Our admirals are contemplating a budget future where carriers are no longer the center of our fleet:
The U.S. Navy is facing a cash crisis. Its current fleet is still full of Cold War era ships that are rapidly wearing out. The replacements cost more than the navy can afford, now or in the next decade or so. Looking for ways to manage the inevitable shrinking some navy officials are saying the unthinkable; that the navy rely less on carriers, if only because it cannot afford to replace the ten it has now. The most extreme solution is to build fewer carriers and more destroyers and rely on cruise missiles fired from surface ships and submarines, instead of smart bombs dropped by carrier aircraft. ...
To deal with situations requiring longer (sustained) operations, four or five carriers could be kept in service. Carrier admirals find this appalling, but with the high cost of new ships and shrinking budgets, something has to give.
The Navy is not immune to math, after all. As I've argued over and over, we need to pick a number of ships we need and then build the types of ships we can afford to reach that number.
Heck, modularized auxiliary cruisers might pick up the slack in secondary but still important theaters (in 6th Fleet or around Africa and Latin America) or important but dangerous theaters (western Pacific or Arabian Sea).
If our big deck carriers are no longer forward deployed where they can be the first target in a surprise enemy attack, I won't be bothered one bit. By all means, keep them back. Honestly, if money was no object, I still wouldn't want those big deck carriers as the center-piece of our Navy. When the money was there (or was hoped would soon be there), we never had a real debate on carriers since each side talked past each other on different arguments.
So for me, this is a welcome introduction to reality since until recently the Navy has insisted it could have the numbers it says it needs while keeping a full load of big carriers. Hopefully if money opens up again, it will be for a Navy better balanced to fight for control of the seas and survive while enabling power projection, too.
Remember, it isn't like we can't have naval aviation even for situations that don't call for the big decks in a sustained operation. Which is why I do not think we should cancel the vertical take-off version of the F-35 (the F-35B) despite program cost programs (thank you, Britain!).
Our Navy has a proud tradition of success. Carriers have a number of chapters in that story. But the Navy will continue to build that tradition of success long after big carriers are a part of history rather than deployments. How many people today ask, "Where are the monitors?"
Build a strong Navy. Build the right kind of Navy. And build enough of a Navy.
NOTE: Since Lockheed builds the F-35, I should note that I do have a tiny amount of Lockheed stock. It is so little that it doesn't affect my blogging, but I figure I should mention it.
