Sometimes the unexpected happens.
As mentioned elsewhere, It can be, as they say in Boston, a wicked shockah.
Way back in the Vietnam War, We were touting the line that we had the VC and PAVN on the run and then out of nowhere, the enemy launched the Tet Offensive.
It was an unexpected occurrence and eventually would lead to, arguably, The Paris Peace Conference.
Recently, on October 7, Hamas came out of nowhere to surprise the world.
The two operations were hugely similar at least in the shock value and how they captured the world's attention, yet no one in the news industry seems to get it.
Are there any other Vietnam Var surprises that may end up in a déjà vu moment? Maybe, but it could be a stretch.
In 1964, two Viet Cong commandos attached charges to the aircraft carrier USS Card in Saigon Harbor and sank it.This was even before the Tonkin Gulf incident and before we sent troops.
It was a big shock, but did not stop the war.
Now, as we have a couple of pots boiling (the Proxy War and Israel/Hamas) we are again playing around with aircraft carriers.
Bloomberg reports that The USS Gerald R. Ford is leaving the Eastern Med to return to its homeport in Norfolk, VA.
Leaving so quickly? The Ford came to the deployment with a we're getting serious in the M-E now vibe.
What's up?
The AP headline was: The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is returning home after extended deployment defending Israel. So, is Israel now defenseless?
The Ford was probably not there to defend Israel from Hamas. More likely a warning to Hezbollah. Now that the carrier is leaving, has something changed?
The Eisenhower is in the Red Sea and is supporting action against the Houthis/ How effective has that really been as the Maersk company does not seem to be all in on shipping in the Red Sea?
The question is do we really need aircraft carriers, or for that matter, large surface ships?
In World War II, aircraft carriers were used in battle between two navies that had fleets for that purpose. The most famous encounter at Midway in the Pacific between Japan and the US was a decisive, if not the decisive battle of the war between the two powers.
Indeed, it was arguably the greatest carrier battle ever.
After that war, there have not been any huge carrier engagements and there have not been any peer enemy fleets, but we're ready just in case.
That makes the question, how necessary are aircraft carriers in this day and age.
Below is the list of nations and the number of carriers for each:
China 2
France 1
India 2
Italy 2
Japan 2
Russia 1
Spain 1
Thailand 1
Turkey 1
UK 2
US 11
As can be seen, the US has as many carriers as the rest of the world combined and the rest of the world is probably not going to combine in battle against the US.
If another country has a conflict with the US, their navy will configure operations taking into consideration the preponderance of US carriers. It will not be, even in an alliance, a knockdown, drag out carrier battle.
Maybe there is a place for the carrier in support of other operations. What we have to do is make sure something like what happened to the USS Cole (destroyer) and the Card (carrier) does not happen to a carrier in the future.
Is this why the Ford was sent home? Don't know.
Back in October of 2021 at one of the Soho Forum debates in New York City, famed Neoconservative Bill Kristol and libertarian stalwart Scott Horton squared off on the proposition that “A willingness to intervene, and seek regime change, is key to an American foreign policy that benefits America”
One hopes no one has to be told that Mr. Kristol was the anti-democracy guy in this fray.
Anyway, after arguments and rebuttals, one audience member asked Bill the $64,000 question:
"Right now, we sail pretty often our Nimitz class carriers into an area that China considers their waters and there are 6,000 souls on board those Nimitz Class carriers and China has missiles that can strike them. If we were to lose one carrier that would be 6000 dead. that's two 911s in one afternoon. What would be our response in current American foreign policy, and wouldn't that response, wouldn't one of the things on the table be a nuclear exchange and at that point aren't we rolling the dice on the great sword of Damocles over us?"
So, there it is. Maybe there is a vital support function that the behemoths are necessary for, or maybe there is not.
We all might understand that something off of China could be a casus belli, but what about lesser powers. Does anyone think that if Iran gets lucky (or arguably, unlucky) and sinks one, what would we do? Get in a war that can only last long and be a loser (a la Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.)
At the Long Hill Institute, we are neutralists and see the folly of our adventures from going back to the War of 1812 on. Thus, it is natural to point out that much of the accoutrements of the war state could be done without.
Unless the Navy Department can make a case for the absolute necessity of these leviathans, they are scrap steel.
Please note, that in the book, She Searches For Monsters To Destroy America and the Eternal Recurrence of Unnecessary Wars, as the title suggests, we argue that just about all the wars the US has fought were unnecessary. One that was not exactly a choice was our fight against the Islamic Barbary Pirates. These were vicious slavers that would make the ante-bellum bondsmen blush, and they had been enslaving people without regard to color for centuries. We took up the battle half-heartedly at first but, got it done.
The last paragraph of She Searches is instructive here,
“Yet it was a fine accomplishment, and it was a war that America had to fight. It took a while to get right, but it ended the depredations of the corsairs. Once it was over, the forces were done and did not stay and tell the natives how to run their affairs. Today, that in and of itself appears a triumph.”
We finished the job in the early 19th Century without carriers.
Their actual safety, when carrying out their nominal mission of force projection vs another continent, relies on the game of chicken we refer to as deterrence.