More Submarines and Less Aircraft Carriers: If the U.S. Navy Could Be Completely Rebuilt
It would look very different.
James Holmes [2]
Reinventing America's navy, in short, could involve reshuffling priorities for future acquisitions, tactics, and operations. A strategy premised on starting with sea denial, deploying unconventional techniques to incapacitate adversaries' sensors and weaponry, and relegating the surface navy to secondary status would have seismic impact not just on the navy's warmaking methods and force structure but on its very culture. But a cultural revolution may be what the service needs to fulfill its ends while operating on a shoestring budget in a menacing world.
Here's a thought experiment: would America build the U.S. Navy currently plying the seven seas if it were starting from scratch? Color me skeptical. If not, what kind of navy would it build, and how can we approximate that ideal in light of budgetary constraints, a slew of legacy platforms that can't simply be scrapped and replaced, and an organizational culture and history that frown on revolutionary change?
Source URL (retrieved on December 9, 2017):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/more-submarines-less-aircraft-carriers-if-the-us-navy-could-23482?page=show
