On The Death of the Aircraft Carrier
Reports Thereof Are Once Again, Greatly Exaggerated
This special edition of The Conservative Wahoo is in response to breaking news, and while I apologize to those who might think their inbox is being spammed by a second CW Substack today, my livelihood and my passion are both tied to American Seapower.
Above is the statement of the Secretary of Defense detailing the movement of the USS GERALD R. FORD (CVN 78) and its Strike Group from elsewhere in the Mediterranean to the Eastern Mediterranean “…to strengthen Department of Defense posture in the region to bolster regional deterrence efforts.” This movement of American Seapower from one place to another in order to accomplish important national security goals should surprise no one, as such movements have been preferred responses of American Presidents throughout the nation’s time as leader of the free world. That THIS administration makes such a move SHOULD raise eyebrows, as the very things the Secretary of Defense states the movement is designed to accomplish are the things his Department fights hammer and tongs against when the Navy seeks the force structure (people, ships, sensors, weapons, etc.) necessary to accomplish them. We are seeing the weakness of the Biden approach to national security play out before our very eyes, and the callow cluelessness of their understanding of conventional deterrence and American Seapower is front and center.
Make no mistake—the Secretary of Defense has done exactly what he should have done in moving the FORD Strike Group to the scene. In doing so, he must either believe that forward deployed naval power—as a posture choice—contributes to the conventional deterrence posture (which is what he said in his statement), OR this is a shallow, superficial political move designed to show a domestic political audience that we care, that we are “doing something”.
I use this Manichean construction on purpose, in that it really can only be one or the other. If it is the latter, the consistent bureaucratic resistance we see (from the Office of the Secretary of Defense) to a fleet sized to respond (routinely, predictably) in this manner is sensible, as the expense necessary to buy, build, operate, and maintain a fleet for such ephemeral ends would be irresponsible. Under this view, hat the FORD Strike Group was even in the neighborhood was a convenient accident, an artifact of the Navy’s slavish adherence to the antiquated notion of “forward presence” that it has used so successfully to justify massive spending on unnecessary force structure, and which over time, has become nothing but a consumer of precious readiness that the nation should more prudently husband in order to respond to a possible war with China.
But if the movement of FORD and her escorts was not born of this latter, cynical approach, but was in fact, the product of the prudent application of American Seapower (which it was), the kind that has become so predictable that the phrase “Where are the carriers?” has entered mainstream lexicon, then the consistent bureaucratic resistance we see (from the Office of the Secretary of Defense) to a fleet sized to respond (routinely, predictably) in this manner is NOT sensible, and is in fact, irresponsible. The FORD Strike Group was not in the Mediterranean Sea for the purpose of being in the Mediterranean Sea. The FORD Strike Group was in the Mediterranean Sea because what the nation asks and needs of its Navy is best accomplished by forces that are already where they are most likely to be needed. In this instance, FORD’s movement eastward across the Mediterranean accomplishes two very important tasks—crisis response and buttressing of conventional deterrence, neither of which it could do were it operating in the Virginia Capes off of Norfolk or distributed in its homeports husbanding readiness for a future war with China.
The bottom line is that this nation needs a Navy large enough to contribute to our security and prosperity in peacetime, as well as being large and powerful enough to for operations incident to combat at sea during war. In order to restrain the growth of defense spending in order to apply additional resources to domestic priorities, this Administration has chosen to diminish its commitment to those peacetime activities and the force structure necessary to accomplish them. Yet the world once again intervenes, and as OSD desperately tries to keep its focus mainly on a war with China, the absolute requirement for a global, forward deployed Navy sized for continuous operations in three hubs (EUCOM, CENTCOM, INDOPACOM) manifests itself.
We cannot lead the free world on the cheap. We cannot tend to our interests from cozy home ports. We must accept the burdens and the benefits of world leadership, and we must resource the Navy required to do so.
Reality > Theory
From my distant observation of events in Ukraine, The US and NATO need a whole shit ton of weapons if we ever engage in a peer on peer war. The only one's that will be capable of engaging us at that level would be China and India. Political events in those countries are as opaque as those in Russia. Russia's adventure in Ukraine seemed insane to me. But, here we are.