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Carrier groups are an extremely important projector of power, but they are not invulnerable. See: China's significant investments in "carrier killer" missiles.

Carrier groups are an extremely important projector of power, but they are not invulnerable. See: China's significant investments in "carrier killer" missiles. Such missiles don't even need to be fired in order to be effective regional deterrants; the mere threat of a sunk carrier would give us pause in the event of an escalating situation in, say, Taiwan. The article doesn't argue that China or Russia are going to project power off the coast of New York anytime soon; merely that our relative capability to project power off of their coasts is in decline.

gbhn 11y ago
It's also worth noting that power projection is also different because of different balances of other interests. The kinds of things other countries want to do is different, and the lengths to which the US is willing to go to affect them is different. In my opinion, these factors might be just as great or greater than relative military superiority.
dogma1138 11y ago
This is why a carrier strike group will have Agies destroyers to combat ballistic threats, and for other threats CIWS systems do a pretty good job. Ship defense systems are quite advanced these days for the most part they can knock out anything out of the sky no matter how low or high it flies.
- hollerith 11y ago
  Ship defense systems are quite advanced, but to a first order approximation, the US's carriers would be neutralized if China can sink a carrier for less than the cost of a carrier (where the lives of the 4300 sailors and pilots on the latest US carriers are to be considered part of the cost), and the cost of a single carrier buys a lot of radars, satellites, subs, missiles and R&D.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    In theory yes, in practice it's not that simple. You still need to be able to produce enough launchers, missiles, and train enough crew to saturate the air defense systems of a carrier group to be effective. Yes it can be done, but it's just as easily can be countered through asymmetric means by the US the only thing they'll have to do is to change their doctrine. SAM's were considered the end of air combat as well initially, in 1973 SAM's pretty much devastated the Israeli air-force, the US learned from that experience and developed made quite a bit of changes to their 'Wild Weasel' doctrine which allowed them to routinely destroy soviet SAM's in Vietnam from 1975 onwards. The Israelis then took that and improved upon and 1982 destroyed all of Syria's SAM sites in a single day of what then was the most advanced Soviet SAM installations in the world outside of Russia by using drones as the lead target aircraft instead of an F4E phantom with jamming equipment and covering the sky with anti radiation missiles as soon the drones got painted. Today you have solutions like these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acJ3xyhaJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acJ3xyhaJo that build on top of that and bring it to the next level. Combat isn't a static game of RPS, if China has carrier killing missiles then the 1st shot in the war will be to take those out, using, drones, submarine launched guided missiles, electronic warfare or what ever else will be developed to combat that threat. Once the threat has been reduced to a level which allows the carrier strike group to operate it will be put into action, yes not all missiles might be destroyed but any residual threats will be dealt with by the air defense systems of the carrier and it's supporting vessels. Now again this isn't claiming that this gives a US carrier group some super immunity, fucks up can still happen, but if your doctrine is set up correctly it's not going to be a case well gosh they've made some carrier killers now we can't use our carrier anymore.
    - hollerith 11y ago
      Thanks for going into greater detail.
gexla 11y ago
Deploying a "carrier killer" would require the stomach to deal with a U.S. response.
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  ... which would be substantial, to say the least. An operational carrier houses over 5,000 sailors, airmen, and marines. Sinking a carrier is akin to completely obliterating a small city in terms of loss of life. In terms of economic cost, it's even greater - a carrier costs around $5b just to launch. Add in the costs of fuelling, salaries and training for the crew, armament, the aircraft aboard... the other dozen or so ships in the strike group... I don't think it's unwarranted to assume that the total economic cost to build and deploy a US carrier strike group exceeds the budget of most countries' navies.
67726e 11y ago
To counter your "carrier killer" scenario, don't you think China itself would be hesitant to take out, well, anything American? That is essentially guaranteed to turn any "crisis" or "escalating situation" into a declaration of war. Consider China's island building in the Pacific. We routinely fly all over that airspace no matter how much the Chinese tell us to leave "their" airspace. We're such a hawkish nation that I really don't imagine us standing down to China in a shooting match. Quite frankly, I'm surprised the government-sponsored industrial espionage isn't a bigger issue.
oomkiller 11y ago
See: SBIRS, and missile defense in general. There are also issues with updating the location of carriers, since communications can be jammed and carriers are not stationary. Just being able to know when something is launched (SBIRS) gives the US a defense against these weapons. In addition to that, I would be very surprised if there was not a way to shoot these things down, with lasers or otherwise. We're talking about the US military budget, and maintaining the investment of 50+ billion dollars just spent on building the carriers over the years.
jtriangle 11y ago
It remains to be seen if their "carrier killer" missiles are effective. Very likely the countermeasures a current carrier group could deploy would be effective in stopping such an attack.

