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Robert F. Dunn, Vice Admiral, U. S. Navy (Retired)
The Carriers Are the Wrong Targets
Whenever defense budgets are discussed, whenever defense expenditures are reviewed, whenever world tensions seem to ease, someone is certain to advocate a reduction in the numbers of the U. S. Navy’s aircraft carriers. Even General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s special adviser Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev has urged the United States to cut back on its aircraft carriers. Now, despite the fact that the large-deck aircraft carrier has repeatedly proved itself the most versatile, potent, and flexible instrument of conventional deterrence in the world today, Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney has joined Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), former Senator Gary Hart, and others by backing away from the country’s long-standing goal of 15 deployable carriers. Fourteen now is offered as an optimistic goal. Still more worrisome are reports of plans to reduce that number to 13 or fewer. Just how can the U. S. Navy meet this country’s defense commitments with that many aircraft carriers?
The short answer is: Not without real danger and great cost. Analysts may try to show that more can always be done with less; politicians may postulate and pontificate about other ways to do the job; special interest groups may come up with alternative ways to spend the dollars “saved” by cutting a carrier; and spokesmen of other armed services may offer their forces as substitutes for aircraft carrier battle groups on station. But the bottom line is that no other force can do the job the carriers can do.
In a curious twist, the fact that Soviet-induced tensions are subsiding may be generating the need for more carrier deployments. As the world perceives that the Soviets are tinkering less with peace and stability, the clamor to remove U. S. garrison forces from Europe and Asia will rise. Once those forces are removed—or even reduced—the only means available to ensure peace and stability and to support allies is sea power, in the form of aircraft carrier battle groups.
At any level less than 15 carriers, Soviet retrenchment notwithstanding, some national commitments will not be met, and some expectations will not be fulfilled. An ally or an alliance might be left unsupported. A theater commander might be told to wait his turn for carrier support, should multiple crises erupt. Endangered U. S. citizens on foreign soil might have to wait too long for rescue by forces coming from half a world away. Retaliation for terrorist acts might be delayed past the point of making sense. Without adequate U. S. forces on station, American influence in the world—and with it, peace and stability—could well erode, perhaps imperceptibly at first, but eventually beyond repair.
And that’s the bright side—with an orderly scaling down of commitments to match reductions in carrier force levels. It is much more likely that a smaller U. S. Navy will be ordered to meet all current expectations and new crises with empty guarantees of later relief, promises to Navy families and essential maintenance requirements notwithstanding. When this occurs, ships and aircraft deploy in poor conditions of material readiness, manned by crews of undertrained yet overworked people who have had little time at home. It is an insidious thing: The carriers and their air wings will do an outstanding job, and, for a while, they will sustain the pace. But sooner or later, the country will pay the price. There will be a precipitous drop in morale, an exodus of people, and a breakdown of equipment. The entire fleet will suffer a massive drop in readiness. It has happened before; it certainly can happen again.
So the stewards of the nation’s sea power, the leaders of the Navy, face a dilemma. On one hand, they are obligated to respond to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief and his subordinates in the National Command Authority whether or not they have sufficient resources to do so. On the other hand, when tasking perpetually exceeds the resources available, the entire carrier battle fleet will diminish in capability. There is no easy way out.
The time has come to reorder our defense priorities. These priorities are supposed to be aligned with a national strategy. Unfortunately, national strategy for the United States is seldom written down. Periodic calls for written strategy are met with vigorous agreement, but then little is ever done about it. The Bush administration made an attempt with the publication of “Discriminate Deterrence,” but that effort apparently lies on Washington desks and in Pentagon files—unread and certainly unacted upon. The potential political fallout is too much for politicians to handle, and the public seems to care less as long as things are “okay.” As a result, the only working strategy is the synthesis of force levels and deployment profiles that has evolved over the years. In other words, “We do it that way because we’ve always done it that way.” This stasis is hardened by the proclivity of Congress and the Department of Defense to divide the defense budget into roughly equal shares for the three military departments, with a growing share for defense agencies. It is a wonder that the armed forces have done as well as they have over the years.
For years, the nation has accepted as natural law that the United States must have a triad of systems for nuclear deterrence: land-based aircraft, land-based missiles, and sea-based missiles. This arrangement made sense at one time, but large, manned bombers have since become increasingly ineffective against modern air defenses. For a time, the characteristic of stealth may forestall the bomber’s demise as a worthwhile system, but it will never be as stealthy or have the staying power of the sea-based strategic missile system. At the same time, the sea-based strategic systems are at least as accurate as land-based systems. Yet, the nation continues to invest in obsolescent bombers and two land-based ballistic missile systems. The first reordering of defense priorities ought to include the cancellation of the B-2 and a decision to build only one land-based strategic missile.
