Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

William S. Lind • 123arguably with the appearance of the German type XXI high-performance conventionalsubmarines of 1945. The U.S. Navy now has 53 nuclear-powered attack subs, with sixbuilding; 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, which are part of our strategicnuclear forces; and curiously, four Ohio-class boats converted into support ships forNavy SEALS, thus creating the world’s first and only 18,750 ton coastal submarines.If ever actually employed in coastal waters, they would seem to be another “Whiskeyon the rocks” incident waiting to happen. 3The U.S. Navy’s fully justified need to remain the dominant navy in both theAtlantic and the Pacific means we must continue to maintain a force of about 50nuclear-powered attack submarines. Whether those submarines need to be as large(7800 tons) and expensive ($3.1 billion) as the current Virginia class is another question.Admiral Rickover’s legacy includes a stodgy approach to submarine design.Reformers would want to investigate alternatives, including approaches taken by othercountries that have yielded smaller nuclear attack submarines. We would also buildsome number of small, conventionally-powered submarines optimized for shallowcoastal waters. In subs as in fighter aircraft, large size is a disadvantage in combat, asit makes detection easier.Aircraft CarriersDuring the Cold War, military reformers sought to move away from the large nuclearpoweredaircraft carriers the Navy prefers to smaller carriers that could be acquiredin larger numbers. The objective was to disperse our naval airpower in the face of theSoviet submarine threat. That issue is now moot. Regional opponents may be able tosink one American carrier, but they cannot threaten the whole carrier force the waythe Soviet navy did.The U.S. Navy currently possesses 11 large aircraft carriers, with one building.Whether 12 carriers are too many or too few is a question that is unanswerable inprospect. It depends on scenarios, which vary widely and are all arbitrary. Twelvecarriers is as good an arbitrary number as any. Reformers’ objections to the U.S. Navy’scarrier force now relate less to number and size of ships than to their air wings andescorts. Other than some support and anti-submarine aircraft, the air wings on Navycarriers are now made up entirely of F-18 fighter-bombers. As a fighter, the F-18 issatisfactory. However, as an attack aircraft, like all “fast movers,” it is close to uselessin Fourth Generation Wars and not much better for supporting friendly ground forcesin wars against regional powers. That means the carrier’s air wing is useful primarilyfor defending the carrier, which turns each of the Navy’s $20-plus billion carrier battlegroups into sailing tautologies. Their main mission is to exist.From the perspective of military reform, the aircraft carrier’s utility is that it is abig empty box that can carry lots of things – not just F-18s, and not just aircraft – toalmost any point in the world. Reformers therefore seek two reforms of the carrier