Are Our Vaunted Aircraft Carriers Obsolete?

The aircraft carrier has been the centerpiece of the United States Navy since World War 2. Before that war, battleships reigned supreme, and the U.S. Navy's emphasis was on heavy artillery and good shooting. The 1941-1945 Pacific theater changed all that, most notably at the Battle of Midway, when the opposing forces' ships never came within visual contact.

Now, our modern, nuclear-powered supercarriers roam the oceans, 11 of them currently, surrounded by the smaller ships of their task groups. Those smaller ships are the shield, providing missile and air defense as well as defense against submarines. The carrier is the sword, striking directly at the enemy.

Recently the BBC's South East Asia Correspondent, Jonathan Head, visited the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class carrier. He's worried that our super-carriers may be obsolete. Is he right?

Even after years of rapid advances in Chinese military capabilities, the United States is still unrivalled in its capacity to project force anywhere around the world with its fleet of 11 super-carriers.
But does a $13bn (£10bn) aircraft carrier which the latest Chinese missiles could sink in a matter of minutes make sense any more - particularly in the age of Donald Trump?
We had been invited onto the Carl Vinson to see another side of US carrier strategy, one which emphasises American friendliness, and willingness to work with allies – something you don't hear much in Washington these days.

That last statement doesn't hold water; the Trump administration has only been in place for a month. The United States military under President Trump will work just as well with these allies, France and Japan, as they ever have; this is a cheap shot. Shame, Mr. Head.

But he has some other perspectives that are more interesting.

The debate about the utility of aircraft carriers is not new. It goes right back to when they first appeared a century ago. Critics today argue that they are too vulnerable to the latest generation of Chinese ballistic and hypersonic missiles, forcing them to stay at a distance from the Chinese coast which would put their aircraft out of range. The money, they say, would be better spent on newer technology.
There is something archaic about these massive, welded hunks of steel, that seemed to have their heyday in the Pacific War of the 1940s. Yet in the vast expanse of the ocean, with few airfields, it has proved difficult to do without them. Supporters argue that, with their escorts of guided-missile destroyers, the super carriers can defend themselves quite well, and that they are still hard to sink. Downsize these carriers, to carry only helicopters or planes which can land and take off vertically as many countries have done, and you end up with vessels which are even more vulnerable.

The Chinese weapons may well be a concern, but every weapon has a counter. The United States is already looking at counters for hypersonic missiles, such as directed energy weapons. These weapons strike literally at the speed of light and may present a very effective counter to hypersonic cruise or ballistic missiles. We solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology, and these are certainly the weapons of tomorrow.

But in the meantime, our carriers are still worth operating as things are. China certainly thinks so.

It is worth noting that China too believes in the value of aircraft carriers; it has already built three. And as floating symbols of US prestige, they may appeal to President Trump, a man known for his love of flamboyant structures, whatever the economic arguments for and against them.

There are more super-carriers in the works. For the time being, these floating cities will still be America's primary seaborne weapon. And, once the American military gets past some of the staffing problems caused by former administrations using the military as a jobs program for the neurotic instead of as a cadre of warfighters, their value will be even greater.

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New weapons, yes, may present a danger to our carriers. But one doesn't go into a near-peer conflict thinking every single asset will come home; that's why there are wars. The other side doesn't just sit there in the water or on the land saying, "Kill me." They fight back; they try to sink our ships and degrade our assets in general just as we do to them. In a war with China, yes, they may very well be able to sink one or more of our carriers.

That's why we have more than one of them. The aircraft carrier is still one of the most versatile ways the United States has to project power. It can strike far inland, with the ships of a carrier's task group, the admiral in charge has weapons effective against three-dimensional threats, submarine, surface, and air. They are even useful in diplomacy, in cases where the art of diplomacy consists of saying "Nice doggie, nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Many a belligerent third-world tinhorn dictator has suddenly decided to cool his heels when a U.S. Navy carrier task group hoves into view of his shores.

These huge ships are expensive. They aren't invulnerable. But they allow us to project power in a way no other asset does. They aren't obsolete — yet — and they are still vital if we are to maintain the Pax Americana that has kept the world's sea lands safe since 1945.