Every so often, someone will present a case disparaging the value of the US Navy’s aircraft carriers. These attempts to persuade military leaders of more effective ways to project sea power generally pick up on some new weapon or threat to justify deep-sixing the backbone of the US force presence – the modern nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. So it is with economist Mr. Philip Pilkington’s National Interest article “Why Aircraft Carriers Are Becoming Obsolete.”
Few would deny the US Navy has come under scrutiny for its ability to field warships. However, the value of the formidable nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has not been high on the list for evaluation for warfighting value.
The new hypersonic, multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – Oreshnik – launched against Ukraine’s PA Pivdenmash aerospace industry plant spread warheads over the expanse of the plant, approximate three square miles. Consequently, Pilkington argued, the missile is a game changer. Such a weapon puts US aircraft carriers at significant risk with the cost-benefit advantage going to the missile. As an alternative, the US should consider using the Lun-class Ekranoplan, or “ground effect vehicle” (GEV), a Cold War relic designed, tested, then rejected by the Soviet Union.
Take each of these elements of Pilkington’s argument at a time. First, the Russian Oreshnik ICBM launch may not have been as devastatingly effective as first thought. Any ICBM with a Multiple Independently-targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) is a formidable weapon system. However, the Nov. 21 launch of an Oreshnik ‘super weapon’ as Russian President Vladimir Putin menacingly calls the ICBM with its conventional warheads, may have been more bluster than bang. As the Daily Mail explained:
“Russia fired the nuclear-capable hypersonic missile at Dnipro in Ukraine on Nov. 21 in what was described as a combat test…The Moscow Times now reports that four Russian officials say the Oreshnik threat to Ukraine and the West was an ‘orchestrated show’ by the Putin regime – and that the weapon’s imminent use to unleash major damage is almost impossible.”
However, the missile is nuclear-capable, and that is not trivial. Still, it is not particularly noteworthy as a delivery system for conventional weapons. A Real Clear Defense account referring to a Russian report that revealed the warheads did not have explosives included to leave room for the test instruments to assess the launch vehicle’s performance. “The report concludes that the missile attack was merely a warning to the West and quotes the director of the US government-funded Institute of International Studies in California derisively saying, ‘I would say this is an incredibly expensive way to deliver what is probably not that much destruction,’” Real Clear Defense reported. Yet it is on the cost-benefit factors that Pilkington makes one of his arguments. […]
— Read More: www.libertynation.com
