Are US Navy's super carriers a relic of wars past?

• dragg

  25 Mar 13, 09:13

  WASHINGTON: Budget pressures at the Pentagon have renewed a debate about the value of the US Navy's giant aircraft carriers, with critics arguing the warships are fast becoming costly relics in a new era of warfare.
  
  With the Pentagon facing $500 billion in cuts over the next decade, a Navy officer has dared to question the most treasured vessels in his service's fleet, saying the super carriers are increasingly vulnerable to new weapons and too expensive to operate.
  
  "After 100 years, the carrier is rapidly approaching the end of its useful strategic life," wrote Captain Henry Hendrix in a report published this month by the Centre for a New American Security, a Washington think-tank with close ties to President Barack Obama's administration.
  
  Changes in naval warfare mean that carriers "may not be able to move close enough to targets to operate effectively or survive in an era of satellite imagery and long-range precision strike missiles," Hendrix wrote.
  
  Under US law, the military is required to maintain 11 aircraft carriers. Ten are currently in service after the retirement of the USS Enterprise, which is due to be replaced in 2017 with the USS Gerald Ford, the first of a new class of "big decks."
  
  The new carrier carries a prohibitive pricetag of $13.6 billion, double the cost of the last aircraft carrier. And that does not count the $4.7 billion spent on research and development for the new class of carriers.
  
  It costs about $6.5 million a day to operate a single carrier strike group, which includes five other warships, an attack submarine, an air wing of 80 fighters and helicopters, and a crew of 6,700.
  
  But Hendrix maintains the return on the investment is paltry.
  
  Each F/A-18 fighter in the carrier fleet has dropped roughly 16 bombs in 10 years of war, which works out to about $7.5 million for each bomb when all the costs of the aircraft are taken into account.
  
  That compares to the cost of firing a Tomahawk cruise missile, at about $2 million each. And five naval destroyers armed with Tomahawks cost only $10 billion to build and $1.8 million a day to operate, Hendrix said.
  
  Apart from the mushrooming cost, carriers are facing mounting dangers from increasingly sophisticated ship-killing missiles, skeptics say.
  
  US strategists are fixated on China's DF-21D missile, which they fear could potentially knock out a carrier and deprive the American fleet of its dominance on the high seas.
  
  Former Pentagon chief Robert Gates cited the anti-ship missiles and other hi-tech weapons in a speech in 2010 in which he questioned whether it was worth spending billions on more carriers.
  
  "Do we really need 11 carrier strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one?" Gates told retired naval officers.
  
  Advanced missiles and stealthy submarines "could end the operational sanctuary our navy has enjoyed in the Western Pacific for the better part of six decades," said Gates, who referred to carriers as potential "wasting assets."
  
  His remarks alarmed naval leaders, and the latest dissent has failed to dissuade most officers, who view the big decks as crucial and note that China is deploying its own carrier.
  
  Pete Daly, a retired vice admiral who once commanded the USS Nimitz carrier strike group, defended the ships as a vital element of US military might.
  
  To hit deeply buried targets, fighter jets flying off a carrier were more effective than Tomahawk missiles, and knocking out a super carrier is "very, very hard," said Daly, now head of the US Naval Institute.
  
  As for China's missiles, "it was an additional threat to take into account," Daly told AFP. But he added: "The US Navy is very aware of this and has plans to deal with it."
  
  The cost of the carriers had to be compared with the huge funding required to protect and supply air bases and troops on land, as illustrated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
  
  And the carriers could be ordered in without the political strain associated with a drawn-out ground war.
  
  "The American people are very wary of commitments ashore, there's no appetite to go in and have a ten-year presence in some place," said Daly.
  
  "Here you have a force that can go to a location, deal with a task ahead and then leave quickly or stay as long as it needs to. The political dynamic of that is completely different".
  
  - AFP/fa

• dragg

  25 Mar 13, 09:34

  why do U.S. need 11 carriers when no country has more than one?  good question!!

  all the fault of the warmongers, arms manufacturers and their military.

  $6.5 million a day just to maintain one fleet.

  they should stop the execessive military spending and pay more attention on reducing their national debt.

   

   

   

   

• SBS2601D

  25 Mar 13, 09:42

  11 carriers to maintain forward presence....

  And boy do we in Asia, sorely need the US 7th fleet, especially to balance against China.

  For without them, China would feel far less restrained (already markedly less so in recent years).

  Honestly you think our peace here came without the 7th Fleet?

