Carriers Sail On

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^^e°Ple have predicted the end of both the ⁽⁾rld and the aircraft carrier since the end World War II. But, ironically, new capa­cities and new threats have enhanced the ^ase for large-deck, nuclear-powered carri- .^{rs su}ch as the new Theodore Roosevelt and ^er new air wing.

.ebates about the future of the carrier battle group J seem to be inevitable. Success in obtaining ap­proval for Nimitz (CVN-68)-class carriers (CVN- 5) in 1979, 1983, and 1987 demonstrated Congress’s '^0rt for the program, yet many of the questions about ^ler utility asked in Congress in 1987 and 1988 were the _1SS(j^{e as} those posed in 1977-79. After decades of debate, b_a ^es like the relative cost of sea-based air power, land- _stri,. alternatives, carrier vulnerability, and the limited ^'ⁿg power of the carrier still rear their accusing heads. \vj„^esP'^te the procurement successes, it appears that we be_c ^{S6e anot}her round of the debate in the 1990s, not least _Sev^ause decisions will soon have to be made regarding the Ig^¹¹ conventional carriers, built in seven years in the y_e ^{s an}d 1960s, that will need to be replaced between the i_{s u}^s.2001 and 2010.¹ Although the Bush administration km | ^e*y ^t0 seek to reduce the Navy’s carrier force con- 'ⁿ 1977-78, some debate is certain. The Navy ^v_aiij^a§^a'ⁿ have to demonstrate that its arguments are still te_cu ' ^he time may also have come to demonstrate that pr₀ ⁿ°l°gy and politics are developing in ways that im- ^ ^e the case for the carrier.

V^Cehn0l°gy ^ar|d the world military balance appear to be . ⁿ§ in favor of the large carrier. One recurring charge ar_e k.^r'^s °f aircraft. In fact, only 57 nations (18 of which th_e Cif) ^ ^or Warsaw Pact powers) now operate more than ^r‘^ed k ^COml:)at aircraft (F-14s, F/A-18s, and A-6Es) car- _h^{y 0n}e U. S. Navy carrier. Only 23 nations (ten of '■av_e ^are S. allies or neutral states such as Sweden) ^l'^ve]y^1Tl0re ^an f^0. Modern combat aircraft remain rela- V ^rare- Only seven nations outside NATO and the m ^ Pact operate or have on order 60 or more aircraft 0^ yl'G-29/F-15/F/A-18/Tornado/Mirage-2000 class.² ’°o f ^he °ther hand arguments for small carriers provide ^s0r^_e ^ aircraft, and too incapable a mix, to deal with 5,!' diese Third World air forces. Libya, for example, *t_hi , combat aircraft; Syria 448; North Korea 800; and P'^a 150.³ Larger carriers should, however, still be viable against such air forces given the carrier’s advantage in numbers of current-generation aircraft. Two or three Nimitz-class air wings should be adequate for dealing with most threats. This trend appears likely to continue. While a small number of air forces are buying large numbers of modern fighters, most are buying relatively fewer, the re­sult being that the gap between those countries that can only afford 8, 12, 24, or 48 modern fighters and carrier air wings flying 60 each will, if anything, widen further.

This trend appears to be true of other weapons as well. The proliferation of ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, antiship missiles, coastal submarines, and novel threats such as small, fast launches all pose a threat to naval forces that are deployed without adequate air cover. The low-threat environment has become an endangered spe­cies. Although air power was not always available, recent successes of carrier aircraft in dealing with the Libyan and Iranian navies demonstrated convincingly the fate of a one-dimensional navy confronted by a three-dimensional one. Multiple large carrier battle groups supported by their own electronic warfare aircraft should be able to deal with most threats in the foreseeable future.

In the 1986 Libya operation, most targets were attacked by Navy carrier aircraft with other naval fighters providing support for U. S. Air Force operations. This may set a pattern for future cooperation, particularly if the require­ment is again to be able to put a heavy tonnage of bombs on a range of targets in the course of one short, night attack. The Strategic Air Command’s (SAC) current thinking about the importance of conventionally armed bombers and the Soviets’ interest in using their navy for strategic air defense suggest a very profitable avenue to explore and an entire range of missions that may fall to U. S. Navy carriers as the Navy and SAC build up their capability to implement the options required under the dis­criminating deterrence strategies suggested in 1987.⁴

The advantages carrier aircraft have compared to most of their land-based opponents will increase if the United States can deploy more of its technological advantage as called for under the competitive strategies approach.⁵ Slowing the development of the new in favor of the old (beyond a certain point) would be a decidedly false econ­omy. The introduction of the Air Force advanced tactical fighter (ATF) and the Navy A-12 advanced tactical aircraft should destroy the numbers argument by providing an unmatchable increase in the capability of the few versus the many. Stealth will pose major problems for the Soviet air forces, but against the rest of the world’s armed forces the advantage should be even greater. If stealth technology is exported only to the United States’s closest allies, other air forces are likely to find themselves in an impossible situation. Against a force they cannot see, most of the world’s fighters and ground defenses will be reduced to the position of blind hunters looking for deadly and fully sighted prey in a vast landscape.

