Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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9 replies on “links for 2010-03-27”
Carriers are like the early 20th century/pre-WW2 battleships. The primary method countries can project power across the globe. Move a carrier into certain key waters of the world and you send a major message.
Interestingly, the Chinese carrier is one they bought from Russia and are refitting.
It’s nerdily fun to click on the names of the carriers for these non-traditional naval powers to get more information. Apparently, India has three under construction.
That graphic appears to be showing its age; two of the U.S. Carriers it lists (CV-63 & CV-67) have been decommissioned.
I don’t think that many people appreciate how powerful that a carrier is, in terms of projecting power. Functionally, it’s like having a small American island that we can just move around.
Interestingly, the United States Navy’s internal perception at the strategic level is that the service is in decline. Partially because many of our platforms are old and the replacement platform development programs are over budget and behind schedule (the Virginia-class SSNs remain a glorious exception, those are fantastic platforms), and partly because the service hasn’t successfully defined its role in the global war on terror in the same way the USMC and Army have. (The USAF thought they had a pretty good thing going, but they’re getting boxed out by changes in COIN doctrine).
We’re starting to see that carriers are eclipsed much more cheaply by soft power, though, which is…interesting (neither good nor bad necessarily). China isn’t going to attack us this week, and it’s not because of our CVNs — it’s because they wouldn’t have anyone to sell their cheaply-made, useless crap to if America closes her ports to them.
I was going to mention how weird it was that a president like George HW Bush had a carrier named after him while other better presidents don’t have that status, before actually remembering his life before the presidency.
Shouldn’t LBJ have some ship named after him? Probably not a carrier, but something?
George H. W. Bush was a decorated Navy pilot who received the Distinguished Flying Cross and other awards for his combat service during the second world war. I’d say that there was an especially good case for naming a very significant naval vessel after that particular President versus other recent Presidents.
Its really weird how crappy Russia’s carrier program has always been. I suppose that our ‘island hopping’ strategy in the Pacific war created a culture more carrier-focused than Russia’s, since they had no similar experience in their military history.
I’d like to see the US increase our total number of active carrier groups. An aircraft carrier, or better yet a couple of aircraft carriers, allow us to put a floating base somewhere without having to occupy a base in that location for decades just in case we need it. Carriers reduce our need to to get into complex, long-term diplomatic messes over access to ground bases and avoid the potential local resentment that such foreign bases can create. When you consider the cost of foreign aid and trade agreements that can be required to keep access to a foreign base, aircraft carriers are probably way less expensive.
CVNs didn’t quite fit with the Soviet’s strategic doctrine during the Cold War (when most of their ships and ours were designed). The Soviets were already positioned to fight a land war across the border between East and West Germany during most of the Cold War, and they had land bases already to support that effort. They figured any direct engagement with the USA would require strategic weapons, not strategic presence.
I imagine a similar chart showing SSBNs would show a lot more parity between the US and the Russians for this reason.
Doesn’t anyone consider what a colossal waste of resources this is? Ever think about the unintended consequences in projecting all this military might? When was the last time we got national security value out of doing this? Throw in all our subs with their nucs and the hundreds of thousands of US troops all over the world in 100 countries and you’ve got a lot of people pissed off at us and looking for “soft targets” to take us down a notch……Still feel so secure?
That is one heckuva awesome graphic for military geeks like me! Frankly, I’m surprised that Pres. Obama has not proposed cutting the carrier fleet to a level more suitable for the anticipated reduced U.S. strategic presence around the world. (Long-term economic trends make such an adjustment inevitable, a la Paul Kennedy.) Domestic politics and overwhelming military-bureaucratic inertia probably explain the reluctance to do anything until the second Obama term.
Carriers are like the early 20th century/pre-WW2 battleships. The primary method countries can project power across the globe. Move a carrier into certain key waters of the world and you send a major message.
Wikipedia has some different numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_service
Interestingly, the Chinese carrier is one they bought from Russia and are refitting.
It’s nerdily fun to click on the names of the carriers for these non-traditional naval powers to get more information. Apparently, India has three under construction.
That graphic appears to be showing its age; two of the U.S. Carriers it lists (CV-63 & CV-67) have been decommissioned.
And ain’t none of them as pretty as my first ship:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Coral_Sea_(CV-43)
:)~
I don’t think that many people appreciate how powerful that a carrier is, in terms of projecting power. Functionally, it’s like having a small American island that we can just move around.
Interestingly, the United States Navy’s internal perception at the strategic level is that the service is in decline. Partially because many of our platforms are old and the replacement platform development programs are over budget and behind schedule (the Virginia-class SSNs remain a glorious exception, those are fantastic platforms), and partly because the service hasn’t successfully defined its role in the global war on terror in the same way the USMC and Army have. (The USAF thought they had a pretty good thing going, but they’re getting boxed out by changes in COIN doctrine).
We’re starting to see that carriers are eclipsed much more cheaply by soft power, though, which is…interesting (neither good nor bad necessarily). China isn’t going to attack us this week, and it’s not because of our CVNs — it’s because they wouldn’t have anyone to sell their cheaply-made, useless crap to if America closes her ports to them.
I was going to mention how weird it was that a president like George HW Bush had a carrier named after him while other better presidents don’t have that status, before actually remembering his life before the presidency.
Shouldn’t LBJ have some ship named after him? Probably not a carrier, but something?
George H. W. Bush was a decorated Navy pilot who received the Distinguished Flying Cross and other awards for his combat service during the second world war. I’d say that there was an especially good case for naming a very significant naval vessel after that particular President versus other recent Presidents.
Its really weird how crappy Russia’s carrier program has always been. I suppose that our ‘island hopping’ strategy in the Pacific war created a culture more carrier-focused than Russia’s, since they had no similar experience in their military history.
I’d like to see the US increase our total number of active carrier groups. An aircraft carrier, or better yet a couple of aircraft carriers, allow us to put a floating base somewhere without having to occupy a base in that location for decades just in case we need it. Carriers reduce our need to to get into complex, long-term diplomatic messes over access to ground bases and avoid the potential local resentment that such foreign bases can create. When you consider the cost of foreign aid and trade agreements that can be required to keep access to a foreign base, aircraft carriers are probably way less expensive.
CVNs didn’t quite fit with the Soviet’s strategic doctrine during the Cold War (when most of their ships and ours were designed). The Soviets were already positioned to fight a land war across the border between East and West Germany during most of the Cold War, and they had land bases already to support that effort. They figured any direct engagement with the USA would require strategic weapons, not strategic presence.
I imagine a similar chart showing SSBNs would show a lot more parity between the US and the Russians for this reason.
Doesn’t anyone consider what a colossal waste of resources this is? Ever think about the unintended consequences in projecting all this military might? When was the last time we got national security value out of doing this? Throw in all our subs with their nucs and the hundreds of thousands of US troops all over the world in 100 countries and you’ve got a lot of people pissed off at us and looking for “soft targets” to take us down a notch……Still feel so secure?
That is one heckuva awesome graphic for military geeks like me! Frankly, I’m surprised that Pres. Obama has not proposed cutting the carrier fleet to a level more suitable for the anticipated reduced U.S. strategic presence around the world. (Long-term economic trends make such an adjustment inevitable, a la Paul Kennedy.) Domestic politics and overwhelming military-bureaucratic inertia probably explain the reluctance to do anything until the second Obama term.