Summary and Key Points: The U.S. Navy's Ford-class aircraft carriers, including the USS Gerald R. Ford, are the most advanced and expensive in the world, costing around $13.3 billion each and $726 million annually to maintain. Despite their capabilities, these carriers face significant threats from advanced anti-ship missiles and A2/AD systems, making their survival in combat questionable.

-The high costs and strategic vulnerabilities raise concerns about their viability, especially given America's rising national debt and economic constraints.

-Critics argue that the U.S. cannot afford to continue its reliance on such costly and potentially vulnerable platforms.

America Can’t Afford the Ford-class Carrier

The U.S. Navy loves its aircraft carriers. Ever since they proved themselves as the premier naval power projection platform in the fiery cauldron of the Second World War’s Pacific Theater, the Navy has prized these systems. America led the world in innovating this unique platform and retains the world’s dominant fleet of flattops. 

Of 11 U.S. carriers, 10 belong to the Nimitz class, and the newest carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, belongs to the newly minted Ford class of carriers. (USS Enterprise, USS John F. Kennedy, and USS Doris Miller are all coming online as part of this family.) 

Officially, the Navy website describes USS Gerald R. Ford’s as being “the most capable, adaptable, and lethal combat platform in the world, maintaining the Navy’s capacity to project power on a global scale through sustained operations at sea.” 

The Navy Doesn’t Get It

This flowery description misses the mark, though. In reality, Gerald R. Ford is an unaffordable mess-heap; a hodgepodge of some of the most advanced technologies the Navy had access to, thrown together, and sent forward as the next-generation platform without much thought to price or efficacy. Indeed, the advent of technologies, like advanced anti-ship missiles, as well as the wider threat that anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) poses to the very existence of aircraft carriers, makes the survival of carriers in combat very low. 

Here's a snapshot of what I’m referring to: After the heinous October 7 terrorist attacks conducted by Iran-backed Hamas against neighboring Israel, the U.S. Navy deployed USS Gerald R. Ford to the region. But rumors abounded that the Navy wanted to keep the Ford at a distance from the shores of the region, fearing that Hezbollah’s anti-ship missiles posed a danger to the newly minted carrier. 

It doesn’t really matter whether the Hezbollah anti-ship missile threat posed a significant danger or not. The fact that American naval strategists wanted to stymie the deployment of their newfangled carrier too close to hostile shores shows how vulnerable these systems are. 

So, is the Gerald R. Ford class worth the expenditure of time, finite resources, and money?

Let’s first address the cost of these monstrosities. 

A Cost Like No Other

The first unit of this new class of carrier, the aforementioned USS Gerald R. Ford, cost an astonishing $13.3 billion to build. It also took a decade to build. This, in turn, ensured the costs of the program would increase. 

And as for maintaining this massive, highly complex system, that will cost around $726 million per year (this includes the cost of personnel, fuel, maintenance, and the airwing).

Proponents of this costly and complex system argue that USS Gerald R. Ford, being the first of her class, was always going to be an expensive system. Subsequent units, such as John F. Kennedy or Doris Miller will be substantially lower in cost to produce. In fact, these proponents insist that these boats are “now slated to cost about $5 billion per ship less than its predecessor, the Nimitz class, over the life of the ship,” according to Breaking Defense.

Bear in mind that these are all projections and most defense budgeting projections are rarely accurate. 

At $13 billion to produce, and nearly $1 billion to maintain, what do you think might happen if the US were to lose even one of these boats in combat? 

Well, America’s foes are certainly envisioning such a reality. China’s leadership has already stated they plan to sink at least three aircraft carriers with their complex arsenal of A2/AD systems, if war erupted between themselves and the United States. You’ve seen how U.S. carrier operations were complicated by the Houthi as well as Hamas anti-ship threats. 

These Aircraft Carriers are Useless in the Face of America’s Debt Bomb

This doesn’t even scratch the overarching matter of the pending debt bomb that is set to detonate soon in the United States economy. 

Interest repayments on America’s elephantine national debt today outstrip the overall cost of national defense. America simply cannot afford to go on the way that it has when it comes to defense spending.

And anything that can’t last, won’t. What this means for the Gerald R. Ford-class carrier is that they are an impossible dream concocted by Inside-the-Beltway types who just want to engorge themselves at the trough of the people’s tax dollars. That money is soon to evaporate, though, in a whirlwind of debt repayments and devaluation. 

The United States literally cannot afford its love affair with aircraft carriers anymore.

Author Experience and Expertise: Brandon J. Weichert

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is due October 22 from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

All images are Creative Commons or Shutterstock. Main image is from a fire aboard USS John F. Kennedy in 1968.

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