How vulnerable are aircraft carriers?

“U.S. aircraft carrier enters Gulf without incident

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON | Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:07pm EST

(Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier sailed through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf without incident on Sunday, a day after Iran backed away from an earlier threat to take action if an American carrier returned to the strategic waterway.

The carrier USS Abraham Lincoln completed a "regular and routine" passage through the strait, a critical gateway for the region's oil exports, "as previously scheduled and without incident," said Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

The Lincoln, accompanied by strike group of warships, was the first U.S. aircraft carrier to enter the Gulf since late December and was on a routine rotation to replace the outgoing USS John C. Stennis.

The departure of the Stennis prompted Iranian army chief Ataollah Salehi to threaten action if the carrier passed back into the Gulf.

"I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf. ... We are not in the habit of warning more than once," he said.

The threat led to a round of escalating rhetoric between the two sides that spooked oil markets and raised the specter of a military confrontation between Iran and the United States.

Iran threatened to close the strait, the world's most important oil shipping gateway, while the United States warned such a move would require a response by Washington, which routinely patrols international sea lanes to ensure they remain open.

Iran appeared to ease away from its earlier warnings on Saturday, with Revolutionary Guard Corps Deputy Commander Hossein Salami telling the official IRNA news agency that the return of U.S. warships to the Gulf was routine and not an increase in its permanent presence in the region.

"U.S. warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence," Salami said.

Pentagon officials declined to comment directly on Salami's remarks, but reiterated that continued U.S. presence in the region reflected the seriousness with which Washington takes its security commitments to partner nations in the region and to ensuring free flow of international commerce.

The Lincoln's arrival in the Gulf was unrelated to Iran's statement on Saturday.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have been escalating in recent weeks as President Barack Obama prepares to implement new U.S. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear enrichment program, which Tehran says is for energy production but the West believes is aimed at producing atomic weapons.

The EU is preparing to intensify sanctions against Tehran with an embargo on Iran's oil exports and possibly freezing the assets of Iran's central bank. Obama is preparing new U.S. sanctions that target foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran's central bank.

Both sides tried to scale down the rhetoric last week. The White House emphasized the United States was still open to international talks on Iran's nuclear program, even as it denied Iranian assertions that discussions were under way about resuming a dialogue.

The White House would not confirm or deny Iranian reports that Obama had sent a letter to Iranian leaders, but spokesman Jay Carney said any communications with Tehran would have reinforced the statements Washington has made publicly.

The United States supports talks between Iran and the so-called P5 + 1, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - Russia, China, France, England and the United States - plus Germany.

Carney urged Iran to respond to the letter sent in October on behalf of the P5 +1 by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

"If the Iranians are serious about restarting talks, then they need to respond to that letter," Carney told a White House briefing. "That is the channel by which ... the restarting of those talks would take place."

(Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Peter Cooney and Stacey Joyce)”

“Fortress at Sea? The Carrier Invulnerability Myth

By Commander John Patch, U.S. Navy (Retired)at what cost?

America's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, especially in today's irregular, asymmetric warfare climate, could be little more than slow-moving targets.

The recently renewed debate over aircraft carrier requirements has focused mainly on the factors of cost and utility. These issues notwithstanding, analysts often overlook or understate the carriers' inherent vulnerabilities. Regardless of the number of carriers national leadership decides to maintain, because they remain the U.S. Navy's preeminent capital ship and a symbol of American global power and prestige, they are a potential key target for both unconventional and conventional adversaries. Carrier proponents, however, universally seem to accept on faith alone the premise that a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN) is essentially invulnerable.

Yet an intelligent adversary could potentially exploit carrier weaknesses. The sudden, unexpected loss of a CVN, especially by unanticipated asymmetric means, would shock both the military establishment and the American psyche-perhaps being a military equivalent to the Twin Towers' collapse on 9/11. The truth is, a deployed aircraft carrier is more vulnerable to mission kill than is commonly believed, and the Department of Defense should consider efforts to prevent or mitigate such an exigency.

The carrier debate is alive and well. The current effort surrounding the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)and the near-term decommissioning of the nearly 50-year-old USS Enterprise (CVN-65) are raising the volume of the argument, specifically on the number of carrier strike groups (CSGs) needed to meet national and combatant commander demands.

Recurring congressional statutes also dictate minimum carrier fleet size, often despite differing advice from Navy secretaries and military leaders.1 The carrier's value in the post-9/11 era?amidst a global security paradigm defined by the often ambiguous characteristics of irregular, asymmetric, or hybrid warfare-remains an unanswered question. While combat-proven in conventional conflicts and for certain aspects of irregular warfare, future roles and structure of the carrier force remain murky.

Assessments of aircraft carrier vulnerability are not new. The Soviets debated building a significant carrier fleet in the 1960s but determined that large carriers had no place in the nuclear age, partly because of their vulnerability to missiles with nuclear warheads.2 While later choosing to build larger carriers, Moscow always retained the view that carriers remained vulnerable. While the American carrier debate has continued since 1945, it has focused largely on missions, cost, and force structure-not vulnerability.

Presumed Impregnable

The U.S. view of carrier invulnerability is a perilous assumption. If 9/11 taught Washington anything, it clearly demonstrated that fortress America was vulnerable in ways its citizens and defenders never imagined. Terrorists selected targets with maximum psychological impact, employing a relatively sophisticated asymmetric method, seemingly incorporating many of the basic principles of war and operational art: simplicity, synergy, simultaneity and depth, surprise, tempo and timing, security, etc.

The basic operational plan also reflected an awareness of the efficacy of the classic indirect approach-a key aspect of asymmetric warfare. They also exploited a basic vulnerability of open, democratic political systems-a benign operating environment. If a handful of Saudis could plan and carry out effective attacks halfway around the world in a foreign land, why then could other adversaries not accomplish the same in local waters familiar to them?

The typical carrier capabilities that lead to presumptions of impregnability include: speed, armor, compartmentalization, size, defenses (air wing, own-ship, escorts, etc.), blue-water sanctuary (range from shore and from adversary/targets), and technological superiority of U.S. weapon systems. Not often discussed, though, is how a smart enemy might exploit technology or subterfuge to obviate some traditional carrier strengths. Some potential examples include:

Mass media, satellite communication, and the Internet can provide location and disposition of U.S. carriers when they are near shipping lanes or coastal waters; carrier presence is obvious well before the silhouette appears on the horizon.

Carriers not supporting a conflict requiring continuous air wing operations will not be operating at higher speeds, especially at night.

Fast, low profile, open-ocean craft are widely available.

Armored hangar bay doors are useless when open, typical to lower conditions of readiness.

Carrier crew size and diversity would likely allow unfettered access to clandestine infiltrators of almost any ethnicity.

While nuclear power provides virtually unlimited steaming, carriers remain dependent on forward staging areas and supply ships for food, aviation fuel, and stores.

The insatiable appetite for information afloat is satisfied by way of precious, uninterrupted bandwidth flowing through multiple nodes with varying vulnerabilities.”