One of the real concerns that our military is facing has been how exactly it will take on Russia and China, two countries that have taken advantage of America’s nearly two decades of fighting a global war on terror. One of the side effects of that focus has been a neglect of the U.S. Navy, which was already hurting from the “peace dividend” from the fall of the Soviet Union.
According to a report by Defense One, though, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, while he is rightly pursuing a larger fleet, is making one proposal that should be very concerning: The Navy would see its force of aircraft carriers go from the current total of 11 to as few as eight. If the carrier force fell to the lower end of Esper’s proposal, it would be the smallest carrier force since the end of 1942, according to the Navy’s history of its fleet size.
In that conflict, the United States found itself desperately short of carriers in late 1942. The pre-war force of seven had seen four of the carriers sunk, with USS Essex (CV 9) being commissioned at the end of that year. That made the Guadalcanal campaign a very near-run affair, with the USS Enterprise (CV 6), the only carrier available in-theater, being pressed into battle with patchwork repairs in November.
The Nimitz and Gerald R. Ford classes of aircraft carriers are rather large, expensive vessels to operate. But the capabilities they bring are also formidable: Four squadrons of multi-role fighters (F/A-18C Hornets, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, and F-35 Lightnings), along with helicopters and support aircraft like EA-18G Growler electronic warfare planes and E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft.
But the current class of carriers, the Gerald R. Ford, takes a long time to build — the lead ship, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), took eight years from the laying of the keel to commissioning and is still facing mechanical issues. It has yet to make an operational deployment in the three years after she was commissioned.
Thirty years ago, the U.S. Navy had 13 carriers in service, and the following year saw their total climb to 15. During that timeframe, six carriers were deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. But the larger carrier force allowed the Navy a margin in case things had become more tense elsewhere around the world (like, say, North Korea).
This was when the U.S. did not have China trying to build up its force of aircraft carriers (they currently have two carriers in commission, are building two more, and have plans for as many as four additional ships after that). Given that the U.S. Navy has to cover two oceans, Esper needs to really rethink his plans for America’s aircraft carriers.
Harold Hutchison has 15 years of experience covering military issues for multiple outlets and is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
