Posted on 09/24/2004 8:26:37 AM PDT by mark502inf
The Navy can operate with fewer carrier groups, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), the panel that decides how many new carriers to authorize.
The Navy likely "will not need a full-time carrier strike group" in every region of the globe, Rumsfeld said.
Currently the Navy has 12 carrier strike groups, with each group including one carrier.
A Northrop Grumman Corp. unit, Newport News shipbuilding, builds nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for the Navy, and now is developing the next-generation carrier, CVN 21, at a cost that the Navy officially estimated years ago to be $11.7 billion, including development expenses. Later carriers in the new class are expected to cost between $6 billion and $7 billion.
As well, carrier strike groups include surface ships and submarines made by Northrop Grumman Newport News and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, and by General Dynamics Corp. at its Bath Iron Works and Electric Boat yards.
Rumsfeld also addressed his plans for global force positioning.
The Bush administration's plan to re-deploy U.S. troops over the next 10 years, a move essential to responding to the threats of the new century and the practical need "to do more with less," will strengthen rather than weaken U.S. military power abroad, according to Rumsfeld.
SASC took testimony from Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and top commanders concerning the global posture of U.S. military forces, and in particular the planned redeployment of U.S. service personnel now stationed abroad.
The Bush redeployment plan will mean "closure of significant numbers of U.S. facilities overseas," noted SASC Chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). The plan "will likely move sixty-to-seventy thousand military personnel" and their families back to the United States from foreign assignments, down from the 200,000 U.S. troops stationed abroad today, Warner said.
The force redeployment process will produce a "more agile, lethal, and deployable" force, better trained and better linked by improved communications and intelligence activities, Rumsfeld told SASC members.
Nor will the redeployment lessen U.S. commitments abroad, he said. The United States has worked in close consultation with its allies and other governments to map out a smooth and agreeable path for the process, Rumsfeld said.
As U.S. troop levels abroad start to decline, technology may take up some of the slack in highly sensitive spots such as the Korean peninsula, Rumsfeld suggested.
"In fact, our partnership with the Republic of Korea is a good example of what we hope to accomplish" through the redeployment process, Rumsfeld said. DOD, he said, "has been investing in and making arrangements for improved capabilities, such as long-range precision weaponry" with which to protect South Korea, he said.
"As a result, as we are increasingly able to transfer some responsibility to Korean forces, we will be able to reduce U.S. troop levels," he said. The end result will be that "our defense of Korea [will be] stronger than before," Rumsfeld said.
Reducing U.S. troop levels in Korea, in fact, will lessen a source of friction between the United States and South Korea, Rumsfeld told senators. The U.S. headquarters in Korea takes up "some of the most valuable downtown real estate in Seoul," so DOD plans to move to new digs "well south of the capital," he said.
"Our troops should be located in places where they are wanted, where they are welcomed," he said, acknowledging that American forces in some cases "grate on local populations and have become an irritant for host governments."
And as Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, noted last week, the United States has troops stationed in 120 nations around the world.
Stationing a larger portion of U.S. troops at home does not make them necessarily less able to move quickly to where they are needed around the world: in fact, it may improve their mobility, said Rumsfeld, noting that "legal or political restrictions on the movement of our troops" in other countries acts as a counterweight to the advantage of having them abroad in the first place.
Warner stressed his view that the military personnel redeployment process not interfere with Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), a DOD program for realigning defense resources more effectively. It is "imperative that we stay on that timetable" for BRAC, Warner said.
Rumsfeld assured him that that would be the case, noting that "the global posture decision process" for redeploying U.S. forces, and BRAC "are tightly linked; indeed, they depend on each other."
I thought the next-gen carrier was going to be CVN-78. 21 is for DD-21, the next-gen destroyer -- the Zumwalt class.
GAAAH! Wrong thread!
I guess the U.S.S. William Jefferson Clinton isn't going to be constructed after all.
Uh oh. The Navy certainly enjoyed the cancellation of the Crusader and then the Comanche. Let's see how they like it ;)
I do think we will see the next-generation of aircraft carriers arrive, though. Their ability to operate as a massive strike force without being tied down to nearby bases make them extremely powerful for force projection anywhere in the world. Indeed, it is said that the biggest mistake of the Soviet Navy was the fact they should have built up a carrier fleet during the 1960's to compete against the American carriers and also provide a means to deliver nuclear strikes easier in many parts of the world.
