by VADM Timothy J. Keating, USN
Deputy Chief of Naval Operations
Plans, Policy and Operations (N3/N5)
As I write this, six of our carriers are forward deployed or transiting to or from deployment. Each of these warships carries the awesome capability to launch precision strikes against nearly 700 individual targets in a 24-hour surge. The carrier can be in position to orchestrate an attack anywhere within a 720-mi. radius within one day. Combined with the other valuable assets in a carrier battle group, the combined power projection and “footprint” is magnified even more.
Carrier Battle Groups (CVBGs) operating as they do from the sea provide “crisis agility.” Carriers can conduct strikes and revisit targets and maintain operational security from a sovereign “mobile airfield.” Carrier-based aircraft are not limited by host-nation political constraints. There are no restrictions on the type of aircraft flown, the number of sorties or the ordinance expended. Additionally, they are less susceptible to surveillance than land-based air power.
The rapid mobility of carriers provides the flexibility to swing from one theater to another for emergent tasking. For Operation Vigilant Warrior (1994) USS George Washington (CVN-73) swung from the Mediterranean to Central Command in response to Iraq’s massing of troops on the border with Kuwait. In 1995, America (CV-66) swung from CentCom to the Adriatic to provide air support to the deployment of NATO peacekeeping forces into Bosnia. In 1996, Nimitz (CVN-68) shifted from the Persian Gulf to join Independence (CV-62) off Taiwan to monitor Chinese ballistic missile tests and demonstrate support for Taiwan, while George Washington swung from the Mediterranean into CentCom to backfill Nimitz. Last September, Abraham Lincoln’s (CVN-72) transit to the Persian Gulf was speeded up to relieve George Washington, enabling GW to swing to the Adriatic area during the Serbian elections.
The United States’ national interests increasingly depend on the proven effectiveness of the CVBG. Of the 56 carrier battle group deployments conducted during the 1990s either from the U.S. or out-of-area deployments by the Japan-based carrier, 45 (80 percent) involved combat or close-to-combat situations such as enforcing No Fly Zones, strikes and shows of force. Every CVBG deployed since 1998, 11 of them, has engaged in actual combat operations either in Kosovo or Southwest Asia, or both.
The effectiveness of a rapid response is underscored by improvements in CVBG lethality. Carriers now attack many more targets with much greater precision. A carrier air wing can strike nearly five times as many aimpoints each day as its predecessors could in Operation Desert Storm. By 2008, with the deployment of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, the improvement will be sevenfold.
By “being there” before the start of a crisis or conflict, a CVBG ensures that U.S. military force is immediately employable. A forward deployed CVBG ensures “the door remains open” to enable the deployment of follow-on forces from the continental U.S. What’s more, the CVBG is a visible deterrent against aggression and demonstrates U.S. commitment throughout the world. Free of any host-nation constraints and with little risk against weapons of mass destruction, it can initiate a credible response while mitigating the need to flow forces from the U.S.
Carriers are survivable now and into the foreseeable future. The risk to the carrier is minimized by its mobility, area defenses provided by its surface combatants, embarked aircraft and the carrier’s organic self-defense systems. An attacker must penetrate sophisticated layered defenses and land numerous hits on a carrier to place it out of action.
At 30 knots, a carrier can move anywhere within a 700 square-nautical-mile area in just 30 minutes. The carrier is difficult to find, track and target. Fixed land-based airfields do not share this characteristic.
Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) greatly enhances area defense effectiveness by netting battlegroup sensors, providing both sensors and weapons in depth and significantly improving a CVBG’s anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) defense. CEC-capable E-2C Hawkeyes will be able to identify threats originating over land and to alert a battlegroup’s collective defenses to counter the threats. Upgrades to the E-2C and the Aegis air-defense system will significantly improve their 24-hour surveillance capability, providing long-range cueing against threats, even those over land.
The development of organic mine-hunting capability will counteract an increasingly ominous threat. A number of Network Centric Warfare initiatives will further improve survivability. Unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles (UAVs and UUVs) will distribute sensors to expand the area in which the CVBG will be able to locate and neutralize threats.