The second reordering ought to call for acceleration of the inevitable removal of large numbers of garrison forces, Army and Air Force, from Europe and Asia. Unfortunately, Navy leaders cannot really speak out and have much influence on such issues, despite the merit of the case to be made. Instead, they are forced by politics and concern for their future usefulness to limit themselves to Navy priorities. But there are other things they can do. In fact, the resources needed to operate and maintain 15 aircraft carriers can be found today and in the foreseeable future within the Navy Department’s share of the shrinking budget. What is needed is a straightforward appraisal of the world situation, coupled with an estimate of the most likely employment of naval forces.
In such a process of appraisal and estimation, the fact emerges immediately that the Soviet Union does not pose the number-one conventional threat. Instead, it is apparent as we launch the 1990s that the most likely use of U. S. military forces will be in some yet-undefined Third World situation. The turmoil there is unending; since 1945, more than 16 million people have died as a result of conflict in the Third World. And since the end of World War II, the Navy and Marine Corps have engaged in every type of modem naval warfare save nuclear strike and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) in protecting U. S. interest. Since sea-based nuclear strike is the keystone of the nation’s nuclear deterrence, and in fact growing in importance as the other strategic nuclear systems become less viable, it would be foolhardy to look here for budget reductions. But ASW is another issue.
The only believable submarine threat to United States forces is the one posed by the Soviet Union, a nation beset with economic problems, which is paranoid about its own defense and becoming more and more preoccupied with restructuring its institutions. Other nations the United States is likely to confront—in either combat or near-combat—in the next 10 to 15 years have no nuclear submarine capability and only extremely limited diesel submarine capability. Yet, the U. S. Navy, many in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and large numbers in Congress continue to insist that ASW be the Navy’s number-one priority. Why? To hunt and kill a few old ex-Soviet Foxtrot subs kept by Gadhafi and Assad or a few ex-British diesels owned by some others? The Navy today has a first-rate ASW capability embarked in the carrier battle groups (CVBGs). The P-3 Orions and follow-on P-7s will continue to be orders of magnitude better than any other land-based ASW force in the world. Attack submarines augment the CVBG and land-based forces with stealth and unique sensor capabilities. Seabed systems, TAGOS ships, command centers, and intelligence networks tie it all together. And yet even more scarce dollars are budgeted to augment this extensive and expensive system, surely adequate as is until the turn of the century, and perhaps beyond.
These heavy investments in wide-area ASW force levels, systems, and sensors take away mightily from the conventional strike, antiair warfare, and amphibious warfare efforts that are essential to the most likely employment of the Navy and Marine Corps for the foreseeable future. ASW is important, but we have more than enough ASW forces now. On the other hand, we do not have enough aircraft carrier battle groups, and we are not spending enough on research and development (R&D) to be ready with state-of-the-art systems when the Soviets once again become players on the world scene. In their first reordering of priorities, Navy leaders must shift emphasis from wide-area ASW to CVBGs, amphibious capability, and R&D across the board.
Other reorderings are appropriate. Don’t buy Phoenix missiles, useful only where positive visual identification of a bogie is not required, as in fleet air defense against the Soviets. Buy R&D in the Advanced Air-to-Air Missile (AAAM) instead. Make similar decisions in surface and submarine programs, but don’t sacrifice people in budget drills. Instead, invest in people, their training, and their leadership potential. Work the marginal improvements in efficiency for all they’re worth. Continue to point out—at every turn, in every venue—that naval forces, particularly naval carrier battle groups, are carrying the load for the Department of Defense in every quarter of the world today.
If we bring our budgets in line with realistic priorities, if we invest in the future through focused R&D as much as possible, if we refuse to be stampeded into buying capabilities that are unlikely to be used anytime soon, if we honestly believe that the past is prologue—then we will see the utility of wide-area ASW diminish sharply in the coming years, and the Navy will find the means to maintain and operate the 15 carrier battle groups we need.
To do less is to fail in our stewardship and in our obligation to the taxpayers of the United States.
Admiral Dunn retired from the Navy six months ago after 38 years on active duty. He commanded the USS Saratoga (CV-60) and served most recently as the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare.
Channel Dash depicts the “Escape” of the battle
cruisers Shamhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen from Brest, France, on 11 February 1942. Their escort, on the 660-nautical mile journey to German ports, included 6 destroyers, 15 torpedo boats, 15 MTB's, and 250 fighter aircraft. General Galland, who was in command of the cover, considers this mission to be one of the proudest moments in his military career.
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