There is no substitute: A century of America’s aircraft carriers
Asked in 2021 about the value of America’s aircraft carriers in confronting China in the Indo-Pacific, Adm. Philip Davidson, then the commander for that region, responded, “There is no capability that we have that can substitute for an aircraft carrier.”
Davidson’s sentiment is backed-up by a century of experience in wars hot, cold and now gray that began in 1922 with the U.S. Navy commissioning its first experimental and rather patchwork aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Langley. For nearly that long, carriers have had their critics. None have it right.
It’s been an amazing century for America’s aircraft carriers and naval aviation. For example, it was America’s carriers that turned the tide of the Pacific war during World War II. It was America’s carriers that were first responders in rescuing South Korea from a devastating invasion. It was America’s carriers that turned back Russian attempts to turn Cuba into a forward missile base to threaten America, it was America’s carriers that have captured and transported terrorists, and it was America’s carriers that blunted China’s attempt to influence democratic elections in Taiwan.
As the columnist George Will observed, ‘‘The Navy’s operations, on which the sun never sets, are the nation’s nerve endings, connecting it with the turbulent world,” and that “whoever the next president may be he or she will be acutely aware of where the carriers are.’’
Sometimes carriers fight, deter enemies and reassure allies during the same deployment. As an example, during its
2018 deployment, the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman launched punishing airstrikes against ISIS and then swung to support NATO deterrence against Russia in the Baltic and later in the Norwegian Sea, becoming the first carrier to operate in that region since the Cold War.
Now as Russia invades Ukraine and threatens NATO’s eastern flank, and while Iran continues its malign activities, the U.S.S. Truman is again at the forefront of reassurance and deterrence operations against the former while retaining the capability to operate against the latter.
The commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, best summed up the carrier’s utility in noting, “The beauty of the aircraft carrier is this. It has enormous offensive capability. It has enormous defensive capability. It has mobility. ... So we can move it around to present a completely changing potential threat to an adversary. So the carriers are ... very important to us.”
Perhaps no other region is in need of the flexibility that carriers provide than the Indo-Pacific. As former chief of Naval operations, Adm. John Richardson observed aircraft carriers are the “most survivable airfield” in that region. That message isn’t lost on the Chinese. Currently, the Chinese operate two aircraft carriers with a third under construction. As reported, the Chinese have built a mock-up of an American carrier in the Xinjiang region, underscoring the importance of the threat they attach to them.
Despite carriers’ record and value to warfighters, they have been criticized as obsolescing money drains. Such criticisms are as predictable as they are wrong. Wrong because the critics fail to recognize the carrier’s key attributes. Foremost among these is that aircraft carriers are open-architecture technology hubs that are readily adaptable to new aircraft and systems including those that are uncrewed as recently demonstrated aboard the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush.
Similarly, America’s oldest carriers are being adapted to operate stealth fighter jets — aircraft not even on the drawing boards when the ships were designed decades ago. Indeed, carriers have always been adaptive to emerging technology thus providing a huge return on investment.
Further, carriers are exquisitely mobile, able to traverse approximately 70% of the Earth’s surface, and are scalable whether engaging in disaster relief, diplomacy, deterrence, or if necessary, bringing hard, combat power. Critics have also raised carriers’ vulnerability to hypersonics. Again, the critics have it wrong. Defense in depth, mobility, and the ability to host the latest systems will allow carriers to beat hypersonics. Alternatively, are fixed land bases any less vulnerable to hypersonics? Well no. Moreover, the Chinese plainly haven’t gotten the memo that carriers are inconsequential.
Today the international order that America helped shape in the ashes of World War II is threatened by despots who make their own law through force. Commenting on the importance of having independent checks on governments’ unrestrained power to make law, Margaret Thatcher stated, “That’s why we don’t just call it law, we call it a rule of law.” Instead of the rule of law, China, Russia, Iran and their ilk threaten to substitute an international order based on their cult of might makes right.
America’s carriers, including the newest Ford class, are vital to meeting this threat. Summarizing the continuing need for aircraft carriers, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin noted recently that he’d like to have a carrier “in every spot in the world.” Indeed.