Gonzaga Debate Institute 13 Hegemony Core Brovero/Verney/Hurwitz

Aircraft carriers are key to hegemony – deterrence and operational flexibility

(DAVID H. BUSS, with WILLIAM F. MORAN and THOMAS J. MOORE, Rear Admirals, April 26, 2013, “Why America Still Needs Aircraft Carriers”, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/26/why_america_still_needs_aircraft_carriers?page=0,0 accessed 7/9/13, KR)

There are a number of navies around the globe that can sustain a force consisting of smaller surface combatants, but none that can equal the global presence of the U.S. Navy. What clearly distinguishes the U.S. Navy from the rest of the world is its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and extremely effective (and becoming more so) embarked carrier air wing (CVW). But the strength of the U.S. Navy derives from more than just hardware. It derives from the adaptability and flexibility of this combat-proven team that throughout the past 70 years has evolved to overcome potential adversary capabilities. Time and again, the innovative and evolutionary character of naval aviation has proven its value to deter -- or substantively and decisively contribute -- to major conflicts around the globe, protect commerce and free trade, and ultimately contribute to the security of the United States.

Smaller fleets around the globe are relatively limited in what they can accomplish, both at sea and ashore. Naval gunfire is traditionally effective on shore and the revolution in precision strike weapons, such as the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM), has increased the range, precision, and explosive yield of its kinetic effects. However, these are principally kinetic effects, limited to what we call the "right side of the kill chain." An aircraft carrier and its embarked air wing, meanwhile, have the capability to operate across the full spectrum of warfare, including the electromagnetic spectrum and the non-kinetic or "left side of the kill chain."

Additionally, an air wing operating from a nuclear-powered aircraft is capable of transcending the air-land boundary with high-end effects (precision strikes), mid-level effects (non-kinetic shows of force), and lower-end but strategically significant effects (security cooperation or humanitarian assistance/disaster relief). In the end, the CVN/CVW combination is the only maritime force anywhere in the world capable of delivering effects along the entire spectrum -- from assistance to coercion -- with the ability to rapidly transition into large-scale major combat operations if required. Emerging and re-emerging navies around the world understand this. That's why countries aspiring to extend their influence are building aircraft carriers.

As the Department of Defense considers future force design, it must recognize that in many scenarios, the United States can deploy a CVN/CVW combination in place of a large onshore footprint, while taking full advantage of international air and sea space, without requiring over flight or basing rights. Affordability -- the central tenet in big-deck carrier critics' arguments -- fails to consider the cost-avoidance value of these marvels of power, efficiency, and adaptability.  Seen this way, the dollar cost of the carrier is a bargain and the political advantages are overwhelming, especially for a war-weary nation looking to avoid protracted commitments in foreign lands.

But the United States is also struggling to repair its fiscal house, and the aircraft carrier is expensive -- being arguably the most complicated and technologically advanced weapon system in the history of warfare. But if one views that investment through the lens of a 50-year service life (which, by the way, is how long our CVNs are designed to last) that includes warfighting upgrades, modernization, and upkeep, carriers promise a pretty good return. Consider the legendary 51-year history of the recently retired USS Enterprise (CVN 65). Designed in and for a different age, "Big E" was combat-ready and credible in her first deployment during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, just as she was combat-ready and credible during her final deployment in support of operations in Afghanistan in 2012.

Today, the U.S. Navy is building the Ford class of aircraft carriers. Many recent articles quote values ranging from $13-15 billion as the cost to build the first ship of the class, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78). Those figures, however, include not only the cost of building the first of ship, but also all of the design and development costs for the entire Ford class -- a class of ship that will be in service for the next 94 years. Factoring the design and development cost of the entire class into the price of the first ship is like saying the first iPhone cost $150 million or the first Toyota Prius cost more than $1 billion. When the design and development costs are removed from the inflated "shock value" cost of the CVN 78, it is only 18 percent more expensive than the most recent ship built in our current Nimitz carrier class. Moreover, the design and development investment in the Ford class will deliver a product that is more capable and has lower life cycle costs ($4 billion less) than its predecessors, and which will continue paying dividends for nearly a century.

