This Is Why The Pentagon Wanted To Retire The U.S. Aircraft Carrier USS Truman Decades Early

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Breaking Defense: Why DoD Cut A Carrier in 2020 Budget: Survivable Robots & Missiles Vs. China

An inside source explains the logic behind the 2020 budget's most controversial call.

WASHINGTON: Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan made the hard call to retire the USS Truman decades early — cutting the Navy’s carrier fleet by nine percent — to free up funding for new weapons more likely to survive a war with China, a senior defense official told Breaking Defense.

Shanahan took office telling staff his focus is “China, China, China.” Beijing’s growing arsenal of precision-guided missiles seems increasingly able to find and cripple a thousand-foot-long flattop — unless the US carrier stays out of China’s range, in which case the fighter aircraft it carries can’t reach their targets. (Fighters can be refueled in mid-air, but the tanker aircraft required are big, slow, and vulnerable, so they can’t get close to China, either).

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Previous Post: Were Reports Of The U.S. Navy Retiring The Aircraft Carrier USS Truman Just A Ploy To Get More Money? (March 3, 2019).

WNU Editor: I can understand the Pentagon's reasoning for retiring the USS Truman 25 years earlier .... saving money to buy other weapons. But Congress is not going to agree.