Leveraging America's Aircraft Carrier Capabilities: Exploring New Combat and Noncombat Roles and Missions for the U.S. Carrier Fleet
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Leveraging America's Aircraft Carrier Capabilities: Exploring New Combat and Noncombat Roles and Missions for the U.S. Carrier Fleet
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780833039224 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | RAND Corporation |
| Publication date: | 06/15/2006 |
| Pages: | 119 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d) |
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LEVERAGING AMERICA'S AIRCRAFT CARRIER CAPABILITIES
Exploring New Combat and Noncombat Roles and Missions for the U.S. Carrier FleetBy John Gordon IV Peter A. Wilson John Birkler Steven Boraz Gordon T. Lee
Rand Corporation
Copyright © 2006 RAND CorporationAll right reserved.
Chapter One
Introduction
Defense policymakers have, for a number of years, expressed interest in broadening the roles and reach of aircraft carriers to exploit their capabilities as fully as possible. Because these vessels and their air wings-usually in a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) formation, and sometimes in combination with an Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG)-are some of America's most capable and expensive military assets, civilian and uniformed defense leaders have speculated that opportunities may exist for the United States to leverage the carrier fleet by employing it in new and nontraditional ways. This interest has only heightened since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as the United States simultaneously has had to adjust to evolving national security responsibilities connected with the Global War on Terrorism (sometimes now referred to as "the long war") and homeland defense and to respond to an array of humanitarian crises, both natural and man-made.
From autumn 2004 until summer 2005, RAND researchers analyzed options available to the U.S. Navy to use aircraft carriers-assigned to either hostile or nonhostile operations-in new and nontraditional roles and missions. On behalf of the Program ExecutiveOffice-Aircraft Carriers, Naval Sea Systems Command, RAND explored two fundamental questions: How have aircraft carriers been used in nontraditional ways in the past? What nontraditional roles and missions might aircraft carriers be asked to shoulder in the future?
Relying both on public data and the insights made by government and industry experts in group meetings convened at RAND (which are more fully described later in this chapter), the analysis addressed these questions by cataloging how and under what conditions aircraft carriers have been employed successfully and unsuccessfully in the past and by identifying circumstances that the United States might encounter in the next 20 to 30 years that could require aircraft carriers to be employed out of their traditional role. The analysis also examined alternative ways that carriers could be properly equipped or able to be rapidly equipped with an appropriate mix of capabilities for those roles. The study aimed to help policymakers (1) understand new and emerging military and nonmilitary roles and missions that the aircraft carrier fleet will encounter in the next several decades and (2) identify technical and operational risks and rewards connected with pursuing those new roles and missions.
New or Nontraditional Roles for Aircraft Carriers?
Aircraft carriers and their embarked air wings have been central to the exercise of U.S. naval power since 1942. Time and again, the President has turned to these vessels as the initial policy instrument when the United States has been compelled to project military power or engage in hostile operations. From World War II to today's Global War on Terrorism-playing key roles in four major wars, in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in numerous other hostile and nonhostile missions far and wide-aircraft carriers have been used to make a show of force, deter adversaries, engage friends and allies, provide humanitarian assistance, and bring airpower to bear against opponents.
Modern aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever built, are extremely capable combatants. Each U.S. carrier displaces about 100,000 tons, has a flight-deck area of almost five acres, and is nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall. Each carrier accommodates more than 5,000 Navy personnel for months at a time. Each is expected to operate safely for decades-and, of course, to survive and function as fully as possible in crisis and conflict.
The military advantages of aircraft carriers are obvious: They can quickly move large air forces and their support to distant theaters of war; respond rapidly with tremendous firepower to changing tactical situations; support several missions at once, with a great number of flights per day; and deploy in international waters without having to engage in negotiations with other nations.
