Description
Book SynopsisThe nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is naval history’s most powerful and versatile warship. It is the reason the U.S. Navy is the predominant force at sea today. Throughout its illustrious history, the carrier has overcome serious flaws, including its expense, vulnerability, centralization of combat power, and its airwing’s short range. The U.S. Navy always accepted those flaws because the carrier was the best means of delivering firepower. Today’s technologies, however, provide key opportunities for the U.S. Navy to move beyond the limitations of a carrier-centric fleet by redesigning its force structure.
Questioning the Carrier examines how the U.S. Navy can embrace the Age of the Missile, network the distributed fleet, and diversify to develop a fleet that benefits from the aircraft carrier’s many strengths without being wholly dependent on them. By acting on those opportunities, the U.S. Navy can develop a structure that performs the carrier-centric fleet’s functions more effectively using a force consisting of more platforms with less total risk and within the same long-term budget. As adversaries are improving their ability to deter the carrier thus causing its utility to wane, the author examines the Navy’s past successes to show how it can overcome institutional resistance to change and continue to rule the seas.
Trade Review“
Questioning the Carrier skillfully uses naval history and current events to conduct a holistic review of the aircraft carrier’s ability to lead the U.S. Navy against our nation’s adversaries. This is a superb contribution to the debate over the Navy’s force structure, especially valuable because it comes from a serving naval officer. ― Adm. Stavridis, USN (Ret.), former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO and author of
The Sailor’s Bookshelf and
The Leader’s Bookshelf
