Jerry Hendrix and Noel Williams are friends of mine. Both are accomplished thinkers and analysts, and I tend to agree with them more often than not on mostly everything. The two have penned an article in the latest Proceedings, and Tom Barnett's picked it up and run with it through the blogosphere. In it, they become the latest advocates in a long line of honorable thinkers who believe the "supercarrier" has reached the end of its useful life, driven to its demise by its cost and its vulnerability. There is a lot of really good thinking in their work, but in the end, I am unpersuaded. I don't disagree, I'm just not willing to walk away from the "supercarrier". Yet.
Let's start with the concept of vulnerability. The team writes "Given very clear technology trends toward precision long-range strike and increasingly sophisticated anti-access and area-denial capabilities, high-signature, limited-range combatants like the current aircraft carrier will not meet the requirements of tomorrow’s Fleet." This raises a number of questions for me. First, how do they know the aircraft carrier will not meet the requirements of tomorrow's Fleet? How different is what they are saying about the vulnerability of the carrier than what was said about a panoply of Soviet threats, to include the AS-4, and a variety of high-speed maneuvering ASCM's--both of which were factored into the Navy's acquisition programs, giving us AEGIS, the SM family, and VLS? Where is the belief in our ability to effectively counter A2AD challenges? Is the Navy and Air Force "AirSea Battle" simply a PR effort?
Next, they write, "In addition, a series of poor acquisition decisions, beginning with the mismanagement and ultimate cancellation of the A-12 Avenger as the replacement aircraft for the A-6 Intruder deep-strike aircraft, have exacerbated the challenge to carrier efficacy. The resulting reduction in the combat-effective range of the carrier air wing from 1,050 to 500 nautical miles forces the carrier to operate closer to enemy shores even as anti-access systems would logically force the carrier farther seaward." If Hendrix and Williams wish to impugn the effectiveness and capability of our current Air Wing--then I'm on-board without reservation. Read Bob Work's 2008 CSBA report on Carrier Based Unmanned Systems and understand the trade-offs made between striking range (which used to be greater) and sortie generation rate (which now is at all time highs). But the carrier is simply a delivery device for airpower--an incredibly mobile, flexible, and persistent delivery device. Hendrix and Williams go to great lengths in their work to advocate unmanned systems, but the natural case for unmanned systems from CVN's (and from a carrier designed from the keel up for unmanned strike) is ignored.
Further to the subject of vulnerability is the following: " The U.S. National Command Authority would need to be facing a gravely extreme scenario to commit this sort of strategic asset, with a crew of 5,000 men and women." Why is it that we can deploy 130,000 ground troops in Iraq in 2003--with the (since disproved)--threat of chem-bio weapons, but 5000 Sailors are somehow too important to commit? If the issue is really cost alone, then I believe the amortized value of a CVN with a 40-50 year lifespan should receive a bit more emphasis than its acquisition cost.
Hendrix and Williams make a good case for a renewed emphasis on sea control by the US writing: "we must rebalance our Fleet to meet new sea-control missions while maintaining reasonable power-projection capabilities for the range of global threats we will encounter." I couldn't agree more, but I am left wondering why this isn't once again an AIRWING problem and not a Carrier problem? Nobody forced us to walk away from long range strike, ASUW and ASW from our CVN's--that was a choice--and it is a choice we can un-make.
In a bit of logic that I still can't get my arms around, they assert: "In such a new strategic environment, unmanned systems diminish the utility of the supercarrier, because her sea-control and power-projection missions can be performed more efficiently and effectively by other means." Unmanned systems diminish the utility of the supercarrier? I completely disagree. In fact, I believe unmanned systems should be the starting point of a whole new class of supercarrier, one built from the keep up to be a delivery platform for hundreds of unmanned surveillance and strike vehicles, launched recovered, re-armed, refueled and maintained through the use of an assembly line-like construct. Such a platform could could deliver a high-sortie rate of long range strike and surveillance platforms from outside the "keep out" zone.
The most interesting argument Williams and Hendrix make in their paper is where they advocate ceasing to build additional supercarriers and instead, devoting some or all of the resources to building additional LHA's. Estimating that 3 LHA's can be purchased for the price of 1 CVN, the authors envision a time in which the CVN's are kept in "reserve" or "surge" , while a multitudinous fleet of LHA's--some of which would have no rotorcraft (instead, embarking two squadron's of F-35's), do the primary business of reactive expeditionary airpower. Which leads to further question: If the CVN's are such sitting ducks, what makes the LHA's so much more survivable? With a CVN, the opportunity exists to have striking power and sea control power operating off of one deck--it is hard to see the same opportunity from an LHA. If the LHA's are going to take advantage of this emerging unmanned sea control revolution that Williams and Hendrix allude to, why couldn't CVN's do so too--only with SIGNIFICANTLY more striking power?
Additionally, Hendrix and Williams would have us stop building CVN's in part because of their airwing imposed "keep outs" (my words, not theirs). Yet the size and flexibility of the CVN gives it a MUCH better chance than the LHA of accommodating changes to an airwing that would mitigate that keep-out.
Finally, what of the industrial base? The authors would have us walk away from the building of supercarriers in favor of LHA's, as in their view, a given pot of money goes farther when applied to many, less capable ships. But what if the industrial base goes away, and we lose the capability to build nuclear supercarriers? What if Hendrix and Williams aren't right, and ELIMINATING a reasonably successful delivery vehicle for airpower turns out to be a poor choice? What would be the cost of trying to reconstitute that industrial base?
To conclude, it seems to me that we come around to this question of small carriers vs. big carriers every time money gets tight--and every time, big carriers win. I don't know why that is, but I'm willing to believe there is a ton of campaign analysis behind it. That said, the entire conversation is for me, emblematic of the ridiculous discussions ongoing these days about the defense budget, discussions that take it as a given that the Navy must spend less and get smaller. Reaching for my broken record player, I'm here to say that Seapower--with its land force (USMC) and its Air Force (Naval Air)--remains the most cost effective, powerful and flexible instrument of military force in the US inventory, and we ought to go down with an empty rhetorical magazine--fully advocating for growing Seapower at the expense of less useful elements of military power--before we start cannibalizing the Seapower we have.
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