Could Russia and China Sink New US Carriers?

By Robert Farley

The United States has decided to spend many billions of dollars on the CVN-78 (“Ford”) class of aircraft carriers to replace the venerable Nimitz class. The latter has served the U.S. Navy since 1975, with the last ship (USS George H. W. Bush) entering service in 2009. The Fords could be in service, in one configuration or another, until the end of the 21st century.

Just as the U.S. government has determined to make this investment, numerous analysts have argued that the increasing lethality of anti-access/area denial systems (especially China’s, [3] but also Russia [4] and Iran) has made the aircraft carrier obsolete. If so, investing in a class of ships intended to serve for 90 years might look like a colossal waste of money.

– This Story First Appeared inThe National Interest–

As with any difficult debate, we should take time to define our terms, and clarify the stakes. The anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems around the world may indeed curb the effectiveness of the Ford class, but the U.S. will still find uses for this ships.

Define Obsolete:

We need to carefully describe how we think about obsolescence. Military analysts often equates obsolescence with uselessness, especially while pursuing dollars for new gadgets, but the two words don’t mean the same thing. In every war, armies, navies, and air forces fight with old, even archaic equipment. Built for World War II, the A-26 Invader attack aircraft served in the Vietnam War.The USS New Jersey [5], declared obsolete at the end of World War II, fought off Korea, Vietnam, and Lebanon. The A-10 “Warthog,” [6] thought by many to be obsolete before it even flew, continues to fight in America’s wars. For countries less well-endowed than the United States, the point hold even more strongly; all of the armies currently fighting in Syria and Libya use equipment that the U.S. considered obsolete decades ago.

The point is that even if the ships of the CVN-78 class cannot penetrate advanced A2/AD systems, they can still serve other useful purposes. Indeed, American carriers since 1945 have entirely earned their keep on these other missions, which include strike in permissive environments, displays of national power and commitment, and relief operations. “Obsolescence” for one kind of mission does not imply uselessness across the range of maritime military operations.