In the inner perimeter, if enemy aircraft penetrate to weapons release range, CEC and the carrier’s point defenses decrease to near-zero the likelihood of an anti-ship cruise missile hitting the carrier. Furthermore, carriers can withstand considerable damage due to their large size, the distribution of systems over a large area, their high-strength armor, ballistic plating and underwater protective systems.
Fifteen carriers are needed for full-time combat-credible presence, deterrence, crisis response and warfighting in each of the three overseas areas where our vital interests face daily threats. Each theater commander in chief requests continuous presence.
Carrier rotation is set by variables such as transit distance, maintenance and guidelines that set deployments lengths and time between deployments. Eight to one is the carrier rotation factor for CentCom. The ratio is 6:1 in the Med and 1:1 in the Western Pacific due to the home porting of a carrier in Japan. These ratios of required carriers to deployed carriers is proven historically and has been validated many times.
There has been extensive research on ways to reduce the carrier rotation ratio. These rotation factors could be reduced by lengthening deployments, cutting time between deployments, deferring maintenance and reducing training. Such measures could be taken during a crisis for a short period, but the long-term impact would reduce retention, create shortages in critical skill areas, cut readiness, and increase operational and support costs.
Our nation accepts a certain level of risk by maintaining only 12 carriers. This number provides a rotation base just adequate (within PersTempo guidelines) to meet the requirements of two of the theater CinCs full time, and a third less than half the time.
The theater CinCs requested continuous carrier presence in each of the three major deployment hubs (European Command, Central Command and Pacific Command). These requests cannot be met with 12 carriers. Because of the supply/demand mismatch for carriers, the Global Naval Force Presence Policy (GNFPP) is used to allocate scarce Naval forces, particularly CVBGs. With a cut to 10 carriers without a major reduction in our strategically important deployed presence, today’s deployment lengths of six months would rise significantly, jeopardizing the retention of our highly skilled and motivated personnel.
The U.S. will need all the air power it can get in a conflict’s critical early days; but a force of less than 12 carriers means that we may not have a carrier on scene when a crisis breaks out, nor the ability to redivert additional carriers already forward in other regions.
The carrier battle group will continue to play a vital role in United States operations abroad. On-scene carrier forces are critical to underpinning political commitments to allies and friends, demonstrating resolve and deterring regional adversaries. While the carrier battle group continues to revolutionize both its lethality and its survivability, the U.S. military continues to operate in areas of the world that are best accessible from the sea.
Cruise missiles will continue to perform certain missions very well, but CV-based aircraft can continuously deliver a large amount of easily replenishable ordnance for an indefinitely sustained period of time during war, and can do so while also conducting a number of other missions. Over a 30-day campaign, a carrier air wing can deliver approximately 5,000 precision-guided weapons, a number that exceeds by a wide margin the volume of fire that missiles are likely to be able to deliver.
The CINCs require the presence of the aircraft carrier to respond to crises and engage in battle. The United States needs 15 carriers to provide continuous combat-credible sovereign presence in each CinCs’ area of responsibility 365 days a year. The United States accepts a risk by leaving areas of the world uncovered at times. We are now meeting emerging crises by rapidly moving carriers from one area of responsibility to another.
The 12 carriers that we currently deploy are the minimum necessary to meet these multiple threats in the 21st century.
Ed. Note: VADM Keating, a native of Dayton, Ohio, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1971 and completed flight training in August 1973. Assignments at sea include VA-122, CVW-15 and VA-94, and he has commanded VFA-87. He served as well as DCAG, CVW-17 on board USS Saratoga (CV-60) during Operation Desert Storm, and subsequently commanded CVW-9 and Carrier Group Five.
Shore assignments include aide and flag lieutenant to CinCPac, head of the Aviation Junior Officer Assignments Branch with NMPC, a tour as a CNO Fellow with the Strategic Studies Group, duty with the Joint Task Force in Saudi Arabia, and Commander, Naval Strike Warfare Center at NAS Fallon. Following several Washington area assignments, VADM Keating served as the Deputy Director for Operations (Current Operations/J33), Operations Directorate, the Joint Staff, Washington, D.C. He is currently DCNO for Plans, Policy and Operations (N3/N5).
VADM Keating is married to the former Wanda Lee Doerksen of Oklahoma City, Okla. Their son Daniel is a lieutenant flying F/A-18s with the Blue Angels, and daughter Julie is a registered nurse.