On 1 November 1921 the U.S. Navy orchestrated the sinking of the USS Indiana (BB-1) in a test ostensibly designed to judge the viability of naval aviation. Yet, instead of attempting to discern whether aerial bombardment was the future of naval warfare—as World War II would prove—the testers sought to demonstrate that planes clad in thin aluminum posed little threat to wrought steel ships. Following a simulated aerial attack, the Indiana indeed was sunk while a memorandum compiled to document the event indicated naval aviation had little promise.
Despite the Indiana’s demise, the captain overseeing the test stated, “The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs.” It was later revealed that not a single actual bomb had been dropped onto the ship and that aircraft had dropped sand-dummy bombs on and around the Indiana while explosives, placed on board the Indiana by hand, had been used to sink her. Controversy over the test had the opposite effect of the orchestrated intentions; Congress and the public demanded the Navy seriously investigate the threat and opportunity of aerial attack on warships.
Had the sinking of the Indiana affirmed naval leaders’ assertion that warships were nearly invincible from aerial attack, progress developing naval aviation may have been prematurely stunted. Impeding such advancement likely would have left the Navy flat-footed in the air in the Pacific theater during World War II. Congress’s appreciation for naval aviation persists to this day, but its interest in pursuing the most advantageous military policy seems to have regressed in favor of the status quo. Whereas the past 100 years have seen the rise of the aircraft carrier’s importance in naval warfare, the next 25 likely will—and indeed wisely—set their voyage toward a final sunset.
Those who opposed naval aviation in favor of large dreadnought-style warships colloquially have been called the “Gun Club,” in reference to their affinity for large ships with heavy batteries of naval artillery. Today, the Navy faces a similar ingrained culture focused on the carrier strike group and its cadre of sleek jets. Perhaps one could dub those who endorse big decks the “TOPGUN Club” after their premier training program and the iconic blockbuster that recruited many devotees.
Like the original Gun Club downplayed the advantages of newer, more distributed aerial assets in favor of large ships, today’s TOPGUN Club continues to advocate for platforms that are ill-suited for future conflicts. Ironically, both the dreadnought backers of yesteryear and the carrier enthusiasts of today share a common attribute: Promoting capital ships that have become increasingly indefensible to attacks from the sky.
Evidence that aircraft carriers are unacceptably vulnerable to attack from peer and near-peer adversaries is abundant. In perhaps the greatest coup d’etat for naval warfare in recent history, China’s DF-21D antiship ballistic missile is approximated to have a range of more than 900 miles, encompassing all of Japan and Korea as well as most of the Philippines and South China Sea. These missiles, which can be easily moved and launched from the Chinese mainland, reach further than even the longest-range combat aircraft in the carrier air wing, the roughly 700-mile combat radius of a fully fueled F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
While aerial tankers often are used to extend the range of such jets, refueling midflight is not viable in a peer conflict, as slow flying aircraft loading fuel would be vulnerable to an array of Chinese antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) assets, such as rival aircraft, surface vessels, and submarines. In addition to the Chinese DF-21D, both China and Russia have fielded and continue to develop hypersonic antiship missiles that cannot be defeated with any current U.S. countermeasure technology. Aircraft carriers are simply not suited to fight the battles of the future in which a shore-launched missile from hundreds or even thousands of miles away holds a strike group at risk.
For the past 25 years the U.S. Navy has enjoyed an extraordinary advantage in its combat operations. The Global War on Terror and interventions in western Asia have been against despotic regimes or terrorist organizations with little to no ability to hold blue-water warships at risk. As troops and U.S. efforts in this region wind down and pivot toward near-peer conflicts, so must the Navy’s warfare communities.
A future conflict will not look the same as those in the past. The advent of nuclear weapons dictates that even a shooting war is unlikely to be an all-out war. Instead of invasions and bombardments, a war in the 21st century likely will constitute bullying and coercion to achieve national goals. Some wars are ideological, some are territorial, and some are retributive or political. All are economic. Even for countries as blatantly opportunistic as China, the days of unrestricted imperialism likely are over. China’s wanton expansion and aggression makes it the greatest current threat to American interests and most probable source of future naval conflict.
The Great Windfall of China
China has shown little restraint in using harsh tactics to achieve its goals. Crackdowns on free speech within historically independent territories such as Hong Kong serve as a microcosm of the Chinese approach toward dissonance or dispute of its authority. The National Security Law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong amid intense protest in June 2020 is a clear violation of the U.N.-certified Sino-British Joint Declaration guaranteeing autonomy to Hong Kong, an agreement intended to be in place until 2047. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made clear it has no intention of adhering to international agreements, especially those that protect freedoms to disagree with its declarations.
