The United States emerged as a global superpower in the international geopolitical scene during the 20th century, and remains a global superpower—with global interests—at the conclusion of the first decade of the 21st century. To underscore that, President Barack Obama used the word “global” (and several derivatives) 184 times over the course of 52 pages in the 2010 National Security Strategy.1 Additionally, the document says that “The United States must renew its leadership in the world by building and cultivating the sources of our strength and influence. Our national security depends upon America’s ability to leverage our unique national attributes, [emphasis added] just as global security depends upon strong and responsible American leadership.”2
The range, speed, persistence, and flexibility offered by naval aviation throughout the global domains of human interaction—land, maritime, air, and cyber—represent a “unique national attribute” that must be preserved and leveraged to ensure America’s national security into the 21st century.
There is a wide variation of historical theory and opinion in defining the key attributes that elevate a nation to “great power” or “superpower” status.3 However, it is generally accepted that the sailing ship revolutionized global commerce and security by enabling the rapid transport of large quantities of people and matériel—whether for commercial or military purposes—across the maritime domain. The coal-fired (and subsequently oil-fired) steamship accelerated that trend to the point that today, 90 percent of the world’s commerce flows through the maritime domain.
Hence, since the days of sail, empirical observation seems to indicate that putting a strong navy to sea has been a key element in attaining and sustaining great-power status (including superpower status). In the World War II era, think of the United States, United Kingdom, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan; the United States and Soviet Union provide the preeminent examples for the Cold War era. During the early years of this century, the People’s Republic of China and India have exhibited aspirations of bolstering their international standings through ambitious naval buildups—including big-deck aircraft carriers with jet-powered, fixed-wing aviation complements.
The Impact of Naval Aviation
The advent of naval aviation in the early 20th century extended the influence of navies into the air domain. Additionally, naval aviation multiplied—at first by a factor of approximately three, and now by a factor exceeding ten—the speed and operational reach by which navies deliver effects across those domains. The effective speed of oceangoing ships (be they commercial or military) remains relatively unchanged since the introduction of steam power; 30 knots continues to be the upper limit of the “sweet spot” in naval architecture. However, fixed-wing naval aircraft routinely operate at 300 knots and are capable of much higher speeds, increasing the range vs. time equation of military operations by that ten-plus factor.
The M/V Maersk Alabama piracy crisis in the Indian Ocean in the spring of 2009 perfectly illustrated the value of naval aviation’s speed; the first element of national power the United States could bring to bear to protect the lives of its citizens embarked in the Maersk Alabama was a U.S. Navy maritime patrol plane. That aircraft—despite the fact that it was based 750 miles from of the incident—arrived on-scene eight hours prior to the next responding asset, and allowed operational commanders to gather critical information to inform the decision-making cycle that ultimately resulted in the rescue of an American hostage by naval special warfare forces operating from a guided-missile destroyer.
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and her embarked air wing provide the capstone illustration of the range, speed, persistence, and flexibility of naval aviation. A single carrier and her air wing have the capability and capacity to project precise kinetic and non-kinetic effects into the land, maritime, air, and cyber domains in a radius of action exceeding 600 miles for months at a time, as has been done in Afghanistan for the past decade. However, in a nod to their flexibility, those same aircraft carriers have also been the first responders in a number of catastrophic natural disasters over the past decade, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, 2010 Haitian earthquake, and Japanese tsunami in 2011 and the subsequent nuclear emergency.
In each of those natural disasters, the maritime port and ground transportation infrastructure was rendered unusable by damage and debris, leaving air transport as the sole means of distributing relief supplies. The speed and range of naval helicopters—transported to the scene on board big-deck carriers and amphibious ships—met the need, rapidly delivering life-saving disaster relief in the form of food, water, medical supplies, and health-care providers. Naval aviation elements embarked in amphibious ships bring the same range of capabilities on a smaller scale, as demonstrated during disaster-relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Pakistan earthquake in 2007.
Realistically Assessing Risks to Carriers
Some have made the case that the big-deck aircraft carrier faces the same fate as the battleship, as potential adversaries contrive anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategies to counter the comparative advantage that such carriers provide.4 While it is true that the development and proliferation of antiship ballistic missiles, antiship cruise missiles, and advanced diesel submarines present operational challenges to a carrier force in high-end combat scenarios, they do not necessarily strike a death blow to the age of the aircraft carrier. Radar-guided surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) presented similar anti-access challenges for tactical aircraft in the 1960s, as demonstrated by the high rate of combat losses in the early phases of the Vietnam War.
However, by the 1990s, American technology and operational concepts negated that anti-access challenge in Operation Desert Storm (Iraq, 1991), Operation Allied Force (Kosovo, 1999), and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq, 2003). Using a combination of long-range precision strikes, stealth technology, electronic attack, information operations, military deception, and tactical decoys and obscurants, the United States established air supremacy in the face of complex integrated air-defense systems—with acceptable levels of operational risk and combat losses. With the exception of stealth technology, all of those counter-A2/AD capabilities are currently available.5 Thus there is real potential to lower future A2/AD risks for big-deck aircraft carriers, just as the SAM risk to tactical aircraft was mitigated.
Finally, the element of operational risk in major combat operations doesn’t negate the value of the aircraft carrier. Admiral Gary Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations, recently noted that “major combat operations at sea—such as those at the Battle of Midway—account for only a small percentage of the history of the U.S. Navy.”6 The balance of the service’s history is oriented around global presence, deterrence, and influence. The aircraft carrier is unrivaled in its range, speed, persistence, and flexibility in achieving those missions.