However, as recent events at home and abroad have demonstrated, the nature of conflict is changing, and the United States no longer can consider itself to be an unassailable sanctuary. In such an environment, it is likely that aircraft carriers will be called upon more frequently and be expected to shoulder more duties. With their aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles; their large open and covered spaces; their significant human resources; and their massive electrical-power-generation capabilities, new and existing aircraft carriers represent a significant resource that could be deployed in nontraditional ways. New carriers may also be able to exploit novel capabilities to generate and export electrical power or launch a broader range of air vehicles-capabilities not found in today's Nimitz-class carriers.
Such nontraditional employment would dovetail with today's challenging budget environment and comes at a time when additional capabilities must be provided to existing assets so that they can meet new Navy and Department of Homeland Defense strategies. Aircraft carriers are the military's costliest assets. With defense budgets coming under increasing scrutiny, policymakers are under growing pressure to fully exploit all military assets and to minimize the prospects that assets may be underutilized.
The Use of Concept Options Groups
Recognizing the potential of nontraditional carrier uses, the Navy in 2005 hired RAND to explore possible nontraditional roles for aircraft carriers. Between February and April 2005, RAND created and convened two Concept Options Groups (COGs)-small groups of experienced military and civilian operators and potential users who work together to identify promising ways to employ military might in nontraditional ways-to explore possible nontraditional roles for aircraft carriers. One COG (referred to hereafter as COG-1) explored and identified new ways that aircraft carriers could be used in combat operations; a second COG (referred to as COG-2) examined ways that the vessels could be used in noncombat missions, such as for homeland security or efforts to help the nation recover from terrorist attacks or natural disasters in U.S. territories.
RAND developed and used COGs to good effect in past research projects (Birkler, Neu, and Kent, 1998), in which they were instrumental in helping policymakers explore and identify new and emerging mission needs, technologies, and operational concepts. In this project, each COG was made up of no more than a dozen members, whom we identified with the assistance of the Program Executive Office-Aircraft Carriers, Naval Sea Systems Command. The two COGs operated in parallel, and some of their membership overlapped, depending on the nature of the discussions and the technologies and concepts considered. The membership, which is detailed in Appendix A, included
experienced military experts from the services and from intelligence elements that might plausibly contribute to the specified mission (COGs 1 and 2)
broadly knowledgeable technologists drawn from a variety of scientific and engineering backgrounds (COGs 1 and 2)
senior analysts and planners from RAND and other defense research institutions and from the Department of Defense (COGs 1 and 2)
federal and state homeland security officials from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal and state agencies (COG-2).
Each COG convened for three sessions, and each session lasted two days. The sessions were spaced roughly a month apart over three months.
COGs: Reviewing Aircraft Carrier Roles Past and Future
To gain historical perspective, the two COGs reviewed how the United States and other countries have used aircraft carriers traditionally. The combat group (COG-1) focused on past employment of the vessels in military operations, concentrating on how they were used in World War II, when the era of today's big flattop carriers came into being, and in subsequent years. The noncombat group (COG-2) investigated carriers' assignments to past homeland defense missions, to natural-disaster-response operations, and to other nonhostile endeavors, such as electronic surveillance or space-capsule recoveries.
This historical review gave the COGs a good understanding of the types of roles and missions that the carrier fleet has taken on over the past 65 years. While it is likely that some, if not most, of those roles and missions will continue in years to come, it also is likely that new ones will emerge. To gain an understanding of what the carrier fleet might encounter over the next two or three decades, the COGs laid out a dozen scenarios in which aircraft carriers might be expected to play a part. The scenarios, which are more fully described in Chapters Four and Five and in the Appendix, involve the United States in combat and noncombat operations at home and abroad, connected both to military and to homeland defense/humanitarian operations. The scenarios, which take place over the 2008-2020 time frame, are purely speculative, but they were chosen to represent the range of challenges that aircraft carriers might have to overcome. The scenarios are as follows:
Combat Scenarios
China-Taiwan crisis
Pakistan coup attempt
Korean crisis
Crisis in Straits of Hormuz
Nigerian civil war noncombatant evacuation
Colombia insurgency
Myanmar civil war.
Noncombat Scenarios
Nuclear detonation at Long Beach
Atlantic tsunami
Volcanic eruption in Hawaii
San Francisco earthquake
Cuban Mariel-like refugee crisis.