Hong Kong’s National Security Law is not limited to acts of foreign collusion within the borders of China or Hong Kong, meaning that any person anywhere in the world who advocates for a free (or freer) Hong Kong is in violation. Countries that share extradition agreements with China are likely to face increasing pressure to turn over citizens for acts of defiance against the CCP, lest they face economic harm. China’s suppression of Hong Kong is a model for how it may impose protections of its ruling party internationally. Such suppression is a negative development for global freedom of speech and a concerning chilling of regional ability to dispute China’s acts.
As China increases its control over potential competitors it gains power in the negotiation of trade agreements and international treaties. Nations that do not abide by China’s demands likely will find themselves subject to passive or active measures of economic subversion. China is an active user of abusive trade practices such as “dumping,” wherein the production of a good is subsidized by a hostile government to decrease its price and then “dumped” on a foreign market to undercut rival producers.
When used effectively, dumping drives the price of a good below that at which producers can make a profit, ending the viability of their companies and killing the targeted domestic industry. Once an industry is sufficiently disbanded, the hostile government can curtail its subsidies and its sellers can increase prices without fear of competition in the short run. Dumping schemes are especially effective against industries that require large capital startup expenditures for equipment such as smelting steel, an industry vital for national defense.
The United States has alleged that China has committed such violations of international several times and sanctioned multiple Chinese steel importers for dumping on this essential industry as recently as September 2019. For individuals in affected industries, the results of dumping can be personally devastating. For products necessary for national security, such as food and materiel construction, the consequences can be destabilizing. Nations with economies dwarfed by China’s may face a frightening dilemma: Kowtow to the CCP’s demands or face economic ruin.
Command over where ships may travel is an immense if not dictatorial authority to be lorded over the trade of regional players such as Vietnam or the Philippines. Schemes such as the Belt and Road Initiative have given China access to ports throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa. Through this series of projects, China has financed the construction of more than 35 ports worldwide, often in countries that have little or no immediate ability to repay loans taken for such construction.
In Sri Lanka, a scheme to build up the port of Hambantota resulted in China obtaining a lease to the port and 15,000 acres around it for the next 99 years. China benefits from these deals by mandating that its contractors, such as China Harbor in the Sri Lankan project, be employed for the construction, and, once it has secured a lease to a port, China’s authority could lead to preferential treatment for friendly nations and punitive conditions for unfriendly actors. China’s practice of targeted debt-trap diplomacy in Sri Lanka is “one of the most vivid examples of China’s ambitious use of loans and aid to gain influence around the world— nd of its willingness to play hardball to collect.” This encroaching control likely is to be disadvantageous for the United States, as China gains coercive leverage in trade agreements, thereby enhancing its ability to restrict potential competitors and constrain the flow of goods.
The fight of the Future is the Tension of Today
Envisioning the Navy of the future requires picturing the conflict of tomorrow. While China’s priorities appear to be primarily economic, their methods of achieving these goals often involve violence. The Chinese coast guard already participates in “bullying, harassment and ramming of vessels from countries whose coast guard and fishing vessels are much smaller, often to assert sovereignty throughout the South China Sea.” Fishing fleets from China have taken up positions as far away as off the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, threatening ecosystems and challenging the international maritime rules-based order. The question of how to respond to these unusual hostilities requires a commensurately atypical answer: To curb these gray-zone aggressions, the United States must get in the way.
To prevent China’s broadening regional tyranny, the United States can force a stalemate through demonstrations of national will and military might. Passive actions such as ongoing Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) help send this message to Beijing, but do little to prevent Chinese reef building or the expansion of territorial claims.
To halt the broadening of China’s regional tyranny, the United States must be prepared to encounter situations of high tension by placing themselves between Chinese vessels and those of its allies, monitor shipping routes to ensure freedom of movement, and maintain a credible presence to protect U.S. commerce. The Navy must go where the conflict is and make U.S. will clear. Chinese military vessels should understand the risk of U.S. confrontation if they attempt to use force to assert control over international waters or those legally endowed to other nations. Without assets to contest China’s growing naval forces, their implied threat of violence becomes a real claim to control.
Making Sense of U.S. Shipbuilding Dollars
China already has surpassed U.S. ship numbers by a large margin, with 335 ships commissioned in the People’s Liberation Army Navy to the U.S. Navy’s about 300. Its shipbuilding continues to outpace America’s with China making strides in submarine technology that seek to close the gap with the U.S. stealth advantage. While U.S. ships and sailors remain qualitatively outstanding, there is a limit to how much area a single crew can influence. Propensity to scale should be an important metric for success as U.S. quantitative inferiority could be costly in a period of conflict. Vectoring funds allocated for future carriers toward submarines and smaller surface vessels is a better use of national treasure when foreseeing a gray-zone war.
