Limited Aircraft Carrier Assets Are Limiting U.S. Foreign And Security Policies

The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, back, sails alongside sister flattop John C. Stennis in the Mediterranean Sea on April 24. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Grant G. Grady/Navy)

Rick Berger, Military Times/American Enterprise Institute: The strategic incoherence of our carrier policies

Standing on board the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, Vice President Mike Pence announced on April 30 that the White House reversed its earlier decision to retire the warship early by foregoing its midlife nuclear refueling.

This flip-flop torpedoed the Navy’s narrative that decommissioning was necessary to implement the 2018 National Defense Strategy’s pivot to great-power conflict with China and Russia.

Less than a week later, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group cut short its deployment in the Mediterranean Sea to head for the Persian Gulf amid a botched attempt at strategic messaging vis a vis Iran.

Prior to its re-tasking, the Lincoln CSG had participated in a high-profile dual-carrier deployment in Mediterranean intended to demonstrate U.S. capabilities to Russia.

Together, these two choices starkly illustrate the limits of the National Defense Strategy and serve as a reminder that strategy cannot wall itself off from politics.

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WNU Editor: This is a classic example of the U.S. government wanting military and national security objectives reached according to a policy that has been agreed upon, but unwilling to spend the money to achieve them and/or not taking into account that another crisis may rise unexpectedly.