Confronted with China’s ascendance to a military superpower, the Americans are forced to reevaluate the most important instrument of their naval fleet — the huge aircraft carriers. Although the ship’s power remains unbroken, they could well become more vulnerable.
Unlike in Europe, military expenditures of numerous countries in the Far East are rising. The reason behind this increase is China. Its growing economy expedites resource dependency, so securing her sea lanes becomes vital. Along with increased prosperity comes strengthened self-confidence. China is signaling her claim on the entire South and East China Seas as well as on an essential part of the West Pacific. Such a policy nurtures a feeling of unease among neighboring countries such as South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore — principally because it is a region believed to be rich in raw materials. It is perfectly clear that those states, in turn, are seeking closer ties with the U.S., which they see as the only guarantor of unobstructed sea lanes and free access to raw materials.
A big chunk of China’s massive military budget — $106 billion is earmarked for the People’s Liberation Army in 2012 alone — funds modernization of its naval component. Admiral Liu Huaqing is the spiritual father behind China’s modern navy. In the ’80s, Liu had already postulated a three-phase approach for the extension of Chinese interests and the creation of a carrier fleet. In November 2011, the first of these ships — Soviet-built Varyag, which will probably be named Shi Lang — began conducting its first sea trials. Liu’s concepts about the Navy are being put into practice.
There is one Chinese development that has been of particular interest among experts in recent times: the guided missile Dong Feng 21D. The missile has a range of approximately 1,500 km, and can hit its target with an accuracy of about 5 meters. Its ability to redirect in the final phase makes it suitable for use against mobile targets. Thus, the focus is put above all on the American aircraft carriers, which are probably the principle target against which this weapon has been conceived. The DF-21D is regarded as a so-called “Anti-Access” or “Area-Denial” weapon system. It endangers free access to Chinese zones of economic interest, which is supposed to be guaranteed under international law. This is unprecedented.
The U.S. Navy’s 11 carrier task forces still form the backbone of America’s strategy at sea. These giants have kept their nimbus to the present day. They represent power projection and deterrence, as proven is numerous conflicts since World War II. Aircraft carriers are important instruments of naval forces. Their movements are being registered and taken into account. They can be deployed swiftly and serve as floating air force bases. The area of operation for aircraft carriers is the high seas. They are not dependent on transit rights or overflight permissions, a quality that makes them an ideal complement of permanent air force bases. In the absence of such bases, they become the only alternative for a quick and forceful deployment of military power. Typical examples of which would be the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Intensive Debates
However, carriers are also valuable means for first responders to deliver aid when catastrophes occur, like the tsunami in Indonesia or the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The abbreviated slogan that an aircraft carrier is a “100,000-ton-piece-of-diplomacy” is not entirely wrong. For the most part, allies and partners accept the presence of carriers as a reassuring act. Potential adversaries and unpredictable regimes would be ill advised not to take their presence into consideration.
Despite all this, it cannot be denied that aircraft carriers are currently the hotly debated subject of arguments, even in the U.S. Though it is not a novelty — for such arguments came up under previous administrations, too, when, for instance, Elmo Zumwalt — Navy Chief of Staff under President Nixon — spoke in favor of smaller carriers, so called “sea control ships.” Famous Admiral and former CIA Director Stanfield Turner, too, has repeatedly criticized the current aircraft carriers. The latest criticism is primarily centered upon new threats, the need to make budget cuts and the huge costs for building and maintaining these ships.
Without a doubt, the budgetary situation of the U.S. — that has obliged the Pentagon to cut spending by at least $487 billion in 10 years — is a serious factor. The fact that procuring the next two carriers, the USS Gerald Ford (CVN 78) and the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79), is expected to cost $12 to $13 billion each and a third carrier for the Marines an additional $5.7 billion, is strengthening those who argue for reducing the total number of super carriers from 11 to eight. This would be justifiable, critics say, if the administration, when dealing with low-intensity conflicts, chose to make do with much cheaper amphibious helicopter carriers.
A New Type of Threat
The question of vulnerability is of vital importance for the future of aircraft carriers. And in view of the development of the Dong Feng 21D, this question has provoked a heated debate, because some believe that the correlation of powers has been substantially modified by the appearance of the missile. Traditionally, the biggest threats to carrier battle groups include cruise missiles as well as conventional submarines, which are experiencing a notable proliferation in the Pacific. Yet, for the moment, American forces can still cope with those technologies.
