Is The Era Of The U.S. Aircraft Carrier Coming To An End?

The USS McCampbell and aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Persian Gulf. (Wikimedia Commons)

Harry J. Kazianis, American Conservative: Face It, The Mighty U.S. Aircraft Carrier is Finished

The first step is acknowledging that in a standoff, it could lose, and badly.

The U.S. Navy (and to be frank, the whole U.S. military) is living in a state of total denial. In the next great powers war, or perhaps even in a conflict with a mid-tier power like Iran, at least one of our aircraft carriers will sink to the bottom of the sea. That means thousands of lives could be lost—and there would be very little we could do to stop it.

We need to get used to a very simple reality: the decades-old age of the aircraft carrier, that great symbol of U.S. power projection, has now passed. We can deny the evidence that is right before our eyes, but innovations in anti-ship missiles over many decades—combined with advanced but short-range carrier-based U.S. fighter aircraft and missile defenses that can be easily defeated—have conspired to doom one of the most powerful weapons ever devised.

Read more ....

WNU Editor:  Another article that explains why the era of the U.S. aircraft carrier is coming to an end.