Even in light of that return-on-investment timeline, affordability remains a key consideration and the Navy is leveraging the learning on CVN 78 to further reduce costs on the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79). In real terms, CVN 79 will cost more than $1 billion less to build than CVN 78, and will require fewer man-hours to build than the last carrier in the current class. In the end, the Navy is building one Ford class carrier every 5 years, which represents about 0.4 percent of the defense budget during that time frame. If we take a long strategic view and keep the USS Enterprise in mind, that is pretty good return on investment.

Finally, some critics have questioned whether an aircraft carrier can remain relevant in tomorrow's threat environment. The answer to that question lies not only with the aircraft carrier, but also with her embarked air wing. The USS Midway (CV 41) was commissioned in 1945, with an air wing consisting of Corsairs and Avengers. During her final combat cruise in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, her air wing was comprised of Intruders, Hornets, Prowlers, and Hawkeyes. Likewise, the air wing complement on Ford class carriers at the end of their service life, we postulate, will be radically different than the air wing CVN 78 will carry at the time of her commissioning.

Unlike other classes of ships, the aircraft carrier does not need to be retired when its primary weapons system becomes obsolete. Similarly, defensive systems are more easily upgraded aboard an aircraft carrier than any other ship. The USS Midway's 1945 five-inch guns, for example, had been replaced by the Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile system as well as Phalanx Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWS) capable of defending the carrier against Anti Ship Missiles (ASM), aircraft, and littoral warfare threats by 1991. Likewise, by the time she retires in 2065, the Ford's Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile, Rolling Airframe Missile, and CIWS will likely be replaced by entirely new defensive systems that we can't even imagine today -- and her two nuclear reactors and unprecedented electrical power will provide plenty of "juice" to integrate the directed energy weapons of the future. Greenert has used the USS Enterprise as a prime example in his "Payloads Over Platforms" theme for the future design of our Navy, and it is a testament to the aircraft carrier's proven track record of strategic adaptability. This record of strategic adaptability is proof-positive that we ought never to cede battlespace to any potential adversary.

For more than 70 years, the unmatched range, speed, endurance, and flexibility of the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier strike force has presented the United States with global freedom of action while operating -- even when contested -- in international waters and air domains. Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and their embarked air wings enable the United States to act as a key guarantor of peace and stability around the world. Having the ability to operate without a "permission slip" for basing and over-flight access, while generating the range of effects necessary to deter potential adversaries, is more than just a symbol of power. It is the essence of power.

Air Power

Air power solves hegemony – specifically key to East Asia

Schmitt, co-director of the AEI Center for Security Studies and Donnelly, senior fellow at the Project for the New American Century, 11

(Gary and Thomas, 1/17/11, WSJ, “Shore Up America's Air Superiority”, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704511404576085171839462108.html, accessed 7/9/13, KR)

The F-22 flies faster, higher and its suite of sensors makes it an even more effective platform than the F-35. In the best of all worlds, the U.S. would already have a longer-range, day-night, stealth bomber capability on hand to supplement the use of the F-22s. But it doesn't. And in the meantime, the reduced numbers of F-22s leave the U.S. tactically at a disadvantage.¶ All of this will cost money, of course. American political leaders on both sides of the aisle seem bound and determined to cut the Pentagon's budget rather than increase it. The cuts are the work of the green eyeshade folks in the administration and in Congress, whose agenda is driven largely by the politics of the budget and little or no strategic analysis. ¶ While keeping the peace always seems expensive when totaling up today's budget, the failure to do so is even more costly. Regaining American air superiority in East Asia is absolutely essential to ensure stability and prosperity in the region in the years ahead.

