![]() The Capitol Hill responses ranged from “ridiculous idea,” to “highly, highly skeptical,” and “zero chance” the House Seapower Subcommittee would take up the proposal. Truman (CVN-75) to retire her early and redirect the funds to other projects, including unmanned aerial and surface vehicles. In 2019, the Navy proposed not refueling the USS Harry S. As of 2019, carrier construction and maintenance involved companies from 46 states and 293 Congressional districts, meaning practically every senator and two-thirds of representatives have strong incentives-constituent jobs-to keep building aircraft carriers. “Political engineering” is the practice of sourcing parts and services from as many states and congressional districts as possible to ensure continued production, and in this regard the new carriers’ design is impressive. Even if the military and defense industry were to agree to stop building aircraft carriers, political realities would resist the decision. Ford–class carrier, a contract an order of magnitude larger. 8 If the services cannot cut small numbers of F-35s and Chinooks without such a response, imagine the uproar that would likely result over a plan to cancel a Gerald R. expressed support for our modernization strategy, and said they would support our budget,” Boeing instead fought the cuts and succeeded in having them reversed. Even though then–Secretary of the Army Mark Esper said, “Boeing. 7 That same year, the Army attempted to reduce purchases of an advanced variant of Chinook helicopters to buy instead two new vertical-lift aircraft. Lockheed Martin organized the letter (and 50 of the senior officer signatories may have had conflicts of interest). For example, 128 senior retired officers wrote a 2019 letter to Congress opposing a Department of Defense budget request that included just six fewer F-35s than originally planned. This enables contractors to put up a stiff fight when active-duty leaders attempt to change production priorities. Four of the last five Chiefs of Naval Operations (CNOs) work for large defense contractors. Entire organizations, such as the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition (representing more than 2,000 companies), advocate for the “importance of our nation’s aircraft carriers” and emphasize the importance of a “stable industrial base.” 5 Retired flag officers working for defense contractors bolster those efforts, and they are present in large numbers. ![]() To protect itself, the military-industrial complex musters an impressive lobbying effort. That stability is crucial: It is not financially feasible to employ a large, skilled workforce with just intermittent work. The defense industry often seeks to maintain large, stable contracts in a justifiable effort to avoid the costs associated with transitioning between complex projects. Defense contractors also have strong motives to continue to build aircraft carriers. 3 The Navy itself has strong incentives to keep building aircraft carriers to prevent a shift of strike missions, along with a corresponding reallocation of budget resources, to the Air Force. That portfolio reduction would reduce its influence to the submarine force alone, against its current role overseeing more than 45 percent of the Navy’s major combatants. In addition, Naval Reactors-the colloquial name for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program-would lose 20-some percent of its nuclear power plants. The entire community of nuclear-trained surface warfare officers would eventually cease to exist. And halting production of aircraft carriers would cut the number of carrier and airwing command billets, restricting the path for aviators to reach flag rank.īut not only aviation would lose out. It would lose its primary operating platform, even as aviators already face the “twilight of manned flight.” 2 Reducing reliance on carriers would shift many missions to surface ships and submarines, transforming the Navy’s budget and upsetting the power balance among warfare communities within the Department of the Navy. Within the Navy, the aviation community obviously has the most to lose from the end of carriers. These groups are varied but fit into three broad categories: the military, the defense industry, and political leaders. Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” 1 Today, a lot of salaries depend on the aircraft carrier, meaning-whenever the day arrives-it will be difficult to convince numerous key constituencies that the time has come to shift away from a carrier-centric fleet. The coalition argues that building carriers supports a stable industrial base for other shipbuilding projects. The Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition represents more than 2,000 companies that contribute to construction of new carriers, such as the Gerald R.
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