Special Articles:

Future US Military
Force Posture:
- Korea
- Pacific
- Europe
- Global

Article in Summer 2000 issue of Wings of Gold

ANA SUPPORTS THE CVBGs

By VADM Richard C. Allen, USN (Ret.)

In the Spring 2000 Strategic Review, Mr. Stephen P. Aubin, Director of Policy and Communications for the Air Force Association, asserted that:

"The Navy largely defines itself by the number of carriers it possesses,  increasing intelligence and surveillance capabilities of potential enemies make large-deck carriers and other ships of the CVBG vulnerable, the CVBG is hard to maneuver to facilitate land-attack and might best give way to other surface and submarine platforms carrying land-attack weapons, linked with network centric warfare.  He envisions smaller, fast, stealthy platforms, widely dispersed but that could provide necessary firepower from longer ranges.  Basing land-attack strategies on non-dispersed CVBGs coupled with the use of non-stealthy aircraft of limited range (eg, F/A-18E/F) seems to make little sense in view of increased threats from surveillance and cruise missile technology advances.  He sees the carrier as limiting the Navy’s future to that of a short-range land attack force."

As a carrier commanding officer, battle group commander and Commander Naval Air Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet in the 80’s and 90’s, and now as President of the Association of Naval Aviation, I do not concur with Mr. Aubin’s views.

There is good reason to identify our Navy with the number of its carriers. Forward military presence is the key tenet of U.S. national security policy. The Navy’s role in forward presence, centered on the carrier battle group (CVBG), is fundamental to our national security strategy. The objective of military presence is to demonstrate a firm commitment to allies and maintain regional security so that war—and its associated costs—can be avoided. Combined with other elements of national power, forward presence helps “shape” the international environment by influencing the perceptions and conduct of potential adversaries, friends and allies, as well as neutral nations in key areas around the world.   The National Military Strategy places “peacetime engagement” plus “deterrence and conflict prevention” on the same level of importance as “fighting and winning our nation’s wars.”  Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the overseas infrastructure of bases available to U.S. forces has been steadily reduced.   This has put a premium on the U.S. ability to sustain access to critical regions—a requirement that is increasingly being met by sea-based power-projection forces. Fact is the capabilities of the carriers are in full demand. The CNO, Admiral Jay Johnson, reiterated in a recent interview in Seapower magazine: “Virtual presence is actual absence!   As a serious matter, ‘being there’ really is important.”

Clearly, the trend of crisis response is increasing. A few facts to chew on:

• The Navy began the last decade with 6 carrier battle groups engaged in Desert Storm.
• Since 1991 Naval aircraft have flown over 73,000 sorties enforcing the Iraqi no-fly zone.
• From 1992-1999, Naval Aviation participated in 54 crisis responses.
• Recently, no-fly zone enforcement has intensified; JFK Battle Group flew over 5,800 sorties (1,750 combat sorties) in support of Operation Southern Watch on last deployment.
• In 1998, concurrent with combat ops in the Middle East, naval aircraft flew over 3,000 combat sorties in Kosovo.
• The 90s ended with the last seven deploying battle groups engaged in combat.   Nine of the last 11 deploying carriers have been involved in combat operations, spending an average of over 70% of their non-transit time in hazardous duty areas.   Ready room discussions are not centered on “if” but “when” we go to combat.
• To place Naval Aviation’s contribution into context, using Desert Storm, Desert Fox and Allied Force ordnance expenditure figures, carrier aircraft delivered approximately 20.5 million out of a total 22.9 million pounds of Naval ordnance (~90%).  This figure includes all TLAM expenditures and rounds from the 16-inch guns of our battleships during Desert Storm.
• Naval forces are being called upon for contingency operations at four time the Cold War rate.

For more than two centuries American naval forces have been present and engaged in strategically critical regions—any practical definition of the term “expeditionary force” begins and ends with the United States Navy and Marine Corps.   From Europe through the Middle East to the far reaches of the western Pacific, the Navy-Marine corps team has proven a vital instrument of national power.  Since the aircraft carrier’s coming of age in WWII, Naval Aviation has been the backbone of America’s Naval Expeditionary forces.  The principles and essential characteristics of Naval Air Warfare have endured through decades of technological and tactical innovation and are manifest in today’s highly lethal and precise carrier air wings and in the air combat element that is part of every amphibious ready group. 

Technology has increased the potential threat faced by our operating joint forces (particularly those operating from overseas land-based infrastructure). Care must be taken, however, not to make erroneous assumptions about any lack of ability to counter that threat. By design, enhanced survivability has made the carrier the most survivable forward deployed platform -- sea or land-based!  The last time a carrier was attacked by an enemy was in WWII. 

