Winged Luddites: Aviators Are the Biggest Threat to Carrier Aviation
Noah Spataro, Trevor Phillips-Levine, and Andrew Tenbusch
January 10, 2022
Commentary
We must not be misled to our own detriment to assume that the untried machine can displace the proved and tried horse.
– Gen. John K. Herr, opposing the development of the tank, in 1938
Between 1811 and 1816, British factory workers formed a movement known as Luddism. The Luddites sought to protect labor-intensive jobs by attacking and destroying the new industrial-age machinery of factory owners who, they felt, used machines to undercut standard labor practices in a “fraudulent and deceitful manner.” Today, “Luddite” is commonly used as a disparaging term for “a person opposed to technology or ways of working,” but the historical meaning goes beyond this superficial definition. A Luddite is someone who opposes specific technologies because they threaten a way of life or livelihood.
The U.S. military is not immune to Luddism. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, there have been notable examples of intense resistance to change in the face of threats to traditional roles and service identities. Gen. John K. Kerr’s impassioned testimony against the tank in 1938 is a case in point. Similarly, the U.S. Navy’s battleship admiralty of the 1920s and 1930s hindered the adoption of aircraft as striking instruments. They did not appreciate how the technology would disrupt modern warfare and upend the status quo.
Today, leaders in naval aviation are impeding the rapid adoption of reconnaissance and strike-capable aircraft carrier drones through deliberate incrementalism, purposefully constraining autonomous platform capabilities and delaying deployment with cautious and lengthy feasibility studies — all while adversaries accept greater risks to rapidly field imposing capabilities. Despite evidence that human-piloted strike-fighter platforms lack the range and endurance, compared to their unmanned counterparts to remain relevant in future conflict, carrier-based drone deployment will lag threats until at least the late 2020s. The Navy’s Next Generation Air Dominance strike-fighter project is embattled by Luddism, and its leaders are striving to maintain human pilots as the centerpiece of the aircraft carrier’s power projection capability. If the aircraft carrier’s value is indeed its ability to project airpower and sea control against determined threats, then the carrier’s credibility to deter future war hangs in the balance. Accelerated acquisition of carrier-based supervised lethal autonomous drones is paramount to sea control and disrupting U.S. adversaries at range.
https://warontherocks.com/2022/01/winged-luddites-aviators-are-the-biggest-threat-to-carrier-aviation/