For each scenario, the COGs examined the tasks that the United States might assign its carrier fleet and assessed the degree to which the fleet's current capabilities could handle them. When there was a mismatch, the COGs explored how the capabilities of the carrier fleet would need to change and assessed the operational and technical implications of such changes.
The expert discussions that helped inform the analysis were divided into two major topic areas: (1) nontraditional uses of carriers in combat situations and (2) nontraditional employment of carriers in noncombat missions, such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. For each scenario, the participants were provided vignette materials as a read-ahead. The details of the vignettes were reviewed for the group when it convened, then senior RAND analysts served as the group facilitators. The possible roles of aircraft carriers in each of the vignettes were discussed, including what the possible advantages and disadvantages of employing a carrier would be in each situation. The RAND analytic team assembled the insights developed during these sessions and collated them, along with independent assessments made by RAND, into the insights provided in this monograph. The teams included active-duty personnel from the U.S. Navy, the Army, the Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Air Force. Additionally, civilian analysts participated. Finally, Royal Navy officers from the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., were present for most of the group discussions.
Study Outline
This monograph summarizes the activities, findings, and recommendations of both carrier COGs. Following this Introduction, we devote two chapters to past and current uses of aircraft carriers. Chapter Two reviews the capabilities of aircraft carriers and how the United States has employed them in traditional military operations. Chapter Three describes how the United States used carriers in nontraditional ways in the past. We devote two subsequent chapters to investigations of how carriers might be used in the future. Relying on combat scenarios, Chapter Four investigates how the vessels might be employed in future combat operations; employing a similar scenario methodology, Chapter Five examines how the vessels might be used in the face of noncombat challenges. Chapter Six summarizes our conclusions and recommendations. Lastly, the Appendix details each scenario that the study team used in its analysis.
Chapter Two
Aircraft Carrier Capabilities
To assess how the U.S. Navy might use aircraft carriers in the future, policymakers need to have an understanding of the capabilities of the current fleet of Nimitz-class warships. In the next 10 to 15 years, the degree to which the Navy can take on new combat or noncombat responsibilities will depend, in large measure, on the resources and capabilities that can be provided to the ships that currently are part of the fleet.
This chapter discusses the capabilities that today's U.S. aircraft carriers possess or can call upon as needed. These capabilities fall into several categories. Some capabilities, such as the ability to generate significant amounts of electrical power from a nuclear reactor, are specific to Nimitz-class carriers. Other capabilities derive from the air wing that is connected with a specific carrier or from the surface and subsurface ships that collectively make up a Carrier Strike Group. Still other capabilities, such as satellite communication systems or intelligence-interception systems, can be found elsewhere in the Navy and are shared by many elements of that service.
In combination, these capabilities make the nation's carrier fleet a formidable force today. More than anything else, they provide U.S. policymakers with flexibility. No other asset in the U.S. military arsenal can bring as much freedom of action to U.S. decisionmakers' ability to respond to crises nearly anywhere in the world.
Aircraft carriers and their associated Carrier Strike Groups can operate independently for long periods of time and maneuver in areas to which the U.S. land-based tactical air forces may not have access. This flexibility allowed the United States to overcome access obstacles in operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003. This ability to operate in areas in which an air base is absent or restricted means that carriers can provide varied options to the senior U.S. military and political leadership and to Congress to support U.S. missions, which range from executing humanitarian missions to performing sustained strike operations.
The foundation of a carrier's versatility is the combination of her virtually unlimited range and endurance; her embarked air wing's airpower; her robust communication architecture, which provides for significant command and control capabilities; and the ability to take on mission equipment tailored for the assigned missions. But the carrier offers more: A small city, it provides services ranging from freshwater to an electrical grid, 24-hour restaurants, television stations, hospital and dental care, barbershops, and mail delivery. In addition, a carrier's crew is made up of multitalented, technologically sophisticated men and women who possess a multiplicity of nautical, engineering, aeronautical, electrical, medical, logistical, and warfighting skills. These vast capabilities are why the carrier is the preferred tool in times of crisis for so many decisionmakers. This chapter discusses some of these important features, using a Nimitz-class carrier as the model.