• dragg

  25 Mar 13, 09:59

  are you saying without U.S. presence china will start threatening us?

  thats what they want you to believe.  U.S. is as self serving as any countries in the world.

   

• SBS2601D

  25 Mar 13, 10:11

  So you are saying that Vietnam, Philippines "bought" the USA's arguments in recent years?

  And that's after one fought a decade long war with USA, and the other booted the USA out in 90s.

  Look further than the carriers.

  USA and Japan's FDI have also been used to hedge against China's increasing economic hegemony.

  Look at how Cambodia had done at China's bidding to disrupt the recent ASEAN summit.

• storywolf

  25 Mar 13, 13:34

  Originally posted by dragg:

  
  Changes in naval warfare mean that carriers "may not be able to move close enough to targets to operate effectively or survive in an era of satellite imagery and long-range precision strike missiles," Hendrix wrote.

  
  

  It is true that nowadays carriers "may not be able to move close enough to target to operate effectively or survive in an era of satellite imagery and long-range precision strike missile" - but this is not because of carrier is obsolete - but more of a reflect of the navy choice of aircrafts !!! That is because of the very limited range of F-18, , unlike F-14 thus carrier have to move closer, also cannot project its force further and will come within reach of the anti-ship missile.

• sgdiehard

  26 Mar 13, 09:46

  Originally posted by SBS2601D:

  So you are saying that Vietnam, Philippines "bought" the USA's arguments in recent years?

  And that's after one fought a decade long war with USA, and the other booted the USA out in 90s.

  Look further than the carriers.

  USA and Japan's FDI have also been used to hedge against China's increasing economic hegemony.

  Look at how Cambodia had done at China's bidding to disrupt the recent ASEAN summit.

  your enemy's enemy is your friend, that is all it is about.

  Japan can't expect China to remain the China during the Qing Dynasty. Do what they want to do, but are they awake?

• SBS2601D

  26 Mar 13, 10:12

  Ironically ASEAN is also playing a very dangerous brinkmanship game hedging in such fashion. The members less Laos and Cambodia aren't about to bow to China's hegemony.

  The Spratly Islands might well be the flash-point.

• SBS2601D

  26 Mar 13, 14:15

  Originally posted by dragg:

  are you saying without U.S. presence china will start threatening us?

  thats what they want you to believe.  U.S. is as self serving as any countries in the world.

   

  Vietnam has accused a Chinese vessel of firing on one of its fishing boats in disputed waters in the South China Sea, setting it alight.

  You should eat your words.

  The USA is no saint. But China is a bigger problem because of geographical proximity. Any 10-year-old kid will tell you that.

  Vietnam fought a war with the USA. But how many wars did it fight with China through its history?

• weasel1962

  26 Mar 13, 14:20

  If one accepts the argument that one shouldn't build a ship as it can be sunk, then no country in the world should have a navy. It could literally takes hundreds of aircraft, dozens of ships and thousands of missiles to knock out a carrier. How many countries can afford that attrition ratio?
• SBS2601D

  26 Mar 13, 14:28

  Be prepared to be surprised then.

  The uninvited guest: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced
  
  If you must know, China possesses a disproportionately powerful submarine fleet by comparison with its surface fleet because it had been investing in such a fleet since the 1960s.

  China won't have as much as a problem countering the US carrier fleet as many would think.

  China also recently developed ASBM aka the carrier killer.

  Looking at how easily ships in the past had fallen prey to sub-sonic Exocet/Harpoon missiles, no carrier is safe from supersonic ASBMs that drop from the heavens.

• storywolf

  26 Mar 13, 14:37

  Originally posted by SBS2601D:

  Be prepared to be surprised then.

  The uninvited guest: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced
  
  If you must know, China possesses a disproportionately powerful submarine fleet by comparison with its surface fleet because it had been investing in such a fleet since the 1960s.

  China won't have as much as a problem countering the US carrier fleet as many would think.

  China also recently developed ASBM aka the carrier killer.

  Looking at how easily ships in the past had fallen prey to sub-sonic Exocet/Harpoon missiles, no carrier is safe from supersonic ASBMs that drop from the heavens.

  
  
• dragg

  26 Mar 13, 15:41

  Originally posted by SBS2601D:

  Vietnam has accused a Chinese vessel of firing on one of its fishing boats in disputed waters in the South China Sea, setting it alight.

  You should eat your words.

  The USA is no saint. But China is a bigger problem because of geographical proximity. Any 10-year-old kid will tell you that.

