Carriers still project power

Opinion: May 12, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked a simple question last week. Do we really need 11 aircraft carrier task groups patrolling the oceans for an additional 30 years?

Boy, did that raise eyebrows in military circles.

Gates spoke before an audience of naval officers and defense contractors, many of whom no doubt viewed his remarks as heresy.

But he made some telling points, namely that as anti-ship weapons have become more sophisticated and precise, our fleet of gigantic floating bases has become increasingly vulnerable. Does it make sense to tie up so many scarce defense dollars in assets that might be overwhelmed by anti-ship missiles or submarines?

In other words, are we headed for a moment like Pearl Harbor, when we suddenly learned that we had invested too much in battleships and relied on them for too long, ignoring their vulnerability to relatively cheap airplanes carrying torpedoes?

Debate rages

Since man began forming armies, a debate has raged. Which is best, heavy and expensive or light and agile? It depends: The two are in perpetual tension. In the Middle Ages, heavy and defensive ruled; some fortresses were effectively impregnable. But at Pearl Harbor, light and agile won the day.

Gates was saying that current conditions tend to favor forces that are widely dispersed and highly maneuverable — yet lethal, thanks to advances in weaponry. It’s time we put fewer eggs in the carrier task force basket and more in dispersed, maneuverable forces of our own — meaning smaller ships, perhaps with stealth capability, that can work closer to shore.

All of which is fine, as far as it goes. But Gates went much further. How many carrier task forces are enough? He didn’t propose a specific number, but he suggested a profoundly troubling measuring stick for deciding: The relative power of other seafaring nations.

“Do we really need 11 carrier strike groups ... when no other country has more than one?” he asked.

Robert Haddick, a former Marine officer who writes at the Small Wars Journal site, noted that the answer to that question could be found in part on Okinawa, where residents are demanding closure of a major U.S. air base. Once that happens, Haddick wrote, a “big strategic hole” will open up in America’s western Pacific defense plans, and we will need our carriers even more to project force and deter aggression.

Okinawa isn’t the only problem. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain bases in several other countries. Yet we have vital interests in far-flung regions such as the Persian Gulf, the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait.

“The fact that no other country, today at least, operates anything like a (U.S. Navy) carrier strike group says nothing about their utility,” Haddick wrote. “I am surprised that Gates said this, especially to an audience of naval officers.”

The carrier force has been the primary instrument by which America maintains freedom of the seas. The importance of this benefit was highlighted more than a century ago by Alfred Thayer Mahan, in his pathbreaking “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History.”

Mahan’s basic point was encapsulated in his introduction.

At one time or another, many of us read stories of the wars between Rome and Carthage, illustrated by pictures of Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants.

What was he doing in the Alps, anyway? Why didn’t he go by sea? It turns out the Romans controlled it, forcing Hannibal to go overland — a trek that cost him more than half his army. Those losses could be credited directly to the Roman navy.

Powerful carriers

U.S. control of the sea is a benefit largely conferred by the existence of a powerful fleet of carriers, able to project awesome power virtually anywhere on short notice or help in disaster aid when the need arises.

No one knows the “right” number of carrier task groups. Gates is surely right to suggest that it’s time to throw more money at lighter, cheaper, more maneuverable ships.

But the standard he suggested — the relative power of other navies — hints at something other than a measured adjustment. What Gates could have in mind is a radical cut in the carrier force, and that would surely be a big strategic mistake.

E. Thomas McClanahan is a member of the Kansas City Star editorial board. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.