The competitive strategy should produce other advan­tages. If countermeasures prove as difficult as anticipated to develop or afford and are not exported, other technolo­gies should also serve to widen the gap. The difficulties experienced by the United States with the ALQ-137/161/ 165 electronic countermeasures (ECM) programs suggest that few nations will be able to follow. The combination of night vision equipment, stealth, ECM, and new electro­optical countermeasures technology seems to offer the potential to operate when the enemy cannot, to be invisi­ble, and to blind and otherwise jam his acquisition and weapon systems if by luck opposing fighters or antiaircraft

al'

Emerging technologies can only add to the carriers’ pre­sent value. The V-22 (top) could enhance fleet AAW and ASW capabilities; replacing the Phoenix air-to-air missile (above) with the AAAM (right bottom) will increase fighter payloads; and autonomously guided standoff mis­siles such as Tomahawk (right top) have greatly improved fleet strike capabilities.

systems should locate U. S. naval aircraft.

Improvements in U. S. weapon systems should also enhance carrier firepower in absolute and relative terms. The introduction of the advanced medium-range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM) will enable fighters to carry more medium-range missiles, engage more targets at once, and enjoy once again a real range advantage over enemy air­craft, the latter resulting from the AMRAAM’s range and the fact that its active homing will allow the launching aircraft to turn away after firing instead of having to pro­ceed forward into the opponent’s missile range. The even­tual introduction of the advanced air-to-air missile (AAAM) to replace the long-range AIM-54 Phoenix mis­sile should have even more impact. Less weight will allow more missiles per fighter, changing the calculus of patrol- ing fighters versus attacking bombers. Even an increase from four AIM-54s to eight AAAM (15 have been sug-

gested as a maximum) would be very important -             .

lowed every pair of fighters on combat air patrol to eng^a- 16 targets rather than eight.⁶           . _st

The scope for thickening fighter defenses ag^a bomber and missile attack is enormous. Current sug£^_f tions that the AAAM could be carried by aircraft ⁰ j than the F-14 and ATF, i.e., the F/A-18, A-6, A-12- . perhaps even the P-3C and its follow-on, would ^a ^ available air-defense air power to be increased by f^aC _Q{ of four compared to current capabilities. Proliferating long-range air-to-air missiles around the carrier air ^ and beyond should also create exciting new deploy^ j_C options with all the consequential tactical and stra advantages. If we add to this the impact of in^cre^ ^ numbers of Aegis systems in defense of the fleet an j, future possibility of even better surface-to-air missd^t is clear that few air forces are likely to pose a sign¹ danger to the carrier battle group. Though the Sovi^et air arm and Soviet Air Force will still pose a real t ^ most other air forces will likely follow the exampl^e 0 jy Libyan and Iranian air arms and remain reso grounded.

Technology also offers a riposte to those who ^ar£^ue^_ec- 10-20 A-6Es have too little firepower to provide an ^e J tive strike capability. The deployments of the high'^s’

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°^^er few vital targets. The key systems of developed na-

“s,

Posts,

communications links, bases, and industrial com-

Cruj ^su^vive a couple of hits from a submarine-launched

■jti-radiation missile (HARM), standoff land-attack mis- *^e (SLAM), Tomahawk long-range cruise missile, and tQ^Clt,^^a*ⁿbow anti-radiation missile offer new capabilities ^ strike farther and with more effect. Future deployment ^autonomously guided weapons and new generations of ^andoff missiles and bombs will magnify this effect. °dern nations may prove exceptionally vulnerable to the ^Ss °f a few key installations while developing states may

'^0ns- such as electricity generation, radars, command _fo^exes, should still provide a finite number of aimpoints new air-to-ground missiles. Libya, on the other ■ provided only five targets in 1986. Though some

^'ch ^IT'*^SS*'^e (SLCM) or 2,000-pound bomb. In an age in is, ^lntelligence systems know where every fixed target their ^attacking weapons know where they and where _VP*y's, 20 U. S. Navy attack aircraft are likely to be •| ^ ^taan enough deterrent to any leader.

% Evolution in offensive weapon accuracies strength­en^ ^{6 Case} ^^or the carrier as a floating air base. Although 0v_er ^lscussion of land-based aircraft vulnerability has Of t_a^.^atec* ^lhe threat, the development of weapons capable qu_es,-^lng ^out individual hardened aircraft shelters poses Oi^y ⁽’^ns about the future of land-based aircraft. Dispersal °^w many to survive, but in areas where alternate decj(j ® ^strips are not available, airfields could become my threatened places. In a contest between land­based air limited to known locations and mobile sea-based air, the rise of the “brilliant” standoff munition may bring an important shift in favor of the latter.