gbhn 11y ago

It's also worth noting that power projection is also different because of different balances of other interests. The kinds of things other countries want to do is different, and the lengths to which the US is willing to go to affect them is different. In my opinion, these factors might be just as great or greater than relative military superiority.

dogma1138 11y ago

This is why a carrier strike group will have Agies destroyers to combat ballistic threats, and for other threats CIWS systems do a pretty good job. Ship defense systems are quite advanced these days for the most part they can knock out anything out of the sky no matter how low or high it flies.

hollerith 11y ago
Ship defense systems are quite advanced, but to a first order approximation, the US's carriers would be neutralized if China can sink a carrier for less than the cost of a carrier (where the lives of the 4300 sailors and pilots on the latest US carriers are to be considered part of the cost), and the cost of a single carrier buys a lot of radars, satellites, subs, missiles and R&D.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  In theory yes, in practice it's not that simple. You still need to be able to produce enough launchers, missiles, and train enough crew to saturate the air defense systems of a carrier group to be effective. Yes it can be done, but it's just as easily can be countered through asymmetric means by the US the only thing they'll have to do is to change their doctrine. SAM's were considered the end of air combat as well initially, in 1973 SAM's pretty much devastated the Israeli air-force, the US learned from that experience and developed made quite a bit of changes to their 'Wild Weasel' doctrine which allowed them to routinely destroy soviet SAM's in Vietnam from 1975 onwards. The Israelis then took that and improved upon and 1982 destroyed all of Syria's SAM sites in a single day of what then was the most advanced Soviet SAM installations in the world outside of Russia by using drones as the lead target aircraft instead of an F4E phantom with jamming equipment and covering the sky with anti radiation missiles as soon the drones got painted. Today you have solutions like these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acJ3xyhaJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acJ3xyhaJo that build on top of that and bring it to the next level. Combat isn't a static game of RPS, if China has carrier killing missiles then the 1st shot in the war will be to take those out, using, drones, submarine launched guided missiles, electronic warfare or what ever else will be developed to combat that threat. Once the threat has been reduced to a level which allows the carrier strike group to operate it will be put into action, yes not all missiles might be destroyed but any residual threats will be dealt with by the air defense systems of the carrier and it's supporting vessels. Now again this isn't claiming that this gives a US carrier group some super immunity, fucks up can still happen, but if your doctrine is set up correctly it's not going to be a case well gosh they've made some carrier killers now we can't use our carrier anymore.
  - hollerith 11y ago
    Thanks for going into greater detail.

gexla 11y ago

Deploying a "carrier killer" would require the stomach to deal with a U.S. response.

LyndsySimon 11y ago
... which would be substantial, to say the least. An operational carrier houses over 5,000 sailors, airmen, and marines. Sinking a carrier is akin to completely obliterating a small city in terms of loss of life. In terms of economic cost, it's even greater - a carrier costs around $5b just to launch. Add in the costs of fuelling, salaries and training for the crew, armament, the aircraft aboard... the other dozen or so ships in the strike group... I don't think it's unwarranted to assume that the total economic cost to build and deploy a US carrier strike group exceeds the budget of most countries' navies.

67726e 11y ago

To counter your "carrier killer" scenario, don't you think China itself would be hesitant to take out, well, anything American? That is essentially guaranteed to turn any "crisis" or "escalating situation" into a declaration of war. Consider China's island building in the Pacific. We routinely fly all over that airspace no matter how much the Chinese tell us to leave "their" airspace. We're such a hawkish nation that I really don't imagine us standing down to China in a shooting match. Quite frankly, I'm surprised the government-sponsored industrial espionage isn't a bigger issue.

oomkiller 11y ago

See: SBIRS, and missile defense in general. There are also issues with updating the location of carriers, since communications can be jammed and carriers are not stationary. Just being able to know when something is launched (SBIRS) gives the US a defense against these weapons. In addition to that, I would be very surprised if there was not a way to shoot these things down, with lasers or otherwise. We're talking about the US military budget, and maintaining the investment of 50+ billion dollars just spent on building the carriers over the years.

jtriangle 11y ago

It remains to be seen if their "carrier killer" missiles are effective. Very likely the countermeasures a current carrier group could deploy would be effective in stopping such an attack.