| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The aircraft carrier has been around in various forms since the First World
War. Its emergence as the key denominator of naval power is legendary, and
its continuing prestige in this role is even yet spawning building programs
among established and growing navies. The aircraft carrier is the largest and
most complex of all warships and in most cases the most expensive. In addition
to the cost of the ship itself, that of the embarked air wing must be considered,
not to mention the extensive logistics and training infrastructure needed to keep
carriers operating and useful. A recent Naval Postgraduate School study has
shown that approximately 46 percent of the Navy's personnel-officer, enlisted,
and civilian-are assigned to positions either on or supporting its carriers.
1
For
these and other reasons, there has been almost constant debate over the past
ninety years within navies, between navies and air forces, and within governments over the advisability of investing in carriers. As the prospects for major
cutbacks in defense spending loom, the debate will again heat up. Both proponents and opponents of carriers have refined their arguments over the past nine
decades, but these are now starting to wear thin as the geopolitical environment
and the technology of war have changed. Also, the arguments both for and
against have tended toward the theological, with many tacit or unacknowledged
assumptions underpinning the argumentative maneuvers. In an attempt to improve the quality of the coming debates, this article will examine the prospects
for future utility of the ship type, including that of the embarked air wing, from
a different angle. Instead of making a holistic judgment on the future utility of
aircraft carriers, it will focus on the ways they have been, are, or could be used.
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