Respectfully,Originally Posted by Dayuhan
exactly the same arguments were made before the Great War/World War I, didn't stop them though, and it that time, the economic dependency of the European powers was greater than that of China (actually, the US is more dependat upon China than the other way around).
Some really great food for thought on this thread. Here are a couple more links I think might be illuminating:
Andrew Erickson, over at the Naval War College is one of the leading open source chinese language experts on the topic, his Blog:
http://www.andrewerickson.com/2010/0...-missile-asbm/
And recent USNI Proceedings article:
http://www.usni.org/magazines/procee...e-game-changer
Countered by Capt Tangredi in:
http://www.usni.org/magazines/procee...-changer-china
this one is subscriber only, but echoes many of hte comments here critical of "sky is falling" diatribe (A shot I accept across my own bow, and think hard about...) about the end of naval warfare as we know it...
A broader exploration of carrier vulnerabilities beyond ASBMs:
http://www.usni.org/magazines/procee...erability-myth
And from one of my favorite naval critics Prof. Milan Vego in:
http://www.usni.org/magazines/procee...ur-balance-sea
And talking to getting beyond the CSG concept:
http://www.usni.org/magazines/procee...t-was-question
Thanks againt to he contributors to this thread!
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
Actually the mercantilist/imperialist system prevailing at that time might almost have been specifically designed to produce a world war. In that environment a rising power such as China is today was effectively shut out of both markets and resource supplies, both of which were wrapped up in mercantile/colonial networks... they would have had to conquer to break into the big game. That's simply not the case now. Look at China's trade balance, why try to change the rules when you're winning the game?
Popular myth, but still a myth.
Well, I've been gone for a week and there's too much to reply to at this point, but it's interesting this thread is really more about China than the viability of the aircraft carrier. To me, that says something. It's one thing to suggest that carriers are vulnerable in some hypothetical future war with China (however likely that may be), but it's quite another to assert the "end of the carrier" is nigh.
Supporting "time-limited, scope limited military actions" for 20 years.
I suspect that in a full scale war between technologically advanced major powers just about everything proximate enough to be relevant will be to some extent vulnerable. The challenges are to avoid that sort of war and, in the event that this is not possible, to manage the vulnerabilities effectively. Vulnerable doesn't necessarily mean useless or irrelevant.
The possibility of such missiles being sold to potential antagonists elsewhere (Iran, basically) is as much a concern as an all-out war scenario, and as I said above I would expect the equipment to be deployed primarily as a bargaining chip in various negotiations.
It would be legitimate to say that this development means a carrier might have increased vulnerability in certain scenarios, but to jump from there to "the carrier is finished" is over the top. The vulnerability is not absolute and there are still many scenarios where this threat is not a factor.
Both would crash badly in wartime, but during peacetime the U.S. IS more dependent on the PR China than the other way around although not as drastically as some people portray it (China finances only a small fraction of the U.S. federal deficit directly).
The rare earths problem is serious and the U.S.'s material standard of living would drop by several per cent if trade with China was cut.
China could redirect its industrial output more into its own consumption - as it did to some degree since the beginning of the economic crisis - and it would miss investment goods imports the most.
"You need land based air AND carrier aviation because they are reinforcing capabilities - with only one, you limit your options and make the enemy's job easier. With both, you complicate his problems severely."
This is a key part of the problem with the Carrier Strike Group as currently operated by the Navy - i.e. its a "force package" that can be sent anytime, anywhere to take the fight to the enmey (an outgrowth of the old Maritime Strategy to send them into the teeth of the Soviets's Northern Flank).
I think the crux of this thread so far is that, properly supported and with an integral role in a well thought out maritime campaign, CVs will be part of the U.S Fleet for the foreseeable future.
However, the current Carrier Strike Group (doctrinally a CVN, 5 escorts, a Sub and a Supply ship) and even a Carier Strike Force (three CSGs operatating together) is currently at severe risk operating "alone and unafraid" inside the area denial envelope of a country like China.