The DF-21D, on the contrary, ushers a new dimension, even though it is still not proven whether it really possesses the capabilities that are attributed to it. But even if it were not the case for the moment, the armed forces would be well-advised to adjust to those new threats. The Dong Feng 21D requires something that currently China is not believed to be capable of — a complex, heavily secured, partly space-based system for reconnaissance, communication and control. Such a system would have to be capable of not only locating, identifying and permanently tracking a carrier group via satellite and assuring an immediate transfer of data to the warhead, but in order to inflict maximal damage it would also have to launch a DF-21D and guide it successfully onto a mobile target.
Furthermore, the architecture of such a system would have to encompass aerial reconnaissance, submarines and other means of information gathering, which must be deployed in the immediate vicinity of the carrier battle group in order to guarantee a continuous and timely adjustment of target coordinates. Even in the age of highly sophisticated satellites, locating an aircraft carrier in waters thousands of square miles wide, remains a highly demanding task. By the way, the fact that China itself is planning to build five to six aircraft carriers puts the DF-21D’s significance into perspective.
Carrier in Battle Group
Even aircraft carrier battle groups do not possess an absolute invulnerability. Incidentally, the spectrum of dangers is not confined to traditional threats only. There are also substantial risks of an asymmetric nature. Sabotage, seizures or intentional collisions, bomb attacks on anchored carriers or carrier groups when passing through the Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar or Malacca are threats that the Navy already takes seriously and puts great effort into countering them.
American forces possess several counter measures against the aforementioned sophisticated capabilities of a DF-21D. In regions with high conflict potential, a carrier battle group never operates alone. Generally, in such zones, one or two other battle groups will be dispatched to support it. And those do not operate left on their own, but rather as part of an all-encompassing system which integrates all reconnaissance and command capabilities of the American military. It was chiefly for that purpose that in November 2011 a new concept was formulated, the Air-Sea-Battle-Doctrine. It integrates the tactical capabilities of the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps and complements those with elements of the Space, Strategic and Cyber Command as well as input from the intelligence services (NSA, CIA, etc).
All this is aimed at targeting not the arrow, but the archer, so to speak. Practically, it means that counter measures — be they offensive, defensive or network-based – must not emanate from the carrier battle group solely, but rather be carried out in a multilayered and far reaching fashion. For instance, by means of electronic and informational warfare, the use of hold-off weapon systems and employing strategic stealth bombers for precision strikes against command and control centers and launching pods of the DF-21D.
Long-term Perspectives
Finally, the combination of strategic and operational measures is to be superimposed and boosted by the three-dimensional active and passive capabilities of the carrier battle group itself. Among those capabilities are, for example, its endurance, mobility, its speed of up to 50 km per hour, its own aerial and land-based means of reconnaissance (manned or via drones), the decentralization of its forces, as well as its own defense by means of up to 44 fighter jets (FA-18E/F Super Hornet) per carrier and finally its escort ships and nuclear submarines which can be employed to hunt enemy submarines and other pursuers.
Additionally, a carrier group has the following at its disposal: means of electronic warfare, anti-ballistic missiles (type SM-3) and mounted anti-aircraft guns. Finally, a carrier group is well capable of shaking off potential enemies and pursuers via emission-control (selectively turning off all of its radars and means of communication) and aided by favorable weather conditions at most. Those capabilities can be complemented on the one hand by feints (one escort ship distances itself far away from the carrier, generating the radar profile of a carrier) and on the other hand by jamming enemy radars with missiles and aircraft. And if worst comes to worst, carriers are capable of taking severe hits and being repaired within hours.
Seen in the medium term, the future of super-carriers is hardly contested – the most recently commissioned types are expected to serve 50 more years. However, the current political developments will force the U.S. to rethink the role of its carriers and adjust them to the hybrid nature of new dangers and threats. While doing so, it would also have to take into consideration the issue of modularity, that is to say the compositions of its naval aviation wing or the use of a carrier as a platform for combined military-civilian operations.
Less Could Be Better
One can assume that the number of super-carriers the U.S. deploys will shrink. The future inventory will probably consist of a combination of super-carriers and somewhat smaller carriers. Those super-carriers will be used exclusively in high-intensity conflict zones. The Americans would also have to examine whether certain missions can be better taken care of by other ships, submarines, drones or other means.
The American superpower will continue to look after her interests in areas far away from her own continent. She will endeavor to check the spread of potential conflicts on spot and, if need be, solve them militarily. As a result, naval forces as well as formations like aircraft carrier battle groups will continue to be necessary, at least for the time being. After all, discussing the use of a DF-21D against a carrier battle group cannot be anything but hypothetical. Since such action would undoubtedly be a means of last resort in an escalating confrontation, which would make no sense whatsoever.
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