American Naval Dominance Is Not a Birthright

[rangerrebew]

American Naval Dominance Is Not a Birthright

Dominance at sea depends on the Navy’s relationship with the American people.
By Commander Benjamin Armstrong, U.S. Navy
September 2021
Proceedings
Vol. 147/9/1,423
The American Sea Power Project
 

American naval dominance has occurred only briefly in the history of the world. In June 1943, the USS Essex (CV-9) lay at rest in Pearl Harbor, freshly arrived from the West Coast. In July, the new USS Yorktown (CV-10) arrived. From that moment forward, the U.S. Navy grew at a nearly exponential rate, as the ships of the Two-Ocean Navy Act began to sail. Congress passed the bill in 1940, almost 18 months prior to U.S. entry into World War II, but building the ships took time, and it was three years before the Essex arrived to join the Pacific Fleet as the harbinger of U.S. ascendancy. By August 1945, the active ship force counted 6,768 ships of all types. It dwarfed the other navies of the world. It was a moment, fleeting as it might have been, of total American naval dominance.1 Since then, many Americans have treated naval dominance as a foregone conclusion—a condition that, once established, has little possibility of being lost.

However, except for that period from 1943 to 1945, U.S. naval dominance has been largely untested, existing as a potential outcome rather than a proven fact. In the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf conflicts, U.S. naval power was essentially uncontested, while in the 1970s, many believed that if the Cold War had turned hot, the Soviet Navy might have won. During World War I, the United States merely reinforced the naval hegemon, the United Kingdom. And Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote of the 1898 war with Spain that, rather than being dominant, the United States “cannot expect ever again to have an enemy so entirely inapt as Spain showed herself to be.”2

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/september/american-naval-dominance-not-birthright

[rangerrebew]

Our Navy is also severely handicapped by having conservative members who disagree with CRT and are filled with white rage.

[ironhorsedriver]

Just look at the Royal Navy to see that.

[PeteS in CA]

Scarcasm aside, one need not be a naval historian/historiographer on the par of Jonathan Parshall or Anthony Tully to know that the US didn't built BBs more or less on par with what the RN had been cranking out for years until the Florida and Texas classes. And only became a leader in architecture with the Nevada class and beyond. As for CVs, in 1941 the USN was one of three peers not a world leader.

In 1941 the USN Yorktown class CVs were approximate peers with the IJN's Shokaku class. It was only with the Essex class - which Japan never answered with an equivalent - the the USN became the world leader, in quality, capability, and number. As the article indicates, the Essexes started coming into the fleet in 1943, and some served in limited roles into the 1970s, IIRC.

Less obvious but still important, 1943 also saw the arrival of the Independence class light carriers (CVL), and late 1942 saw the arrival into service of the escort carriers (CVE). Converting Cleveland class light cruiser hulls to CVLs was an expedient that brought more flight decks into service quicker than using only the Essexes (and Enterprise and Saratoga), and were built in facilities not large enough to build an Essex class CV.

CVEs were based on a tanker design, and while not capable of sailing with CV task groups, they handled tasks for which a CV or CVL would have beenan overkill and poor use of resources (e.g. submarine hunter-killer task groups, invasion landing support, and ferrying aircraft). The IJN also had escort and light carriers that were conversions from commercial ships, but these were less successful, especially on the occasions when the IJN tried to use them in front-line combat roles. Later in the war the IJN used their escort carriers for ferrying aircraft and carrying POWs back to Japan.

Back to the point of article, the numerical and capability advantage advantage the USN built up in WW2 and maintained for many decades can be (and is being, IMO) frittered away.

[dfwgator]

I thought it was a "Global Force for Good" now.  (whatever the hell that means)

[Absalom]

Armstrong will never be conflated w/Brainstrong.
Naval power is a function of geography, circumstance and need.
* Athens & Sparta, touching the Sea, created Navies for protection and trade.
* So did Rome, while being confronted by Carthage.
* The Vikings of Scandinavia explored the world more than 1,000 years past.
* By the 15th century Spain emerged as a Naval Power aided by the the Naval skills of Genoa & Venice.
* Then the greatest of all, the English emerged and dominated for some 300 years.
Someone send this guy a book!!!

[skeeter]

I thought it was a "Global Force for Good" now.  (whatever the hell that means)

With a 'global force' comes global responsibilities. To hell with that.

I'm good with a fleet just large enough to protect US interests, whatever that might entail. Fully realizing we're already way past that point by now.