Under heavy pressure to find real cuts, U.S. Navy officials are considering decommissioning a nuclear aircraft carrier halfway through its planned lifespan, two Pentagon sources confirmed.
The USS George Washington's three-year-long refueling overhaul, scheduled to begin in 2016, would be canceled under the scheme, and the ship would be decommissioned as its reactor fuel ran out.
Along with the carrier, the Navy could also disband one of its 10 carrier air wings - a move that would save roughly as much money and people as cutting the ship.
She could still sail a long time if it stays on a short leash around Japan where the carrier group is home ported, extending the nuclear fuel's life.
The problem isn't necessarily the loss of a big carrier. I think they are in the twilight of their usefulness. Mind you, they remain invaluable against small countries with no anti-ship capabilities. And even against tougher opponents I'd want carrier aviation. Which is why we really need the F-35B for our amphibious carriers that would turn them into potent small carriers.
The problem is that we still rely on the big carriers as the core of our thinking and strategy. I've written about this issue many times. So losing a carrier will just mean the remaining carriers have to work harder to maintain the same forward presence.
Instead of working the carriers harder, we need to use our many other assets to carry out missions the big decks carry out now. Use the amphibs with F-35Bs as the core of light strike groups. Even these will be better than almost everyone else's biggest carriers. Use surface action groups. Use shore-based Air Force assets or even a shore-based Navy composite wing in some circumstances. We didn't even commit a carrier to the Libya War, remember.
We have to do things differently--not just stretch fewer assets with the same approach.
