War is Boring/National Interest: The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake—Building Tons of Aircraft Carriers
The Pentagon behaves as if aircraft carriers will rule forever … they won’t.
“History,” it has been written, “does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” Today it’s rhyming with Gen. Billy Mitchell. In the 1920s, Mitchell challenged conventional thinking by advocating air power at sea in the face of a naval establishment dominated by battleship proponents.
The hubris of the “battleship Navy” was such that just nine days before Pearl Harbor, the official program for the 1941 Army-Navy game displayed a full page photograph of the battleship USS Arizona with language virtually extolling its invincibility.
Of course, the reason that no one had yet sunk a battleship from the air — in combat — was that no one had yet tried.
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WNU editor: Aircraft carriers do have a purpose, especially in conflicts when you need to project power and influence in a conflict zone. As to sinking and/or severely damaging aircraft carriers, the only countries that have a real chance of doing that are Russia and China. But if they are sinking U.S. aircraft carriers, in my opinion we would be quickly seeing nuclear weapons being used, and in that situation the lost of aircraft carriers will be on the bottom of everyone's concerns.
4 comments:
Well, you are right,but also wrong.. sure, aircraft carriers have a purpose, but I think the author is really saying this: "Do we need that many,and are we losing out @ Lost Opportunity Costs".. for example, if we need to prepare for a war with China and/or Russia, then we know that in all likelihood, aircraft carriers will not be the decisive factor.. would we really need 11? Maybe.. That's something only the pentagon knows.. so the author just wants to stimulate a discussion around what better force multipliers are out there that give you a better ROI.. for example, we might reduce by 2 carriers and invest the 40billion or so from these into something else.. my personal favourite would be AI, just put a whole lot into there and it's almost certain to be the best force multiplier, for conventional warfare scenarios (e.g. coordinated, autonomous drones), or the next gen warfare scenarios (basically a "skynet" -like system/firewall on steroids with active components being able to fend of intruders and inflict payback (the active part)..
the US must really consider that in the next 10 years, China, but also Russia, will steal trillions (about 100-150bn/year) in IP through more and more sophisticated/intelligent hacking systems.. so not only would AI be a force multiplier, but it would also help defend the economic loss. I really hope that when in about 120days the AI initiative is reviewed, that DJT will stun the world and make this the U.S. "Moon" age, with the goal to outcompete any and all adversaries in AI by 2030. They have the money to do it, and are still ahead - this is a once in a lifetime chance to correct the track records of US influence world wide. And, of course AI investment would also mean great jobs and attract all kinds of investment and reinvestment from the corporate world, there would be tons of spinoffs.. it's really the way to go imo, also because as you said - if just one air craft carrier is sunk, the nukes might come out.. therefore most of warfare will be conducted in the cyber space, most likely, and from all we know - and by our adversaries own statements - that's their intention too
Weapons that have worked keep getting rebuilt until they don't work anymore and there is only one way to find out.
Well you also have a lot of strategic warfare simulations and of course real life weapons and platform tests. On top you have historic knowledge-especially for air craft carriers. We can also be quite certain that the near future is automated weapon systems, like autonomous drones, and heavy weapons such as railguns will be the way forward (as we've already seen successes with that platform and they are superior in many ways)..same for Lasers and supersonic rocket systems. There is a good understanding of what the direction off warfare looks like. .more and more autonomous systems and cheaper kinetic weapons.. Also there's no reason why kamikaze drones that can take out an aircraft carrier but have an intelligent, evasive flight pattern, should not exist. .if no human is on board all kinds of Gs could be pulled.. there's a huge imbalance between new attack systems and the defence systems don't seem to keep up. Sure, the US just bought the iron dome technology ,but China will steal it by end of the month. You need to innovate in defence and offence, and AI can help with all that. It is perhaps the best choice to make.
You can also use AI to further increase the reliability of weapons, wrapping test systems, and even in research itself.
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