Why The US Navy May Deploy 5 Carriers in the Pacific

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

There is little question that, apart from perhaps leveraging undersea superiority, any sustained deterrence against a rapid Chinese annexation of Taiwan or aggressive actions in the South China Sea likely pertain to the availability and reach of US and allied 5th-generation aircraft. A cursory look at People’s Liberation Army – Air Force aircraft would seem to suggest that the PRC would, at least at the moment, have trouble establishing any kind of air superiority in the Pacific, provided sufficient numbers of F-35 were within striking distance.

While there are some options to launch land-based F-35s from Japan, Korea and eventually Singapore, the most decisive or impactful deployment of US and allied 5th-generation air power would most likely come from the sea. The massively increasing US military presence in The Philippines will likely present additional opportunities for the US to station F-35s at newly arriving US bases in the country, yet despite the realistic prospect of large-scale land deployment of F-35s, the collective US and allied ability to operate F-35s from the Sea could prove to be the most decisive element in any conflict with the PRC.

Video: How Vulnerable are US Carriers to Chinese Anti-Ship Missiles

The F-35 is now exploding across the Pacific with Japan’s massive $35 billion buy along with Sinaporean and South Korean F-35s. Japan has already deployed its F-35B aircraft on its warships and the US Navy’s America-class amphibious assault ships can deploy with as many as 20 F-35Bs. Perhaps of greatest impact, the US Navy can easily launch 50 or more F-35Cs from a single carrier, creating a scenario in which the US and its allies could, in effect, blanket the region with 5th-generation air power.

Two-Carriers in Pacific to Five

These circumstances raise the interesting question that, given the massively increasing tensions in the Pacific between an allied US, Japanese and Philippine Navy and China, it might make sense for the Navy to massively increase its deployment of carriers in the Pacific from the usual two or three all the way up to five. The idea of increasing the number of US Navy carriers deployed in the Pacific to five was suggested recently in an interesting essay from the “Center for China Analysis.”