The Aircraft Carrier Won't be the Dominant Navy Vessel Forever

December 11, 2021 Topic: Aircraft Carriers Region: Americas Blog Brand: The Reboot Tags: MilitaryTechnologyWeaponsWarPentagon

The Aircraft Carrier Won't be the Dominant Navy Vessel Forever

That the Navy is concentrating larger percentages of its total force structure on large, high signature and increasingly vulnerable ships endangers America’s future. Fortunately, there’s better options to the status quo if the Navy moves now.

Projected advances in sensor technology, as Greenert noted, will “make stealth difficult to maintain above and below water.” So, too, will the increasing range and precision of hypersonic weapons and the disabling stealth of deniable cyber-attacks. At that point, going into the 2050s and 2060s yet a different force structure and battle concept will be required.

One thing is certain, however. The aircraft carrier will not be the relevant weapon in the second half of the century. Continued overinvestment in them only ensures that the nations and possibly non-state groups that understand the future will be the ones that control the waves.

This article by David W. Wise originally appeared at War is Boring in 2015.

Image: U.S. Navy/Flickr