of the Ford while suggesting that smaller, conventionally powered amphibious aviation platforms would be sufficient go unanswered by contextual counterarguments that point to those ships’ meager weapons storage capabilities and the logistics strain such ships would place on an already brittle logistics chain.

This is not an argument against either civilian control of the military or jointness; it is, however, a warning that both contribute to an impoverished debate in which one side is free to raise all manner of threats to the aircraft carrier wielded by China, while the Navy must content itself with generalized statements of value in high-end warfighting and specific historical vignettes against lesser actors. The authors of the Hudson study find this troubling.

 

Bryan McGrath is the Deputy Director of the Hudson Center for American Seapower and the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group.

 

Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery

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13 thoughts on “The Pro-Carrier Argument the Navy Cannot Make”

  1. Excellent piece. You’re probably right about CVW contributions. I wonder if a similar level of analysis will be brought to bear on air base defense questions. Hopefully the recent RAND report will tee that discussion off.

  3. I would say this. The same argument about the main battle tank happened years ago. Especially in the urban environment , arguments were made after the a Russian armored armored battalion in Chechnya was destroyed. It is not a matter of it being obsolete it’s more of being used correctly. It applies to the Carrier use it pin enemy assets and keep him off balance. A main battle tank or a Carrier is a chess piece use it correctly is key to dominate the battlefield.

  4. I think the Navy COULD discuss issues like war with China more clearly and focus the efforts of the service. This would not cross the line with civilian control and would be entirely in line with a focus on executing requirements of regional combatant commands and organize, train, and equip. However, with an eye toward promotions, most choose not to. Jim Fannel is one of the few exceptions. A commensurate problem is when officers dress up and play diplomat instead of focusing on preparing their forces to fight.

  5. I share his angst. But it’s possible to make the case for carrier utility in a high-end conventional war without limiting the putative adversary to China. That doesn’t mean ignoring the latter scenario, just acknowledging that it’s only one of several.

  6. A fascinating and thought provoking analysis concerning the Navy’s potential operational and tactical capabilities, especially when conducting operations in an A2Ad environment.

    As in the ASW world, the Navy’s capabilities for combatting shore based defensive capabilities such as the DF-21D (which to my understanding has never been tested against ships at sea, but merely against fixed drawings in desert sand) are necessarily shrouded in secrecy. That prevents your opponents from knowing and understanding your capabilities, thus hopefully precluding their adjusting their systems to maneuver around your search, detection, and deflection or destruction abilities.

    The previous CNO occasionally noted in public forums that defending against and penetrating an A2AD defensive environment amounts primarily to warfare in the Electro-magnetic spectrum – which term and environment is not well understood (or not understood at all) by most. Conceptually, many (if not most) people visualize firing a missile against a far distant moving target in the same manner they do a sniper (with all their difficulties) shooting at a target or conceptualize the firing of a DF-21D type missile as similar to a Cruise Type Missile being fired at and hitting a building. In fact, those firing environment bear no resemblance to the search, communications, detection, and targeting environment that an A2AD missile must operate to obtain and hit a moving target. The layers of electronic and other transmissions that a DF-21D capability must employ to successfully conduct its mission leave it vulnerable to substantial opportunities for electronic and other technology based interceptions, deflection, and / or destruction – using (electronic, sound, heat, and other) technological methodologies that will not (and cannot) be revealed to the public.

    It is not necessarily important for the Navy to communicate those capabilities to the public, any more than it is to communicate to the public how we currently can locate and protect against or destroy Diesel-Electric powered Submarines. However, that capability can be addressed with Congress in Classified Briefings, and if it has not, the Navy should so be doing.

    As to the concern for conducting a conventional war against the Chinese, first, it simply is not going to occur. Nuclear Armed Powers do not enter into conflict with one another for all the obvious reasons. If they do enter into conflict with one another, they do so using proxies in other lands – which occurs all to often as we are currently observing in the Middle East. Second, if one wants to War Game a conventional war with China, then one shouldn’t presume World War II type operations such as Land or Carrier based aircraft attacks or amphibious assaults would be conducted against that Nation. Those would produce limited results at best – if not be suicidal. We have submarines whose torpedoes could cut off China’s trade and resource receipt from the rest of the World and we have missiles with conventional warheads that could destroy their oil refining and pipeline capabilities and other facets of their economy. U.S. forces could use those capabilities to literally cut their communication with the rest of the world. Their ports could be mined, the air traffic brought to a halt, the electronic communications all but ground to a halt, etc.

    A World War II definition of warfare and strategic success should not and will not be used to guide operational matters in future conflicts. Our aim would be to appropriately define and secure strategic success. We must remove the World War II thinking straight jacket, at the strategic level, to which we seem to continue to be bound. If the U.S. wants to plan to conduct military operations on the Asian Continent, then our Flag Officers, Generals, and Diplomats should put the European Warfare Style Clausewitzian philosophies and read and “understand” Sun Tzu and the other Chinese (Asian) philosophers of War that followed him. Otherwise we will not know our enemy (as is obvious) and we will continue to strategically fail.

    1. We could do all those things you mention but it would be suicidal. China will not accept further humiliation from Western powers, even if they know they will lose, they will fight, and hard. Their tactical situation is plain, they will attack our assets with hundreds or even thousands of missiles from dispersed sites. Our only options will be to respond with nuclear, or to withdraw. It would be difficult to confront China in a proxy war as they have very few external allies they would feel forced to defend. You are absolutely right about the need to shed the WW2 thinking. If there is a major war coming it will almost certainly quickly escalate to nuclear, and even a limited nuclear exchange will be incredibly damaging. In such a war the preemptive move will be critical, this is what makes the tense standoffs between the minor nuclear powers (Israel/Iran, Iran/Saudi Arabia, India/Pakistan) so threatening, for them the first strike is all important.