Readiness

Military readiness key to hegemony

Talbot, founder and former editor-in-chief of Salon, 2

(David Talbot, Jan 3 2002, Salon, “The making of a hawk”, http://www.salon.com/2002/01/03/hawk/, 7-7-13, DAG)

Despite their eventual success, each U.S. military response in the past decade — even to the brazen sky terrorism that leveled the World Trade Center and devastated the Pentagon — has sparked passionate opposition in political, media and cultural circles. Conservative commentators like Andrew Sullivan, Charles Krauthammer and the Wall Street Journal editorial board have blamed current antiwar resistance on the left and its tradition of pacifism and criticism of American hegemony. And it’s true, any liberal who came of age during the Vietnam War, as I did, feels some kinship with these implacable critics of American policy, even a lingering sense of alienation from our own country’s world-straddling power. But most of us, at some point during the last two decades, made a fundamental break from this pacifistic legacy. For me, it came during the savage bombing of Sarajevo, whose blissfully multi-ethnic cosmopolitanism was, like New York would later become, an insult to the forces of zealous purity. Most liberals of my generation, however, feel deeply uneasy about labeling themselves hawks — to do so conjures images for them of Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay, it suggests a break from civilization itself, a heavy-footed step backwards, toward the bogs of our ancestors. What I have come to believe, however, is that America’s unmatched power to reduce tyranny and terror to dust is actually what often makes civilization in today’s world possible. I want to retrace my journey here, for those who might be wrestling with similar thoughts these days.

In truth, the opposition to assertive American foreign policy over the past decade has come from liberals and conservatives alike (as has support for interventionism), and while the Susan Sontags and Noam Chomskys have become convenient targets for pro-war pundits in recent months, the most effective critiques of American power since Vietnam have come not from Upper East Side salons and Berkeley’s ivory towers but from within the government itself, including even the Pentagon.

Ever since the Vietnam War, the foreign policy establishment has been suffering from what the astute analyst Robert Kagan calls a “loss of nerve.” This failure of will within the foreign policy elite — and Washington’s struggle to escape the shadow of Vietnam — is the theme of David Halberstam’s recent bestseller, “War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals.” As in his Vietnam classic, “The Best and the Brightest,” Halberstam builds his new book around portraits of key policymakers. But unlike his Vietnam book — which laid the blame for the debacle on arrogant interventionists like Robert MacNamara and the Bundy brothers — Halberstam’s new book is clearly sympathetic toward foreign policy boldness. The irony here has not escaped observers like Kagan, who in a withering essay in last month’s New Republic pinned much of the establishment’s loss of confidence on popular critics like Halberstam himself. According to Kagan, prominent writers like Halberstam “fixed it in the popular mind, and in the elite mind, that ‘the best and the brightest’ were dangerous. To be among the best and the brightest was to stand accused of criminal incompetence. And what did that mean about America? If our best and brightest could not be trusted not to destroy us, then we were doomed. Could American power be wielded with a measure of confidence? No, it was impossible to wield power at all. Was national greatness a possibility if the best among us were fools?”

Though he doesn’t concede his thinking has undergone any revision, Halberstam’s views have clearly changed with time. The heroes in “War in a Time of Peace” are the hawks in the Clinton administration — Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Balkans negotiator and later U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and Kosovo air war commander General Wes Clark. Both Holbrooke, who served as a young diplomat in Saigon, and Clark, who commanded an Army company and was wounded four times in one battle, were shaped by Vietnam. But unlike other future political and military leaders who came of age in the crucible of that jungle war, neither of these men was incapacitated by it. Despite America’s failure in Vietnam, both men recognized how important it was for the country to play a strong global role — and their hawkish views of the Milosevic killing machine in the Balkans finally helped convince Clinton to strike back at the dictator, who despite all the dire predictions from GOP doves like Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich (and perennial Vietnam-era peace crusaders like Tom Hayden) promptly wilted.

But, as Halberstam makes clear, the hawks were an embattled minority during the Clinton years — as they were during most of the senior Bush’s administration. Whether it was the cynical James Baker, who famously concluded that America did not “have a dog in that fight” and thereby allowed the Balkans war to take its savage course, or the ineffectual Warren Christopher (“Dean Rusk without the charisma,” as Democratic Party insiders mordantly summed up Clinton’s choice for secretary of state), America’s foreign policy was led during these years by men who believed it must operate within very narrow constraints

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