The combination of ultra-quiet submarines, long range SAMs on modern destroyers, the Klub missile family (now available in handy ISO container launch systems suitable for making Q-ships out of merchants), new long range torpedoes, and a decent inventory of 4th+ gen aircraft coordinated with satellite sensors and over the horizon radar, linked by a resilient C2 network, provide a substantial threat today.
The addition of ASBMs in the near future has the potential to increase that risk to the point of unacceptability, requiring CSGs, at the least to be well integrated with land-based air (see the em[pahsis on Air-Sea Battle concepts) or potentially reconceoved as a more distributed collection of more, smaller ships.
The involvemnt of discussing China leads from the fact that they are currently the only power with the capacity to threaten the CSG today (unless we are really dumb and do something like sail one into the Persian Gulf). The technical threat indeed needs to have a "likleyhood of use" piece attached to it, and those that argue that having a capability to destroy a CSG doesn't matter becasue doing so would cause an escalation dashing any beneifit such a strike miight have in the short term.
This is a valid line of argument, but addresses the question of "even if there is technology that might kill a carrier, who would have the balls to use it, in what circumstances, and at what cost". That is a much harder question to answer!
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
pvebber,
What do smaller ships buy you? The advantage of the US aircraft carrier is that it can carry a large number of aircraft and size influences stability in rough seas. Are you thinking something more along the lines of a modern equivalent to the WWII escort carrier?
I also don't see how retooling to more, smaller ships, mitigates the threat, especially in light of the downsides to a more numerous, small-ship fleet.
And again it's important to point out that the "book" technical specifications and capabilities for threat systems only provide part of the story.
Supporting "time-limited, scope limited military actions" for 20 years.
Since I brought that up I'll take a shot at it until pvebber gets here. More and cheaper platforms presents a kind of reverse target overload to the attacker. Thats the whole idea behind missiles and why they are such a threat, they can be launched from very cheap platforms. That's why the Army wanted to base ICBM's on Semi-Trailers to be used on the Interstate Highway system (thats why it was called the Strategic Highway System to start)or construct a large Rail Road system out in the West over multiple States. The Air Force couldn't live with that so it never happened. But the same philosophy can be applied to Air,Sea or Land. Make a lot of Platforms that can Shoot,Move,and Communicate together and you increase your chance of deterrence and if that fails you increase your chance of survival. It was all figured out in the 1950's under IKE.
China's financing of the deficit is not the bogeyman it's made out to be, for a variety of reasons.
I do not at all agree that the US is more dependent on China than the other way around, especially in wartime. The Chinese are sitting on a social volcano of enormous proportions: the income disparities among regions and social classes are staggering and the information flow has irreversibly opened. The aspirations are there and rising and they have to be met. It's as if they have the capitalist genie half out of the bottle. It won't go in and it remains to be seen whether they can get it all the way out.
The Chinese can keep this situation stable as long as they keep generating massive growth, allowing the industrial coast to absorb money-hungry migrants and maintaining at least the belief that material aspiration can be satisfied. The US can survive a major recession, as we've seen. There is a great deal of doubt as to whether the current Chinese government could. It's likely that a significant economic crisis would generate social upheaval on a scale that would make Tiananmen look like a mosquito bite. The threat to China's rulers is internal, not external, and they know it.
The Chinese economy is trade-dependent; the domestic economy can't absorb more than a fraction of the output. China suffered less than some expected in the recession because they sell highly cost-competitive goods that hold up well in times of reduced consumption, but trade sanctions in the event of conflict could hurt them enormously.
In the event of war there would be no need to move US vessels close to China: outbound goods and inbound resources could be apprehended at a distance. Modern version of the old fashioned siege; the Chinese are a long way from being able to project power far enough over the horizon to prevent it.
In any event the Chinese have no incentive whatsoever to fight the Americans or anyone else: the current order is quite conducive to their interests. The danger, of course, is that the recession that China will someday experience will generate major political instability and produce a reactionary and aggressive government. Not imminent, but not unimaginable.
"What do smaller ships buy you? The advantage of the US aircraft carrier is that it can carry a large number of aircraft and size influences stability in rough seas. Are you thinking something more along the lines of a modern equivalent to the WWII escort carrier?
I also don't see how retooling to more, smaller ships, mitigates the threat, especially in light of the downsides to a more numerous, small-ship fleet."