Carrier Air Operations
The most potent asset of an aircraft carrier is its air wing. A carrier is capable of supporting 125 sorties a day, surging up to as many as 200, and can do so for about two weeks before shutting down for one day of maintenance-after which it can do so all over again. The carrier's air traffic control center (CATCC) and primary flight control (PRI-FLY) use the integrated shipboard information system (ISIS), a data management system that collects, distributes, and displays information, to manage flight operations. The carrier crew can launch two aircraft and land one every 37 seconds in daylight, and can launch and land one aircraft per minute at night.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from LEVERAGING AMERICA'S AIRCRAFT CARRIER CAPABILITIES by John Gordon IV Peter A. Wilson John Birkler Steven Boraz Gordon T. Lee Copyright © 2006 by RAND Corporation. Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents
Preface iii
Figures ix
Table xi
Summary xiii
Acknowledgments xxiii
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
New or Nontraditional Roles for Aircraft Carriers? 2
The Use of Concept Options Groups 4
COGs: Reviewing Aircraft Carrier Roles Past and Future 5
Combat Scenarios 6
Noncombat Scenarios 6
Study Outline 7
Chapter 2 Aircraft Carrier Capabilities 9
Carrier Air Operations 11
Command, Control, and Communications, and Intelligence 15
Command, Control, and Communications 15
Intelligence 16
Other Aircraft Carrier Capabilities: Toward the Nontraditional 17
Chapter 3 Historical Nontraditional Uses of Aircraft Carriers 21
Nontraditional Combat Employment of Aircraft Carriers 21
The Doolittle Raid-April 1942 21
Saving Malta-April/May 1942 22
Operation Torch-November 1942 23
Transporting Army and Marine Corps Aircraft-1942/1945 24
Army Spotter Planes Abroad Ship-October 1944 25
Communications, Electronic Intelligence, and Command Platform-Vietnam, 1960s 26
Base for Army Air Assault Forces-1994 26
Platform for Special Operations Forces 27
Nontraditional Uses of Aircraft Carriers for Noncombat Operations 27
Platform for U-2 Spy Planes-1960s 28
Powering a City-Tacoma, Washington, 1930 28
Troop Transport at the End of World War II 29
Spacecraft-Recovery Vessels-1960s and 1970s 30
Disaster-Relief Operations 31
Lessons from Past Nontraditional Uses of Carriers 34
Chapter 4 Uses of Aircraft Carriers in Future Combat Operations 37
Overview of Combat Vignettes 38
China-Taiwan Crisis 38
Pakistani Coup Attempt 38
Korean Crisis 39
The Straits of Hormuz 40
Nigerian Noncombatant Evacuation 41
Colombian Insurgency 42
Support forMyanmar 42
Major Insights: Combat Vignettes 43
Reconfigure Carrier Air Wings 43
Increase Modularity 45
Enhance Reconnaissance and Surveillance Capability 46
Increase the Range and Engurance for Covering Large Operational Areas 48
Prepare for Operations in a Nuclear Environment 48
Chapter 5 Uses of Aircraft Carriers in Future Noncombat Operations 51
Noncombat Vignettes 51
Nuclear Detonoation in Long Beach Harbor 51
Atlantic Tsunami 52
Massive Volcanic Eruption on the Island of Hawaii 53
Earthquake Strikes San Francisco Bay Area 53
Cuban Refugee Crisis 54
Major Insights 54
Alter the Aircraft Mix Abroad Ship 54
Provide a Command Center for Key Government Personnel or Agencies 55
Provide Medical Facilities for Casualties Brought Back to the Ship 55
Improve Availability of Nonready Carriers 56
Hold Carriers Back from Humanitarian Noncombat Missions When a Major Military Crisis Looms 57
Chapter 6 Conclusions 59
Appendix Future Combat and Noncombat Vignettes 65
Bibliography 93