The aircraft carrier is slowly dying

What you need to know: The United States, once an aircraft carrier superpower, is faced with the unsustainable costs of maintaining its fleet of eleven aircraft carriers. With the newest Gerald R. Ford-class carriers costing $13 billion each, budget constraints and overstretched shipyards make it unlikely that the US can sustain such a force.

– Moreover, the effectiveness of aircraft carriers is declining due to anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) and anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems developed by rivals such as China and even non-state actors such as the Houthis in Yemen.

-These threats keep carriers at bay, questioning their role as primary power projection platforms.

America cannot afford eleven aircraft carriers

America is a aircraft carrier superpower. But in today’s increasingly complex and contested multipolar world, it’s like being the ultimate battleship power. Carriers are some of the the most expensive and sophisticatedhence the cost of massive systems to build and maintain. In the United States today, when the country’s shipyards they are a bunch of red tape, understaffed, overpriced, the carrier is becoming an increasingly absurd platform.

The Navy currently owns eleven of these monstrosities—the newest unit, the new Gerald R. Ford class, costing $13 billion. Four more of these new boats are on the way.

Fleet dynamics

America’s oldest service carrier, The U.S.S Nimitz (CVN 68), the namesake of his class, is scheduled to be retired within the next two years. Eventually, the Navy will have retired all of its old Nimitz-class vehicles and Ford class carriers will somehow lift the weakness.

This is a confusing belief, however, because there is no way under current funding and US shipyard limits, which are set to worsen over time, that the Americans could ever have such a large carrier force.

So Washington faces lost capabilities and cost overruns for its primary power projection platform. All this at a time when the world’s militaries are moving in a direction where the carrier is increasingly obsolete. It is not just close rivals such as China that have developed a sophisticated suite of countermeasures, making the carrier increasingly useless as a primary power projection platform.

Even the otherwise unimpressive Houthis, nestled in the deep deserts of Yemen, managed to FIELD an impressive array of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) that threaten the safety of US carriers.

A2/AD threat

As a result, the US Navy has been hesitant to deploy its aircraft carriers too close to Yemen. Sure, they engaged Houthi targets even with those ASBM systems around. But the Pentagon was hesitant in ways it typically wouldn’t have been even five years ago with the carriers.

And as David P. Goldman recently told me in a social media response to something I posted last week, “The Houthis are China’s missile testing agency.”

He is right, of course.

As for China, their anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities deployed throughout the Indo-Pacific are beyond impressive. With sophisticated tracking capabilitiesChina has brought some of the world’s most sophisticated ASBMs and even hypersonic weapons with incredible range. Oh, and all these systems are infinitely cheaper than the American transport force. All this to keep the expensive carrier force on the horizon.

These systems also very much threaten other US surface warships.

But the fact that the Pentagon plans to spend any amount of taxpayer dollars on a transport force that is less useful with each passing year should give America’s leaders pause.

Eleven carriers is a ridiculous expense in this environment. The submarine will be much more useful unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) swarms. None of these are mass-produced at the levels needed to credibly deter China or preserve the US position in the Indo-Pacific.

About the author

Brandon J. Weicherta national security of national interest analystis a former congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor to The Washington Times, Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is out October 22 from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

All images on the page are from Shutterstock or Creative Commons.

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