  Vietnam fought a war with the USA. But how many wars did it fight with China through its history?

   

  you believe what you want to believe.

   

   

   

• SBS2601D

  26 Mar 13, 15:46

  Originally posted by dragg:

   

  you believe what you want to believe.

   

   

   

  Beliefs cannot replace facts and objectivity.

  Nor have you answered me.

  So can you tell me how many times Vietnam has fought against China?

• dragg

  26 Mar 13, 15:50

  Originally posted by SBS2601D:

  Beliefs cannot replace facts and objectivity.

  Nor have you answered me.

  So can you tell me how many times Vietnam has fought against China?

  its not how many times but what reason?

  countries with long borders have skirmishes, not just vietnam and china.

  are you going to tell me you can tell who is in the right in all the borders skirmishes worldwide?

   

• SBS2601D

  26 Mar 13, 15:53

  Originally posted by dragg:

  its not how many times but what reason?

  countries with long borders have skirmishes, not just vietnam and china.

  are you going to tell me you can tell who is in the right in all the borders skirmishes worldwide?

   

  are you saying without U.S. presence china will start threatening us?

  thats what they want you to believe.  U.S. is as self serving as any countries in the world.

  My answer was YES. Absolutely doubtless.

  I answered your question, you dodged mine. 

  So before we go further off-tangent, I would like to know why you do not see the US 7th fleet as the  force that has helped balance China's influence through decades till recently. 

• dragg

  26 Mar 13, 16:05

  Originally posted by SBS2601D:

  are you saying without U.S. presence china will start threatening us?

  thats what they want you to believe.  U.S. is as self serving as any countries in the world.

  My answer was YES. Absolutely doubtless.

  I answered your question, you dodged mine. 

  So before we go further off-tangent, I would like to know why you do not see the US 7th fleet as the  force that has helped balance China's influence through decades till recently. 

  i get your point.  so i'm not going to waste my time and breath debating.

   

   

   

   

   

• SBS2601D

  26 Mar 13, 16:08

  Awwww....how boring.

  Just when I thought I could stir my brain a little to tide through another weekday.

• sgdiehard

  26 Mar 13, 19:59

  US balancing the power of China? I think it is the other way round, US got 11 carriers, China just got 1 miserable one that is not operationally ready yet. It will take a long time for China to balance the power of the US. But they will do it.

  guess we should go back to the questions, do the US still need 11 carriers? it all depends on what they want to do with it. Cold war is over, colonies have all become independent. The major threats to nations, especially countries like the US, come from terrorists, and carriers have limited use against terrorists. They have the money, they do what they like.

   

• dragg

  28 Mar 13, 09:14

  China as peacemaker

  By Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman

  March 27, 2013

  Nuclear escalation on the Korean Peninsula demands creative solutions. With a 2,200-year history of non-aggression, China is in the best position to take the lead — and relieve the United States of a burden it has shouldered for too long.

  In fact, no other nation  has had as stable a pattern of world citizenship. Over two millennia, China has not attempted to conquer its neighbors or spread its system of government on any scale remotely comparable to the Romans, Mongols, British, Germans, French, Spanish, Russians, Japanese or even Americans. China does brutally resist the secession of Tibet, which it considers part of its ancient patrimony. But it has not grasped for lands beyond its historical borders.

  There is no reason to think the Middle Kingdom has merely been biding its time. Indeed, if any nation can be said to have a long-term strategy, it is China. Premier Zhou Enlai, when asked what he thought of the French Revolution of 1789, allegedly replied, “It’s too soon to tell.”

  China also has a 2,200-year record of authoritarian rule. Even so, it has become steadily more open — at its own glacial pace. China’s government is more responsive to its people now than it was under the Han, Ming or Qing dynasties, ending in 1911. After a long period of civil war in the first half of the 20th century, worsened by a brutal Japanese occupation, the dictator Mao Zedong restored order.

  Since 1979, the repressive government has slowly provided more freedoms to its 1.3 billion citizens — beginning with what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called “freedom from want.” Today, the Chinese people are freer to save, accumulate, conduct business and travel abroad than perhaps at any other time in China’s 2,200-year history as a coherent state.

  Pundits and professional worriers tend to paint China as a burgeoning military threat. This is a serious misinterpretation of a very long track record that includes the peaceful re-annexation of British Hong Kong and continuing restraint toward Taiwan (lost first to the Japanese, and then as a result of civil war). Unjustified suspicions blind policymakers to important security options at a volatile time in Northeast Asia.