The notion that the CVBGs are vulnerable is not representative of factual understanding of ongoing significant investments in fielding only interoperable systems and migrating in-service, legacy systems into the “netted” world. Naval forces have been operationally netted via tactical data links for decades. However, the extraordinary advances in information technology, particularly the networking of multiple systems, leveraged through efforts like IT21 (Information Technology-21^st century) promise to increase the combat effectiveness of naval and joint forces far beyond what earlier data links enabled. The IT21 initiative will provide a reliable and ubiquitous network to all afloat commanders for rapid data flow among sensors, weapons, and command and control nodes.  It is the key to the reprioritization of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) programs to execute the Network Centric Warfare concept.   The Navy is developing a common command and decision (CC&D) capability that implements tactical command and decision functions within a common open architecture.  The ongoing cooperative engagement capability program is also the key to the Navy’s single integrated air picture concept that will maintain common, continuous and unambiguous track information on all airborne objects within a specified surveillance zone.  Improving configuration management and software standardization will result in better sharing of data, improving speed of information flow, and providing a common view of the battlespace.

Operating from international waters, aircraft carriers and their multi-mission air wings constitute an agile, mobile, flexible and effective “force of choice” that is of particular value when U.S. national interests place a premium on rapid, scalable, decisive military responses.  One of the greatest advantages of carrier battle groups is that they provide on-scene deterrence, sea control and power projection capabilities without infringing upon any nation’s sovereignty.  This advantage exists because they enjoy freedom of movement throughout the high seas and operate from international waters in the littorals of the world, guaranteeing sustained access that does not depend on a foreign nation’s willingness to host U.S. forces or to provide supporting infrastructure. Individual units comprising the CVBG are assigned optimum operating areas consistent with the littoral campaign being conducted and are free to individually maneuver as required while collectively being part of the overall linked network.  The maneuverability issue raised by Mr. Aubin can’t be substantiated nor supported by historical fact.

Neither can the contention that the CVBG is non-dispersed and is coupled to the use of non-stealthy aircraft of limited range, thus relegating the carrier to a short-range land attack force. 

Let’s look at the facts.  75% of the world’s populations and infrastructure lie within 300 miles of the littorals.  The last decade of the 20^th Century gave eloquent testimony to the broad range of interoperable capabilities that carrier-based combat aircraft provide to U.S. commanders.   Carrier air wings are capable of sustained, long-range precision strike and land attack with a full spectrum of precision-guided weapons, integrated with TLAM weapons from accompanying surface and submarine platforms.  Relying solely on internal, “organic” air-refueling assets, they can today strike the majority of the target/aim point set in any predictable scenario.  The “Super Hornet”, with built in stealthy features, greatly expands target assignment opportunities through its increased range and payload.   Because of the carrier’s flexibility and range, carrier-based strike aircraft also provide the best means of supporting ground operations during sustained campaigns.  The carrier provides mobile sustainability, remains maneuverable, and is flexible to react. 

Again, let’s look at a recent operation: In Kosovo, the 74 aircraft in the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) air wing accounted for a significantly greater percentage of the targets struck than their small numbers would otherwise have indicated.  Despite the hundreds of land-based aircraft available in theater, Naval Aviation was not just the force of choice, but often the only force capable of rapidly responding against the most demanding time-critical targets.  “We had only 74 aircraft,” VADM Daniel Murphy, Commander, U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, declared, “and when something had to be struck the same day, there were only two systems that could do it—the carrier air wing and Tomahawk.  Nothing else could do this,” he underscored, “and that is just a fact.”

Who really knows for sure what the future in three to five decades will really look like?  It is fine to conjecture that the future might call for completely revamping the way we conduct military business, including consideration of perhaps turning all tactical aircraft strike operations over to Navy and Marine Corps allowing the USAF to concentrate on the significance of space and strategic airlift.

At the turn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt had the clarity of vision to see the world’s oceans as the thoroughfare connecting the U.S. to global markets, the importance of which had only been magnified by America’s westward expansion and the Industrial Revolution.  He acted upon his vision by calling for a “Navy Second to None”—rebuilding the U.S. Navy and setting the stage for the American Century. 

In this era of unprecedented globalization, it is essential that our nation recognizes the enduring value of Naval Aviation to our national well being not only as the centerpiece of Naval Expeditionary Forces but in a larger sense the centerpiece of our National Security Strategy.

HOME | ABOUT US | NAVAL AVIATION FORCES | EVENTS | SPECIAL ARTICLES