100,000 tons of inertia — the case to shift away from carriers

Here’s an excerpt from the 1st Prize paper in US Naval Institute’s 2019 contest, “100,000 Tons of Inertia.” It does a good job pulling apart the political-economy for why force structure transformation away from WWII systems — like aircraft carriers — is so hard. I’m actually surprised it won 1st prize. I’m informed that the authors are getting a really hard time from Navy leadership.

A much less likely means of overcoming the carrier’s inertia is a substantial budgetary shift. With each Gerald R. Ford–class carrier costing approximately $12 billion, a massive cut in the Navy’s budget would force it to select cheaper platforms regardless of capability. However, barring the simultaneous collapse of Russia and China, leaving the U.S. Navy to sail uncontested as it did in the 1990s, it is unlikely Congress would slash the budget enough to affect carrier production.

I suppose a valid point of view is that a defense hawk could advocate for budget cuts in order to compel the services to make hard choices away from losing platforms and toward 21st century systems. The aircraft carrier is one poster-child of this concept. I don’t necessarily believe in that view, but it is a consistent argument to make. I temper these views with the concept that large platforms are large because they can be upgraded with countermeasures, making them more survivable then you may think. Here’s a bit more from the paper:

We have not yet reached the stage where such change is required. With essentially no conventional naval combat in the past 70 years, and with the last credible attack on an aircraft carrier coming at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, it is hard to know when the aircraft carrier might pass into obsolescence. Whenever that moment does arrive, it will behoove us to act on our own terms. We will not like the alternative—Admiral Sims again:

 

“It may be stated in general terms that most arguments in favor of fundamentally new weapons have failed, except those that resulted in shedding the blood of the unbelievers; that defeat alone has been accepted as a final demonstration.”