The Ways, Means, and Ends of It All
Even if one acknowledges the value of those attributes of naval aviation, it doesn’t answer the question, “So what?”
In 1972, on the heels of almost eight years of war in Vietnam, then-Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner (serving as president of the Naval War College) wrote an article in Proceedings titled “The United States at a Strategic Crossroads.” In it he observed that because of “reductions in our forces and the changes in [enemy] capabilities, we are now being forced to make hard choices, both between the Services, and within the Navy.”7
In 2011, after a decade of war in Afghanistan and eight years of war in Iraq, the United States once again finds itself at such a crossroads. U.S. defense spending has reached post-World War II record highs (in constant dollars), yet the inventory of capital equipment that sustains our global presence—ships and aircraft—continues to dwindle.
Those fiscal facts must be viewed in the context of the larger federal fiscal landscape. In 2010 the U.S. government borrowed 43 cents of every dollar it spent, adding another $1.4 trillion to the national debt. That number has reached a historic high of $14 trillion, and in light of our aging demographics and current social entitlement policies, federal non-discretionary spending will continue to increase, in turn applying pressure to reduce federal discretionary spending—including defense spending.
Against those stark realities, America is left with two fundamental options in altering the interaction between the ways, means, and ends that frame our national security strategy:
1. Change the ends, or
2. Change the ways and means in which we achieve the ends.8
President Obama’s 2010 National Security Strategy and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review do not fundamentally alter the ends of national security strategy. Therefore, faced with the fiscal realities that portend a reduction in the available means of strategy, America is forced to make tough choices in the ways it executes that strategy.
Military ways that do not support America’s global interests have limited utility, and therefore investment in the means to execute those ways should be curtailed. Then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates laid the foundation for that assertion in a speech at the U.S. Military Academy in February 2011:
Looking ahead, though, in the competition for tight defense dollars within and between the services, the Army also must confront the reality that the most plausible, high-end scenarios for the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements—whether in Asia, the Persian Gulf, or elsewhere. The strategic rationale for swift-moving expeditionary forces, be they Army or Marines, airborne infantry or Special Operations, is self-evident given the likelihood of counterterrorism, rapid reaction, disaster response, or stability or security-force assistance missions. But in my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined,” as General [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it.9
Those military ways that present the United States with a unique comparative advantage against potential adversaries in a particular domain should be scaled according to the challenge of the adversary. Those American military ways that are relevant throughout all of the global domains should receive the highest priority of investment of our precious national treasure—the means—available to execute those ways.
Determining Affordability
The topic of investment raises the issue of affordability. Naval aviation is a capital-intensive enterprise; the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of Ford-class aircraft carriers at $12.1 billion each.10
In an American military sense, affordability is generally determined by two key elements: capability and capacity. On the capability front, naval aviation is attempting to address the affordability issue by increasing persistence in both manned and unmanned platforms. Greater persistence translates to fewer sorties to generate the same desired effects, and fewer sorties translate to the procurement of fewer platforms.
On the issue of capacity, the driving force is the desired amount of global presence. Major combat operations also play a role in force planning, and there are recent historical examples (Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom) where America surged six aircraft carriers to support major combat operations. Currently, however, the more stressing requirement for aircraft carrier capacity is steady-state global presence requirements.
Secretary Gates overlooked that element of force planning when he challenged the notion of the requirement to maintain the current aircraft carrier force structure in light of the overmatch that currently exists between the United States and any potential competitors:
The U.S. operates 11 large carriers, all nuclear powered. In terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship. . . . Our current plan is to have 11 carrier strike groups through 2040 and it’s in the budget. And to be sure, the need to project power across the oceans will never go away. But, consider the massive overmatch the [United States] already enjoys. Consider, too, the growing antiship capabilities of adversaries. Do we really need 11 carrier strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one? Any future plans must address these realities.11
The fundamental issue in the calculus of force planning in the aircraft carrier force—and naval aviation in general—is not force-on-force matching in major combat operations scenarios. Rather, it is the enduring necessity to generate global presence in support of America’s national interests. Naval aviation’s range, speed, persistence, and flexible response enable America to be present, sense, and engage at the time and place of its choosing. Sufficiently resourcing naval aviation has been—and must continue to be—an American strategic imperative. Said another way, if the means of naval aviation are not resourced to support the ways naval aviation currently presents our national security strategy, America will ultimately be forced to alter its ends.
1. National Security Strategy, The White House, Washington, DC, May 2010.
2. Ibid., p. 7.
3. See Lyman Miller, “China An Emerging Superpower?” Stanford Journal of International Relations, Winter 2005 vol. 6, issue 1, http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjir/6.1.03_miller.html
4. See CAPT Henry J. Hendrix, USN, and LCOL J. Noel Williams, USMC (Ret.), “Twilight of the $UPERfluous Carrier”, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 2011.
5. See, for example, Thomas J. Culora, “The Strategic Implications of Obscurants”, Naval War College Review, Summer 2010, vol. 63, no. 3.
6. ADM Gary Roughead, as witnessed by the author, 31 March 2011.
7. VADM Stansfield Turner, USN, “The United States at a Strategic Crossroads,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1972.
8. This definition of the word strategy—the interaction between ends, ways, and means, is taken from Mackubin Thomas Owens, “Strategy And The Strategic Way Of Thinking,” Naval War College Review, Autumn, 2007, p. 111.
9. Robert M. Gates, in a speech at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, 25 February 2011, http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1539.
10. Congressional Budget Office, “An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2012 Shipbuilding Plan,” June 2011, p. 15.
11. Robert M. Gates, in a speech at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space Exposition, National Harbor, MD, 3 May 2010, http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1460.