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It's only ridiculous if you assume we'll never lose one (or more) in a real shooting war. That's not an assumption US planners are prepared to make.
by gozur88 9y ago
It's only ridiculous if you assume we'll never lose one (or more) in a real shooting war. That's not an assumption US planners are prepared to make.
- jabl 9y agoWith a $1 trillion military budget the US can lose half of them and still have more left than the rest of the world combined.. :-/
- astrodust 9y agoIt's ridiculous because most countries have one or two at most and the US has eleven. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_s...
- anthonybsd 9y agoYes, but it gets even more ridiculous once you consider the fact that the last 60 years have been relatively peaceful for Naval warfare. During WW2 the U.S. had well over 100 aircraft carriers on active duty.
- sailfast 9y agoConsidering the cold war relatively peaceful at sea is interesting, firstly. Secondly, I would argue that the reason the seas have been free from "major conflict" over the last 60 years is in no small measure due to the preponderance of naval power wielded by the United States and Russia. If odds had not been overwhelming, do you think there would have been less conflict, or more?
- astrodust 9y agoRussia doesn't have much of a navy excluding nuclear submarines and the only reason those are a problem is because of the megaton-yield nuclear weapons they carry.
- gozur88 9y agoI doubt anything but nukes kept the US and Russia from going to war. Hell, aside from a few screwups, we almost went to war despite the nukes in 1963.
- dctoedt 9y agoIt was actually 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis) and 1983 (false alarm) [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
- gozur88 9y ago'62 then. We may have gone to war accidentally in '83, but in '62 it would have been on purpose, with full knowledge of what it entailed.
- TrickyRick 9y agoHow did they have well over a 100 carriers when the recently launched Ford has ID CVN-78 (I.e. the 78th carrier launched)?
- riku_iki 9y ago> t's ridiculous because most countries have one or two at most and the US has eleven. +10 assault carrier ships with vtol aircrafts on them (harriers, F-35).
- gozur88 9y agoMost countries haven't made the commitments the US has. I'm all for reducing the size of the US navy, but first (or at least coincident) we have to reduce our commitments. One of the problems is we're the guarantor of Japan's security, and we can't do that without at least three carrier battle groups (one on station, one under refit, one in transit). If we stop, Japan will feel compelled to build its own carriers (and not just "helicopter carrying destroyers"), which could kick off a regional naval arms race. That's the theory, anyway. The Chinese are already building a first-class navy as quickly as they can, so the neighbors are starting to consider their options. And then there's the Norks...
- PacketPaul 9y agoOne US aircraft carrier has the combined fire power of all of the other world Navy's combined. And we got 11 of them. That is how superior the US Navy is to anything else I the world.
- gozur88 9y agoThis isn't even close to being true. The Russians alone have more than enough to destroy a single US carrier.