Andrew Cockburn
Ever since World War Two, America’s aircraft carrier fleets have served as imposing instruments of imperial power, roaming the oceans to cow recalcitrant nations into obedience. Favored by the Trump administration for this purpose, current experience indicates their day is done thanks to the proliferation of anti-ship missiles and the increasing ubiquity of drones.
In America’s last Middle Eastern war but two, against the Yemeni Houthis in 2025, the carrier USS Harry S.Truman, complete with its attendant escorts, was driven into retreat, leaving antagonists in control of the Red Sea. On one occasion, the carrier’s desperate maneuver to avoid a Houthi drone caused an $80 million Hornet jet fighter to slide off the deck and topple into the sea.
Chronicling the buildup to the current war, media commentary paid excited attention to the progress of the USS Gerald R. Ford, customarily described as the “world’s largest aircraft carrier,” as it made its way to the war zone. Rarely did the Ford’s status as the most expensive warship ever built get a mention in the commentary, nor that key functions – such as its plane-launching catapult and the elevators that move aircraft to the flight deck – were deficient.
According to a report by Bloomberg defense correspondent Anthony Capaccio, the Navy did not know “how well the Ford – and other ships in its class, which have yet to be delivered – can detect, track or intercept enemy aircraft, anti-ship missiles or small attack aircraft. It’s also unclear how the aircraft carrier’s systems would perform under the wartime strain of continuous takeoffs and landings.” Equally unclear was the “reliability of several key systems, including its jet launch and recovery system, its radar, its ability to keep operating if hit by enemy fire and its elevators for moving weapons and munitions for warplanes from the hold to the flight deck.”
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