Aircraft Carriers Are Crucial

To maintain 11 carriers, the Navy will have to procure seven CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carriers between 2009 and 2038. Under current plans, however, a shortfall to 10 carriers is projected to occur between November 2012, when the Navy decommissions the Enterprise, and September 2015, when the Gerald R. Ford is expected to be commissioned.

In reality, this projected three-year gap will be longer, perhaps much longer. Not only will it take an additional 30 months for the Ford to become operationally ready to deploy after commissioning, but in all likelihood construction delays will push back the planned commissioning date even further. The result could be a five- or six-year period where the Navy has only 10 carriers.

Yet in the past half-century, carrier levels have never fallen below 12 ships. It's no surprise that a recent RAND report concluded that "this gap will severely strain the navy's ability to meet the forward-presence requirements of theatre commanders."

Nevertheless, this year the Navy again asked Congress to waive the legislative mandate of 11 carriers to accommodate the upcoming six-year gap. The House Armed Services Committee, already having acknowledged that "a reduction below 12 aircraft carriers puts the nation in a position of unacceptable risk," chose wisely to reject the Navy's request.

The committee further directed the Secretary of the Navy to submit a report by next February reviewing potential options, including either returning the retired John F. Kennedy to service or maintaining the Kitty Hawk until the completion of Gerald Ford. Officials should also consider accelerating the delivery of the Ford to the 2013-2014 timeframe.

In the meantime, the Navy should take two additional steps to help surge aircraft carrier capacity.

The Navy has structured its Fleet Response Plan to uphold its goal of a "6+1 fleet" -- in which at least six carriers are deployed (or able to deploy) within 30 days, and a seventh can be deployed within 90 days. Under the current plan, the Navy uses a 32-month operational cycle consisting of one six-month deployment.

Each carrier, then, is deployed for only a limited time within a cycle. Yet with fewer ships and more needs, aircraft carrier capacity is stretched to its limit. As the RAND report suggested, the Navy should consider extending the Fleet Response Plan to a 42-month/two-deployment cycle. This would allow the Navy to project power while also meeting the full requirements of the "6+1 fleet" plan.

The Navy also should look to homeport additional carriers in either Hawaii or Guam. For the past decade the only carrier home-ported outside the continental United States has been the Kitty Hawk in Yokosuka, Japan. From California, it can take two weeks for a carrier strike group to travel to East Asia and three weeks to reach the Persian Gulf. Shaving off this time by positioning a carrier in Guam, for example, would allow ships to respond more quickly to unforeseen crises.

It's time to give aircraft carriers their due. They're not weapons platforms from a bygone era, but rather flexible tools of national security that can offer a vast array of capabilities. Congress was correct to stop the Navy from reducing the carrier fleet below the already-low level of 11 carriers. Now it must be prepared to back up its foresightedness by funding whichever option the Navy determines best for managing the looming Enterprise/Ford shortfall. When the question is, "where are the carriers?" we need to ensure the answer is, "plentiful, and ready to serve."

Mackenzie Eaglen is Senior Policy Analyst for National Security at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).