  8. I don’t believe the Navy can’t make the pro-carrier argument. It’s already part of base force structure and really needs no continuing rhetoric. The carrier-alternative discussions highlight the point that most contingencies require a slightly different carrier configuration: some fixed and rotary winged aircraft; some troops; some landing craft/logistics capabilities. In a high-end fight, the big deck carrier option could be questioned, but more from an operational basis. Like with no possibility of a WW2 style win, with some kind of neutral settlement being the best outcome (think Korean War). So how many carriers are in the vanguard may not be as critical. After all, starting a fight with China is one thing; believing you can win without a land invasion (which, as Korea demonstrated) is quite another. So, I rather like the open discussion.

  9. An interesting piece with much merit. Three points of disagreement or caution though.

    There is a difference between acknowledging the utility of an aircraft carrier in a high-end war and believing that our current carrier force can fight forward in seas close to and heavily dominated by enemy anti-access forces. In 1942, the utility of the carrier was self-evident and our force of carriers essential to reversing the course of the war against Japan, but it could not have stood off the Japanese home islands for any length of time without being sunk. The balance of overall forces was simply not in our favor. Ditto sustained operations against the more significant Japanese bases. Given the size of our current – and likely future – carrier force compared to the rate at which China is expanding its own anti-access forces, I see a similar dynamic playing out.

    Apart from increases to the number of our carriers, the air wing must be upgraded and/or augmented by UAVs, while longer-range aircraft are also essential. Increased sortie capability depends on pilot endurance and the range at which the mission is to be performed. If you need to fly 800 nm with tanker support, your effective sortie rate is going to be set by the number of aircraft you have, and the length of the mission. How fast you can turn around jet on the flight deck is not going to be that important if the overall mission is going to take 8+ hours. Meanwhile, a smaller air wing – and the air wings on the carriers right now are significantly smaller than their Cold War counterparts – means that losses will have a major effect on operations. This has nothing to do with capability compared to the Cold War air wing, it has to do with capability compared to the adversary’s forces. The ships are large enough to support more planes; those planes should be provided.

    ASW remains a major weakness. Historically, numbers matter greatly in ASW. China’s submarine fleet continues to increase in numbers. Unless the appropriate screening force is constructed, and unless it is also sufficient to screen underway replenishment forces, there will be a significant weakness.

  10. This really smacks of ‘hand tied behind our back,’ or more bluntly, ‘a stab in the back’ rhetoric, reminiscent of post 1975 Vietnam and WWI Germany respectively.
    The problems:
    -If there was a serious effort at contesting littoral carrier operations, even just harassing small craft, this wouldn’t be a ‘stock-n-trade’ answer to carrier critics. Instead, further unneeded proof carriers can conduct airstrikes in permissive littoral environments against poorly armed and trained enemies .

    – As well, more unneeded proof carriers can conduct operations in permissive littoral environments against marginal threats to ‘global security,’ that local allies/clients were more than capable of dealing with. The US subsidizes the armed forces of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Israel to varying degrees.

    – McGrath and the carrier crowd have yet to specifically identify exactly what short range, tactical aircraft from (a) carrier(s) would be attacking on the PRC’s mainland in the event of conflict. To be fair though, a lot of proponents haven’t, beyond vague rumblings of ‘sea control’ and ‘kicking down the door’ with regard to the PRC’s air defense systems and offensive missile systems.

    – Still unclear about how airstrikes on the PRC’s mainland aren’t going to result in a nuclear retaliation. Likewise, impossible to envision a simultaneous PRC attack on air bases in South Korea, Japan, and possibly even Guam or (in the future) the Philippines, without resulting in a nuclear response. Unless the carrier crowd is anxious to revisit using the carrier as a nuclear attack platform? Are they really this desperate in proving how ‘useful’ they are?

    – Most perplexing of all: if McGrath spent a fraction of the amount of time he spends pontificating about carriers, on a more widely re-distributive tax system in the US- bluntly taxing the crap out of rich folk- they’d have enough for both a universal healthcare system AND probably twenty aircraft carrier battle groups. Instead we get the stabbed in the back ‘if only those pentagoners would let us be more frank about the PRC,’ instead of realization that the very same ‘free market’ capitalist buttressing so many oligarchs both within the USA and PRC, explicitly prevents the two from more than just threatening noises.

  11. It’s true that the utility of the carrier fleet has been under attack by some critics for as long as I can remember–which is a pretty long time. It’s also true that we maintain by far the largest carrier fleet on the planet and continue to build new carriers, with a new Ford class about to be launched. So, while the Navy may well be hamstrung in making the pro-carrier argument in public, it seems nonetheless to be carrying the day here. Meanwhile, the Army and Marine Corps are suffering massive cuts to personnel after having born the brunt of more than a decade of war.

  12. I dont understand why people react to a new ‘A2/AD’/Sea Denial weapon system by saying we should just abandon carreir aviation. That just seems ludicrous to me. The notion that our response to the DF-21D should be not building more carriers is, imo, not only extremely alarmist – dare I say defeatist – but hands the PLA a significant strategic victory without a shot being fired. The TU-22M and AS-4 were ‘game changers’ in 1970, but did that mean carrier’s were no longer viable in a conflict with the Soviet Union?