You are thinking about hte problem from the point of view of WWII carrier operations.
There is still a role for CVNs, just not 11 of them. If i were King i would have 4 on the west coast (1 forward deployed and 3 in Pearl/San Diego, and 2 on the east coast (with the UK CV in the mix to have a forward presence of 1).
Maybe a 7th in reserve in case you lose 1. A CSG still has the aircraft and defenses to take on 80+% of the worlds air forces. That is an important capability. I submit that the CSG is not hte thing you want to send in at the pointy end of the spear anymore to poke around a hornets nest. ASBMs aside, just the ASCM and deisel sub threat can be daunting.
SO how do you address the problem of overwhelming firepoewer against a concentrated defense. Spread out and make the enemy attack everywhere. I made a couple diagrams to show this. If you get away from having to take your full up air base (CVN) inot harms way, why not steal a page from the old Air Land Battle, where tstretches of Autobahn were going to used as improvised air strips. Create a CVA 9not in the WWII sense, but in the sense of "mobile austere air field ofr rearm and refeuling" surge aircraft to the CVN from land bases, keeping hte CVN well back, and send the aircraft forward to cheap things like the "containership airstrip" or High speeed vessel alternatives like:
http://www.hydrolance.net/naval.htm
(OK, a bit "out there" admittedly..)
but Sea archer has a pretty strong design argument:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...c=GetTRDoc.pdf
Integrate with the Air Force to leverage more than just land-base tanking, and look at the ability of long-range land-based aircrat to provide stand-off weapons, as well as fuel. Develop a version of LCS into a modlar Frigate that can provide long range SAM magazine, decoy and deception. use a mix of manned and unmanned aircraft (<than 3-1 umanned to manned) and use unamnned in particular as your forward ISR screen in conjunction with modular payload subs that can carry strike , SAM, and anti-ship weapons.
An architecture like this case, in the top diagram you have 10 platforms inside the acees denial envelop, spread out (its just a cartoon so the scale is a bit skewed...) The threat now has an access denial problem sorting this picture out, and if he just attacks all ten, well that dilutes the defenseive problem by a factor of 10. 80 missiles is likely to give a full up CSG fits, 10 attacks by 8 missles is a much more tractable problem.
The CVN alone and unafraid in the lower diagram, is a sore thumb standing out looking to get whacked, and is limited in its ability to distriubute its sorties to its own defense and to project more than about 500 miles out.
The distributed system of CVAs can spread out, concetrate, feint, etc. THe CSG basically sits there drilling holes in the water until the bad hgguy cries "uncle" or until it has to go off task for major aircraft maintence. The distribued concept and keep "juggling balls" sending aircraft back to land bases and allowing new aircraft to be added into the cycle.
So its not a question of "building a different carrier" its about looking at a whole different way to think about "airfields at sea" and what those mobile airfields really do for you. Leveraging those things with what land-based air gives you and working out a comporehensive power projection system rather that is agile, responsive, and which does not lose a high precentage of its capability when you lose a platform. Lose one of thoe CSG escorts and your house of cards starts to fall quickly. Lose a CVa or a couple frigates, and you still have 3/4 of your combat power. That is where we need to move, not just because of ASBMs, but because it is stupid not to and keep beat our selves up doing 1940s ops until 2040.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful"
-George E.P. Box
These are the reasons why China could attack
Dayuhan-
I agree - it is unlikely that China will attack. BUt the very social instability you refer to could end up being the cause. If the economy goes downhill, and social unrest rises, the PLA could end up blaming it on capitalism/the West and use that as rationale to attack. It's a classic tactic of repressive governments to focus on external enemies to distract the public from internal problems.
V/R,
Cliff
Yes, but as I remember they do rarely intentionally go into a real fight in such risky situations.
Rhetoric, burning flags, sabre-rattling, provocations, skirmishes or the occupation of some remote island where they don't expect a serious military response - that's their toolbag in such situations.
The Chinese sometimes find it expedient to fire up a foreign threat to boost nationalist sentiment and distract from domestic issues. Other nations have been known to do the same thing.
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