[Al B.]

The Navy plan being floated is to go to 10 carrier battle groups by 2012, with the resultant loss of an air wing and all the support structure for a battle group.

They get there by retiring the Enterprise in 2012 as planned, foregoing the refueling of the Lincoln (CVN-72) and sending it directly to mothballs about the time CVN-78 comes online.

This comes as China is proceeding with carrier development.

This is the Navy's plan but I suspect that Obama will try to cut deeper.

Hope & change, VA voters/shipyard workers. Have fun.

[elpadre]

don’t forget Russia is building and expanding it’s armed forces - ditto China

ever wonder why?

I have no clue, but I read the reports

[tanknetter]

They get there by retiring the Enterprise in 2012 as planned, foregoing the refueling of the Lincoln (CVN-72) and sending it directly to mothballs about the time CVN-78 comes online.

Great. I hope people realize that a nuclear-powered ship can't really be "mothballed", in the sense of maintaining it in a state of readiness that allows it to be brought back into commission.

OTOH, having Obama be responsible for the early ending of the career of the carrier named to honor Abraham Lincoln does have a sense of poetic irony to it.