The era of the Navy’s aircraft carrier is over

Resume: The article criticizes the United States’ continued investments in aircraft carriers, comparing them to outdated battleships of the past due to their vulnerability to modern missile technologies.

– It highlights the shift in naval warfare, highlighting that countries like China and non-state actors like the Houthi rebels have developed cost-effective anti-ship missiles capable of challenging US naval supremacy, especially in regions like the Indo-Pacific and the Red Sea. Sea.

-The author advocates a strategic pivot toward submarines and more agile surface ships, in addition to investments in hypersonic and space weapons, to maintain the U.S. military’s global effectiveness against evolving threats.

From dominance to vulnerability: the decline of US aircraft carriers

Most countries tend to fight the previous war – and prepare for it. This fact is reflected in Washington’s obsessive dedication to building and maintaining expensive aircraft carriers. Although they are technological marvels, America’s aircraft carriers are relics of a bygone era. They look a lot like the battleships of old that they replaced. In fact, the entire history of the flat top is one of accidental greatness. To the Americans, the reason the U.S. Navy relied on these technological wonders to defeat the Japanese in the Pacific theater of World War II was simply because they had no choice.

Aircraft carriers: an old system not worth the cost

America’s favorite warship of the time, the battleship, had been denied to the Americans in the Pacific Ocean at Pearl Harbor, where the fleet of battleships of the Pacific Fleet had been sunk. Needing to respond quickly to Japan’s attack, the Navy was forced to become innovative as their aircraft carriers had been unaffected by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Therefore, US strategy had to place the aircraft carriers at the epicenter of Washington’s war-winning strategy to defeat the planes. Japan. The US had done it.

And the Pacific Theater showed the effectiveness of having mobile fighter launchers at sea. The battleship era died an unceremonious death at the start of World War II. After the war, America recognized the prestige and power projection that aircraft carriers provided them.

The era of aircraft carriers was thus extended for many decades after World War II.

Today, the average cost to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier – a supercarrier, like America’s new Gerald R. Ford –class amounts to more than $13.3 billion. Its maintenance costs hundreds of millions of dollars more. Earlier models are only slightly cheaper. The United States has 11 aircraft carriers. These warships are the largest aircraft carriers in the world, with twice the deck space for take-off and landing than any other aircraft carrier fleet in the world.

But their complexity and exorbitant cost not only make them tempting targets for rivals, but if they were destroyed or seriously damaged in battle they would effectively become a wasteful asset. Billions of dollars would be lost and the U.S. Navy’s power projection capability would be severely compromised.

The aircraft carrier is the battleship of this generation: outdated

Just as the battleship was the byproduct of a bygone era when World War II broke out in the Pacific, the modern aircraft carrier is the symbol of an era long gone. Today, massive arsenals of long- and medium-range missiles can overwhelm the defensive defenses of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and other warships. China has become a master at building up their anti-ship capability to the point that many naval warfare specialists fear the aircraft carrier would render the battle ineffective if – and when – a Sino-American war were to break out over Taiwan.

And it is not just emerging superpowers, such as the People’s Republic of China, that have created a vast arsenal of cheap (compared to the cost of US aircraft carriers) anti-ship missiles that could completely upend US defense policy for the Indo-Pacific.

It is small, second-tier, third-tier terrorist organizations, such as the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, that have proven the asymmetric benefits that anti-ship missiles provide to enemies of the United States. At a fraction of the cost of US aircraft carriers, the Houthis proved in late 2023 that they can keep the entire US Navy at bay with such missiles. Following Hamas’s blatant Iran-backed terrorist attacks on Israel in October 2023, the Houthis intervened on Hamas’s side and began harassing foreign maritime trade by launching a ceaseless wave of terrorist attacks in the Red Sea. By doing so, the terrorists complicated international shipping, increased risks in that important industry, and exploded the cost of goods for everyone (since the world economy depends on maritime trade).

Since the end of World War II, the US Navy has served as a guarantor of last resort for the world’s vast maritime trade routes – particularly in the Middle East. But the presence of Iranian-supplied anti-ship missiles under Houthi control was more than enough to deter most of the US Navy from engaging against the terrorists in the Red Sea.

Therefore, the terror in the Red Sea lasted much longer than it would normally have. The Pentagon’s hesitation to deploy the expensive naval assets under their command in the region to stop the terrorist attacks on the high seas not only increased the impact of the terrorist attacks on everyone, but also sent a message to rivals such as China , that they have little to fear from America’s once formidable aircraft carrier fleet.

The path forward will not be charted by America’s carriers

What is needed instead is a reorientation of the U.S. strategy to strengthen and expand the U.S. submarine fleet. Investments should also be made in smaller, more maneuverable and more difficult to destroy surface warships. Meanwhile, as both missiles and hypersonic weapons become the norm for modern warfare, rather than blowing the US budget on outdated systems that won’t be usable, the Pentagon should invest in its own hypersonic weapons and new space weapons to counter the threats to counter those its armed forces face worldwide. Until these actions are taken by the Pentagon, the effectiveness of the U.S. military against its enemies will continue to decline.

Just like HBO’s hit television series, The sopranos, the era of the aircraft carrier is over. It’s time for all of us to move forward before it’s too late for American military power.

About the author

Brandon J. Weichert is a former congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who contributes to The Washington Times, as well as American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. Weichert can be followed on Twitter @WeTheBrandon.