The recommendations of the commission were rational, workable, and therefore useful. Most of the conclusions subsequently found their way into the ever-evolving strategy of the Cold War and have endured as fundamental precepts in the current strategic philosophies. I considered this to be a testimonial to the commissioners themselves. Successful and distinguished public servants such as Kissinger and Brzezinski were not tempted by easy, cheap, sensational solutions. From their experience they could judge what would work and what was pie in the sky. Their views, and the experience of the retired military commissioners, largely prevailed. On the other hand, the professional staff sometimes appeared to be a preoccupation of the public’s expectations of exciting new ideas rather than realistic, attainable solutions that would have a higher probability of success in providing security for the United States over the next twenty years.
Midway through our studies, a five-day retreat was scheduled to assess the progress achieved thus far and to adjust the compass for the remaining deliberations and final conclusions. When I made the observation that our conclusions could suggest a defense establishment and a strategic concept that was largely an extension of what we had in 1986, there was a reaction of disbelief and disappointment on the part of most of the professional staff and several of the commissioners. The reaction was, “We will have labored for two years and have nothing to show for it!” I was impelled at that juncture to point out that in the absence of a fundamental technological or political change, such as the invention of the atomic bomb or the collapse of the Soviet Union, any new strategic philosophy produced by a commission such as ours would have to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It was totally unreasonable to assume that the existing strategy would be found to be completely invalid. After all, it was the product of the constant updating, based upon real warfare and actual events, of a strategy that had served us well for forty years. As a government commission, could we invent an entirely new concept for our national security? No. Could we enhance the integration of science and international affairs into our national security planning? Yes. And I think we did.
I learned from studying nuclear power under Rickover that if it is cheap, easy, and painless it hasn’t been invented yet and probably never will be.
23
The Future
For more than six decades, since the earliest days of World War II, the aircraft carrier has been the principal warship of the U.S. Navy, the fighting ship around which the U.S. Fleet has been constructed and organized. Over this time the carrier forces of our Navy have consistently demonstrated their invaluable worth as an instrument of national power, through which the military strategy of our country has been exercised in direct support of the nation’s most vital security objectives.
In 2006 the United States was experiencing an epochal juncture in its history. A fresh concept of transformation in our armed forces had been installed, a new strategy of preemptive war introduced, the advanced technology of precision guided munitions was in our inventories and a revolutionary DPG, From the Sea, had been adopted. The aircraft carrier is an essential component in all of these seminal developments in a continuation of its central role in our defense planning and military operations. More important, however, the modern aircraft carrier brings a unique and singular array of new military capabilities to add to our national security planning options across the spectrum of future warfare.
The importance of the aircraft carrier in our nation’s defense lies in the fact that the carrier is the only weapon system that can provide air power at sea; and the free use of the world’s international waters will be in the future, as it has been for the past sixty years, an absolute essential to our national security strategies. World War II unequivocally established — and the campaigns of the Cold War fully substantiated — that in modern warfare, military success cannot be attained without general air supremacy and local air superiority in the area of potential engagement. It is the aircraft carriers’ embarked air wings, along with the tactical fighter wings of the U.S. Air Force and Marine fixed-wing tactical squadrons, that are the warfighting components in the U.S. Order of Battle which are in our defense planning, responsible for insuring that in any conflicts, air supremacy will reside on the side of the United States and its allies.
More specifically, the aircraft carriers of the U.S. Navy are responsible for assuring that during military operations at sea and in littoral environments, the United States has local air superiority in the objective areas to enable other specialized fleet elements to carry out their assigned naval warfare tasks, such as projecting seaborne troops ashore in a hostile environment, clearing mines, and supplying gunfire support and antisubmarine defense. The naval ships that are engaged in these missions — cruisers, destroyers, mine hunters, and amphibious assault ships — must be defended against enemy air attacks. The carrier’s aircraft must also silence hostile fire from the enemy forces ashore defending the lodgment area and then provide deep interdiction air strikes and close air support for our own assault forces fighting to seize a beachhead. In the forward areas where these operations take place, friendly, land-based air is not available. It must be assumed that the territory under assault is under enemy control. It is only after the Navy and Marines have established secure lodgment ashore that friendly, land-based air can be employed.
The essentiality of a capable-carrier force in the U.S. Navy is mandated by our national security philosophy, a forward strategy that
1. Uses the oceans as barriers in our defense and avenues for extending our influence abroad. In case of war, we intend to engage the enemy on his homeland rather than ours. Not since the Civil War have the American people suffered the depredation of enemy troops or even hostile bombardments of our homeland.
2. Rationalizes the geographic situation of the United States on the North American continent. We have only two international borders, with Canada and Mexico. Neither of these nations represents a threat to our security. Yet two of our states, several of our territories, and all but two allies lie overseas.
3. Relies upon overseas allies such as NATO and Japan and forward-deployed forces such as Navy carrier and expeditionary strike groups in the international waters of the Mediterranean, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
4. Exploits the inherent mobility of naval forces and the “ready on arrival” capability of predeployed carrier strike groups to react to an overseas crisis immediately with the desired option, across the full range of politico-military actions, from a show of force to all-out war.