Aircraft Carriers Are Not Obsolete
2023 New Year's Resolution Fulfillment
My standing annual new year’s resolution is to find something to change my mind about. I found two things this year that standout.
Once upon a time and for a very long time I was an ardent believer in aircraft carriers. For most of this time this was not at all an unconventional point of view. About 20 years ago there began to be some tension between my support for aircraft carriers (among other expensive and historic military equipment) and my own growing understanding that spending on national defense was too high.
My understanding that it was too high was based originally on just the premise that government naturally tends to spend too much. Aircraft carriers cost billions of dollars themselves and require billions more in direct support (support ships) and indirect support (harbors, supply chains, etc.)
Then over time I adopted a much more deferential view toward pacifism. The pacifistic belief eventually became at least equally responsible for why I believed national defense spending needed to be greatly reduced.
As it relates to aircraft carriers this started by supporting the generally libertarian position that we needed fewer aircraft carriers—where fewer does not imply zero. Recently over the past few years that attitude simplified to a position of fewer meaning eventually none where eventually was in the near-term future.
Developments like supersonic antiship missiles and the appearance of a future where the U.S. military was fighting small nation states or rogue groups rather than large superpowers fueled this development. Therefore, I attribute my now-recently-once-held belief that the U.S. no longer needed to build new aircraft carriers and could/should begin completely retiring them to the mistaken assumptions that they were unduly vulnerable and inappropriate for the future of national defense.
This piece by Austin Vernon among other things I've come to learn has caused me to reverse the extreme position that aircraft carriers are obsolete. Notice that I am not framing this change based on how a typical hawkish supporter would defend the belief—specifically, I am not saying the U.S. needs to be able to project force around the globe in multiple theaters, etc.
While I am not a full-blown pacifist, I am probably 90% of the way there as compared to the typical American's attitude. I am probably 99% of the way there compared to the typical ideological member of the military-industrial complex.
Still, this leaves room for some military needs including potentially aircraft carriers. And it now seems to me that aircraft carriers are a relatively cost-effective method of satisfying that national defense need. That is certainly not to say they couldn't and shouldn't cost considerably less including having fewer of them.
The second thing I changed my mind on relates to tax policy. I obviously advocate a much, much smaller government. One method of achieving that has been the so-called “starve the beast” strategy. The idea is reductions in taxation1 deprive the government of the funds it needs for operation thereby pressuring politicians to reduce the size and scope of government.
Alas, this has not worked. The federal government’s ability to borrow is enormous—a side benefit of being the largest, freest nation on Earth2. Hence, I now have changed my mind on this moving to a philosophy that could be named “gouge the people”.
In addition to it being unfair to future generations to sacrifice economic growth (future wealth) for benefits today we are unwilling to pay for, a policy of pay-as-you-go is likely a better strategy for fighting the growth of government.
If you want a big government, you deserve a big tax bill.3
Notice how this policy as advocated by the Reagan administration stood in contradiction to the other theorized and true-at-that-point Reagan policy of reducing taxes in order to grow tax revenue based on the Laffer Curve.
Notice the potential interplay between military might and strength of the debt that military defends.
Kind of like H. L. Mencken’s quip: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”