Other developments may make the carriers more surviv- able and increase their chances against the threat. Aircraft commonality, for example, would be a welcome develop­ment. Should the ATF and ATA be used by both the Navy and the Air Force, a range of tactical and strategic oppor­tunities would become available. Tactically, aircraft could be deployed from shore to sea and vice versa to meet re­quirements for changes in carrier force structure or to get aircraft within reach of their targets. In a strategic sense, airframe commonality would greatly improve the ability of the United States to maintain sorties throughout a long war. If land bases were overrun and carrier aircraft suf­fered attrition in early campaigns, surviving Air Force air­craft could be deployed to continue the war from surviving carriers. The capability to fight a long war, and the deter­rent effect that might have, would also be improved if current plans to replace conventionally powered carriers with nuclear-powered ones proceed. Some or all of the conventionally powered ships could go into reserve, pro­viding an improved ability to replace combat losses.

The deployment of the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft represents another opportunity to open new strategic op­tions. If the Osprey enters service with U. S. special oper­ations forces and the Marine Corps, it will vastly increase naval capabilities to deal with lower intensity combat— the most immediate threat facing the West for the next few decades. Possible antisubmarine and airborne early warn­ing variants of the Osprey look very promising. The fact that the proposed antisubmarine SV-22 could be forward deployed on amphibious ships, forward strips, and per­haps some escorts and merchantmen allows a number of new options. Ospreys could be deployed far forward of the fleet, working from bases that do not reveal the location of the parent carrier and providing antiair and antisubmarine defenses in even greater depth than currently available. The Osprey might also allow ASW functions to be de­volved back to smaller carriers or other units to which the Ospreys could be assigned, allowing additional fighter and attack aircraft to take the places of carrier S-3 aircraft.

There may also be some potential to exploit further the Navy’s ability to “hide” the carrier. Money spent on stra­tegic deception programs is money well spent. Tracking a nuclear-powered carrier that can move 700 miles a day may prove difficult for the most sophisticated opponent, but it will clearly be impossible for most nations. Better carrier defenses and over-the-horizon targeting should deny most opponents any opportunities to target U. S. carriers; over-the-horizon radars and the remotely piloted vehicles being evaluated will clearly be important. Wide- scale deployment of SLCMs not only deters nuclear at­tacks on the fleet, but vastly increases the number of units the enemy must keep under surveillance. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) may offer an additional shield, even in its early phases. Should the Navy decide that satel­lite surveillance poses a severe threat, there appear to be a number of early SDI weapons that could destroy adversar­ies’ satellites.⁷

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^ln8s / June 1989

59

All of this will, of course, be expensive, particularly when the $21 billion naval ship construction (SCN) bud­gets promised in the early 1980s have shrunk to $9-11 billion budgets in the late 1980s.⁸ Current proposals to build one carrier every three years from fiscal year 1996, however, do not seem extravagant.⁹ This will entail about $1.2 billion a year, comparable to the Trident program, which should by then have been completed. Carriers will still have to serve for 45 years and longer, continually demonstrating just how much carrier procurement funds do buy. It may be that frozen budgets will not even pro­vide $10-11 billion for ship construction by the year 2000 as operations costs rise in real terms, but the argument will not be whether 15 or 12 carriers will be adequate. $table defense budgets have far more serious implications than those who talk about reducing carrier numbers by one or two seem to appreciate. A budget that cannot procure one carrier is actually going to provide nothing to all of the forces.

Just how far real cuts in U. S. defense capabilities will go and what the outcome of any subsequent defense de­bate will be lies, of course, in the hands of the executive and legislative branches. However, some external factors are likely to intervene that will strengthen the Navy’s case in strategic terms.

Any review of defense policy in the 1990s is unlikely confine itself to one scenario. The Army and Air For^ct- have improved their situations since 1977, and the M*¹¹^ time Strategy has offered a complimentary naval case- now appears that once again all the services are prepare to stress short war requirements, if for no other reason than to rationalize defense procurements. Explaining h°" the Air Force might be forced to relax its sustainabin) requirements, the Secretary of the Air Force told the S^en ate Armed Services Committee in 1988: “It makes abs^ lutely no difference if you have 30 days or 60 d^ay^s, jo supplies when you are sitting at the channel on day 15-. Any review of U. S. defense priorities, which must iⁿ elude peacetime power projection needs, will almost d' tainly seek some alternative to being marooned at channel on day 15.

In fact, any such review will find a pretty compreb^e sive argument supporting the maintenance of 15 can battle groups. Such a fleet offers deployment options ^ avoid difficulties with allies and might prove le^sS calatory than deploying land or air units directly int°

given warning. Indeed, the commitment to provide with ten divisions in ten days by air is still, *ⁿ

front line. It offers options to pose threats in crises action short of nuclear escalation in any short ^v' short, conventional, European scenario does not against naval deterrent gestures to deter the war fron¹^ ing. Nor does it preclude navies from having an in* _r on the outcome. Nor does it remove the need for rein ^ ment, particularly if the threat of a bolt-from-the-b ^a j, tack recedes. Navies can still deploy armies

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