He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is author of The Battleship Book. needs to either remedy those problems, or consider an alternative means of delivering ordnance. The vulnerabilities of the big carriers are real, and the U.S. However, just because flat-decked aircraft carrying ships will likely be with us does not mean that the Ford class, which emphasizes high-intensity, high technology warfare, represents an ideal investment of U.S. These two factors seem likely to persist. They survive because aircraft have short ranges, and fixed airfields have significant military and political vulnerabilities. Aircraft carriers, in widely variant forms, have enjoyed a good, long run. The early fighters and bombers of the jet age sometimes had even briefer lifespans. The fast battleships of World War II went into reserve less than a decade after their commissioning. Plenty of world-beating weapons quickly become obsolete. has been slower than many would have liked to adapt to the new array of anti-access threats, the development of fifth and sixth generation stealth aircraft, as well as the eventual procurement of long range, carrier-based strike zones, can help restore the usefulness of the CVN-78 class, even if anti-access weapons drive the carriers further out to sea. Navy has enjoyed the advantage of nearly unfettered access to enemy airspace over the past twenty-five years, and has structured its air wings accordingly. Instead (as noted above) aircraft carriers have found themselves jobs in a variety of other conditions. carrier since World War II has ever needed to directly challenge such a system. The aircraft carrier as a concept has survived, in no small part, because aircraft carriers are good for jobs other than penetrating tightly defended A2/AD systems. The utility of a large, flat-decked ship comes primarily from the kinds of aircraft it can carry and launch. Carriers that become “obsolete” may not stay that way. Similar, improvements in anti-submarine technology could limit or eliminate the vulnerability that carriers face against undersea threats. carriers, missile defense and electronic counter-measures might make the missiles ineffective to the point of uselessness. While Chinese missiles might have the range and terminal maneuverability to find U.S. The next generation of A2/AD capabilities will have a similarly non-linear character. Each iteration led to a different constellation of power and vulnerability the bombers had the upper hand at some points, and the carriers at others. The Soviets and the Americans worked hard against each other, countering each innovation with an ever-more-sophisticated reply. As war never happened, we never had the opportunity to test the capabilities of a carrier air wing against a flight of Tu-22M “Backfire” bombers. developed countermeasures, including the F-14 Tomcat, intended to defeat and distract the Soviet systems. The Soviets developed an elaborate system of submarines, sensors, and aircraft designed to strike US aircraft carriers. People have predicted the obsolescence of the aircraft carrier since the end of World War II. “Obsolescence” for one kind of mission does not imply uselessness across the range of maritime military operations. 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. 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. 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. The A-10 “Warthog,” thought by many to be obsolete before it even flew, continues to fight in America’s wars. The USS New Jersey, declared obsolete at the end of World War II, fought off Korea, Vietnam, and Lebanon. Built for World War II, the A-26 Invader attack aircraft served in the Vietnam War. In every war, armies, navies, and air forces fight with old, even archaic equipment. Military analysts often equates obsolescence with uselessness, especially while pursuing dollars for new gadgets, but the two words don’t mean the same thing. We need to carefully describe how we think about obsolescence.
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