  Like pioneers of yore, we need to read the trail to understand where China is headed and how we might ease its path.

  For centuries, China was the economic powerhouse of the globe. As Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, commented in 1776, “China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.” Today, more than anything else, the ancient nation wants to be rich again — though in ways that do not leave commoners mired in squalor, as before. Its commercial policies are aggressive, but it is not territorially expansive. China understands that physical conquest — as Japan’s World War II experience proved — can undermine economic success in the modern world.

  Instead, to achieve its goals, China needs regional peace and stability. It has a far greater stake in capitalist South Korea’s health and happiness than even the United States, which has guaranteed Seoul’s safety for the past 60 years as part of its campaign to stop the worldwide spread of communism — a task now completed.

  South Korean companies such as Samsung are among the world’s largest producers of semiconductors, the electronic chips that nourish everything in the electronic food chain from toys to automobiles. Semiconductors are key to economic growth around the globe.

  Though China’s manufacturing base has gone viral, it does not make these precious chips in any significant amount — partly because foreign investors won’t set up shop, given the lax enforcement of intellectual-property rights. China depends heavily on imported semiconductors, for which its best and closest suppliers are South Korea and Taiwan.

  Semiconductor plants require enormous investment; a single factory costs $6 billion or more. They are geese, laying golden eggs. The last thing China wants is a nuclear or conventional war between its immediate neighbors that might destroy this industrial infrastructure. Li Baodong, China’s envoy to the United Nations, said as much in early March, after the last round of sanctions against North Korea to discourage Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear ambitions. “We are formally committed,” Li insisted, “to safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

  This statement is of critical importance to Washington, which should do everything possible to encourage China to take on the role of peacemaker and enforcer. The United States has played bad cop in relation to North Korea for six decades. We still have 28,500 troops on the ground in a war without end.

  An armistice brought the three-year civil war between North and South to a temporary halt in 1953. The peace treaty, however, never followed.

  Modern world history shows that Band-Aids need to come off for healing to happen — despite the sting. Japan’s recovery after World War II was delayed for six years, until the allied countries finally agreed to sign a peace treaty in 1951. Thirty years after the surrender of Nazi Germany, the Helsinki Accords of 1975 formally established peace in Europe. The accords reduced tensions across the continent and eventually led to the end of the Cold War.

  The 60-year delay in formally ending the Korean War has had costly repercussions. No blue-helmeted U.N. troops patrol the demilitarized zone, as in other post-conflict areas, to keep peace once it’s been established. Instead, the United States has borne the expensive military burden of enforcing another country’s day-to-day defense for six decades — enabling South Korea to democratize and flourish.

  In addition to straining our national budget, this commitment has bought us animosity on both sides of the 38^th parallel. A survey of South Korean military cadets in 2004 found that more ranked the United States as the “country’s main enemy” than ranked North Korea as the primary threat. Young Americans who teach English in Seoul find signs at some restaurants saying, “No Foreigners Allowed.”

  If not an example of the axiom “No good deed goes unpunished,” these reactions may belong in the category of nationalist responses to the long-term presence of foreigners — regardless of how helpful they may be.

  A former graduate student at San Diego State University, where I teach, recalls liking the cookies that friendly U.S. soldiers brought to the South Korean orphanage where he was raised in the 1980s. But he also remembers being mystified as to why the “white men” were there. It’s a question the majority of Americans might have a hard time answering, given that the U.S. commitment predates their birth.

  The United States has given South Korea more in the way of shelter than any competitive nation-state has given another in perhaps all world history. But this effort has hit a point of diminishing returns for everyone involved.

  More of the same promises little in the way of progress. It’s time for China to become umpire and peacemaker of the region, consistent with its historical record and modern aspirations.

  The 60th anniversary of the Korean Armistice is July 27, 2013. Let’s celebrate with a peace treaty that allows Washington to bring our troops home for good.

  from reuters

  
  
• Underpaid

  29 Mar 13, 00:53

  So... dragg.... Is South Korea on the border of China? Or North Korea? The author seems confused. Why talk about China and a peace treaty when it is North Korea that a peace treaty is needed with? Unless North Korea is secretly a province of the People's Republic. And do you even think North Korea is even receptive to a peace treaty or can be relied on to keep to one? North Korea is a cult religion on a country wide scale, and those are never known for their rationality. China can play peacemaker all it wants, but unless that "God want to be" is removed from NK, doubt even China will get anywhere.