Universal Intelligence

Recently, there has been much talk about aircraft carriers due to global tensions between China and Taiwan. The United States military has relied on aircraft carriers for decades as they serve as power projection platforms. These floating cities represent military might and economic and political power, limited only by food supply and the human factor. After World War II, the United States bet on aircraft carriers as the next conventional weapon, leading to the end of battleships and the beginning of the legacy of aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers can be anywhere, anytime, and unleash a significant payload with little to no limitations. The United States has thirteen nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, with the newest being the Gerald R. Ford-class carrier, which seeks to revolutionize aircraft carriers with upgraded electromagnetic-catapult systems. The Gerald R. Ford class will replace the Enterprise and Nimitz class carriers, affirming that the United States had seen aircraft carriers as a crucial asset for decades. Adversaries have opted for more cost-effective methods to counter America’s force projection capability, as aircraft carriers are expensive and take a long time to build.

While America’s aircraft carriers have been uncontested for decades, adversaries are now catching up to America’s “ace card.” Many argue that the advent of hypersonic cruise missiles will make aircraft carriers obsolete, as they will be so fast that the time to detect them will be mathematically impossible for an aircraft carrier to defend against. Advanced hypersonic missile systems will force aircraft carriers to operate further away from their target, straining resources and operational sortie capacity and complicating the flight time and fuel capacity of aircraft performing strikes. These factors would leave the incoming attack aircraft vulnerable to greater detection time therein, allowing an adversary to counter an incoming carrier-based attack. The goal would be for an adversary to make aircraft carriers a high-risk, high-cost platform by achieving a few of the abovementioned factors.

However, it is essential to note that aircraft carriers do not operate alone. United States aircraft carriers operate in a carrier strike group (CSG), arguably the most dangerous conventional weapon alongside a nuclear submarine or B-2 stealth bomber. A CSG usually comprises destroyers, submarines, and supply ships, each tasked with a specific responsibility to protect the aircraft carrier. On top of that, airborne assets, such as the airborne warning and control system (AWAC), would provide formidable long-range detection of any threat. As such, a potential adversary would have to penetrate the perimeter defenses, making it unlikely for a threat to slip through the countless defense systems provided by a CSG without detection. Moreover, it is difficult to track and detect a ship constantly with current technology, and it is even harder to direct a hypersonic weapon to hit a target that is moving hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Due to the current limitations and the remarkable defenses of a CSG, aircraft carriers will remain untouchable for decades to come. Time will only tell how these technologies will evolve.

(It is essential to note: if an adversary can feed a weapon system with real-time intelligence, then and only then would a potential adversary have the capability to defeat the complex nature of a CSG. This may be achieved via a drone swarm or cost-effective overhead intelligence gathering.)

Nevertheless, the United States military has mastered the ability; to adapt to the threats of today and tomorrow with relative ease. This is evident in the country’s last conflict, where we saw the quick pivot from Humvees to MRAPs, specifically designed to protect infantry against mines, IEDs, and RPGs, and the rapid development and implementation of over-the-horizon capabilities such as drones.