How America’s aircraft carriers could become obsolete

President Donald Trump has been consistent in his argument that the US Navy has shrunk to a woefully inadequate size. The Republican has repeatedly said he wants the service to expand, including a fleet of a dozen aircraft carriers. That plan isn’t in the Pentagon’s current budget, but on July 22 the US Navy will formally commission CVN-78, the USS Gerald R. Ford, its newest, most sophisticated nuclear-powered carrier.

The Ford, hit with delays and technical glitches, is expected to become operational in 2020. One question about its formal readiness, however, rests on whether the navy will perform “full-ship shock trials,” a test in which the service detonates explosives nearby to demonstrate its fitness. Some in Congress – which has mandated a carrier fleet no smaller than 11 – want to move the Ford into duty more quickly to reduce strain on the rest of the carrier fleet.

These massive mobile airports, which can cart as many as 90 aircraft simultaneously, are designed to project US military and diplomatic power around the world. Earlier this month, for example, the navy posted two carriers, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan, and their strike groups in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) for joint exercises with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force as a precautionary signal to North Korean aggression.

The USS Gerald Ford is the first of four planned Ford-class carriers, the navy’s first new carrier design in 42 years, although only three of them have names and funding. A shock trial would be deferred until the second carrier, CVN-79, the USS John F. Kennedy, arrives in 2020, according to defence funding language being pushed in the House seapower and projection forces subcommittee.