Unless the Navy brings back floating brothels, or creates a task force dedicated to carrying out military actions for political distractions.
Once they have gone, they aren't coming back.
If our enemies do their work properly, we may not always have a secure landbase from which to launch an attack. Carrier groups allow us to project force without a local ally, and these days allies are hard to come by. Those we have in some cases allow us access to their soil because they know we are coming anyway, that with our carrier capability we don't need them.
Get rid of the carrier groups, and suddenly you are hostage to the internal politics of small countries.
As for the numbers involved, we need enough to keep all potential enemies at bay while we fight the current one. Remember that during the run-up to the war in Iraq, China rattled its sabers toward Taiwan, and North Korea threatened the South, both in an attempt to draw our attention away from Baghdad. Had we not had very real capability to deter them, they might have moved knowing all our forces were tied down far far away.
We are facing a decade of war. We have to get away from the idea that we are going to do this on the cheap. If its worth doing, prepare to spend some money.
Don't know that our carriers were meant to stop the Russian subs from moving through the Denmark Straits, finding subs up there was almost impossible do to thermal layers.
We definately can do with less carriers. Remember that there are gator navy carriers which were not around back in the cold war days.
The plan to forward deployment is a smart play. I read somewhere that carriers only spend 1/3 of the time on actual deployment. Except for subs, the Navy spends much to much time in port in Conus. I'm saying this as someone who did 4 years in the Navy.
Navy bump!
If you consider the fact that the Soviets/Russians have very restricted access to the open ocean, it's hard to see a Russian Aircraft carrier as anything more than an expensive luxury. That's why the Russians concentrated on submarines. First task, secure your own coastline. Second Task, interdict your enemy's shipping lanes. Subs can do both. It's not until you get to "Force Projection" that carriers really become a must-have.
Then you have to wonder how the Russians would have been able to support the myriad of technical, industrial & manpower requirements associated with fielding Carrier Battle Groups back in the '60's.
What was the freepers nic that liked to do Rumsfeld pings?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1225886/posts
Oops, I swear I thought I hit private reply here. Sorry.
Yes, but we did have several WW2 aircraft carriers that were re-designated "CVS" and operated ASW helicopters. So we did have carrier assets tasked to chase Soviet subs.
When we have to fight those enemies in some place half way around the world, the first order that is issued is to get a carrier out there.
Land based air bases are available to us near the theater of operations only at the whim of sometimes unreliable allies such as Turkey, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and sometimes not at all. When the fighting first starts, it is the U.S. Navy that has the capability to put a close combat air support aircraft into the fight half way around the world.
I disagree that this is a good move on the carrier groups. While I agree with the forward deployed reductions. Our Naval forces are our best tool in projecting our intentions overseas and the Carrier is the best of those due to their scalability and multi-function capabilities.
The Long range strike capabilities of the cruise missles have helped to augment this capability - however, they do not replace them. I would rather have a CAG/MEU combo stationed forward than anything else. They pack a bigger punch/dollar and are fairly self-sustaining.
Doing that requires enough capability to provide 1) 1 in presence, 2) 1 in training or transit, and 3) 1 in refurb/standdown for each location/deployment cycle. Less then this overburdens the crews and prevents proper equipment upkeep.
Given, my opinion, that the Gulf will continue to need our presence for the immediate future, We need another in East Asia/Pacific, and a 3rd in the Atlantic/Med. This would
equate to 12 carriers. I think we can swing with one less in the Pac/Indian rotation which says that the least we could do with is 11. On the MEU side I see a smaller requirement as you only need to call them in when it is already warming up. 4 is the number I would consider optimal, but 3 would be feasible I suppose.
In addition and more importantly - the Chinese are not our friends, despite their best attempts to appear that way. That and the Gulf is why the PAC/Indian oceans will continue to receive the most attention unless things start getting scarey in Europe again.
USNA '89
While I agree the carriers weren't for stopping the subs - that was our subs job. Best weapon to fight a sub is another sub.
See my post 19 as to why I disagree with you on lessening the number of carriers.
As for the gator navy - I was in during the wrap of the CW and I can definitely say that the LHA/LPHs introduced in the 80's were a huge asset in force projection. So I disagree that they were not around during the cold war.
They did bring a whole new picture to what we could do in our operations - taking the marines inland for strikes in a way that forced the enemy to spread their forces to account for them.
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