Aircraft carriers with their attached strike group components are not an asset to the future of peer naval warfare, nor are they neutral components of the fleet for this objective. Instead, large capital ships that cannot breach China’s large and expanding A2/AD veil have become a liability. Not only are carriers impotent to strike peer nations, but the ships attached to protect them are unable to undertake independent actions to stop Chinese territorial expansion.
By reducing the use of the carrier strike group as the primary warfare unit, not only would the Navy free funding for assets more apt to counter China, but platforms currently earmarked for the carrier strike group would be unshackled to participate in distributed operations. Dispersing the ships of each group would liberate three cruisers or destroyers, an immediate gain to a fleet that must shift its culture to focus on distributed action as opposed to supporting large and indefensible capital ships.
Looking toward the composition of a future fleet, each additional Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, an almost $13 billion expenditure based on current allocated funds, could instead purchase about three SSN(X) attack submarines or almost seven Arleigh-Burke-class destroyers. The future frigate program estimates costs of roughly $1 billion per ship, meaning that retargeting funding for a single aircraft carrier could potentially purchase a dozen frigates. Shifting construction funds from carriers to smaller surface combatants could effectively add as many as 15 independent ships to the fleet by untethering three carrier strike group support platforms and adding up to 12 new vessels in the future, helping close the gap between U.S. desires for a 355 ship navy and the current reality of Chinese quantitative superiority.
Naval leaders have begun to embrace a lack of regularity to keep potential adversaries “on their toes.” Carrier strike groups have deployed at irregular intervals or extended deployments beyond their typical duration to decrease the predictability of their presence. The same notions should be employed to an amplified extent for platforms that have much smaller crews and more individual missions, enabling a flexible mission sets.
An Uncomfortable Truth
As China’s reach broadens throughout the Pacific the U.S. Navy must make a culture shift back toward the principles of sea control that influenced the 19th-century Navy, enumerated by Alfred Thayer Mahan. When China turns from its reef-building initiative to its inevitable desire to control the flow of commerce, the Navy must be prepared to protect U.S. interests. This course would plot a substantial alteration from the previous 25 years of cruises and patrols, yet it is the most capable approach to limiting Chinese opportunism. The Navy has and likely will continue to struggle with change, not only because of the vested interests of career carrier crew and the military industrial base, but also because this pivot in strategy represents the acceptance of losing something fundamental to human nature: comfort.
Thanks to China’s historic lack of interest in sea control, following the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States enjoyed nearly unrivaled superiority on the high seas for a quarter of a century. This is no longer the case. Having the biggest ships or the most intimidating strike group is not the critical element in a naval contest. Rather, having the appropriate ships and a potent presence is paramount. To “get in the way,” the Navy must increase the number of vessels available to defend U.S. commerce in and around the Pacific.
U.S. crews must train for confrontations at sea. Leaders must equip the Navy with the physical steel of ships to maintain a credible presence in areas of commercial interest, while commanders must endow their sailors with the mental steel to face risky encounters with resolve. Sailing the seas uncontested as the United States has for almost 25 years is no longer a luxury the nation can take for granted. Maintaining a credible presence to contest Chinese interests will require consistency and controlled aggression.
We all know the “military” axiom, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” The Navy’s future culture should emphasize the necessity of discomfort at the operational and strategic levels. There is no guarantee that, within the near future, FONOPS or patrols in the South China Sea will be pedestrian or routine missions as China’s territorial ambitions turn from passive construction to dangerous and active enforcement of its claims.
Carriers are no longer an effective means of addressing China’s increasing belligerence. Funding for future acquisitions would be better spent on more plentiful smaller vessels which can execute missions independently without the need for defensive support. The culture of the Navy must encounter the truth that it is no longer uncontested and accept the reality that confrontations at sea may become the norm. To make U.S. adversaries uncomfortable in their unjustified acts of control, the Navy should accept discomfort itself and pivot from a strategy focused on large capital ships to one based around scale and distributed presence.
The Navy must ensure the 21st century is not another sand-dummy bomb moment of complacency and denial. Like the Navy’s begrudging 20th-century shift from dreadnoughts to naval aviation required forceful advocacy, the service must make a difficult course reversal, once again relying on surface and subsurface combatants to achieve distributed force and stand tall for the Mahanian notions of sea control to support U.S. commerce. If the United States is to contest China’s growing economic, political, and territorial claims, it must heed the lessons of history demonstrated by the difficult demise of the “Gun Club” and bid farewell to today’s “TOPGUN Club” concentration. The Navy’s future should chart a course not based on capital ships, but on the ability get in the way of its adversaries through a broad credible presence punctuated by uncomfortable encounters to protect U.S. interests and the rules based order of the sea.
