” they are saying building additional and maintaining the existing carriers at the expense of ...” the welfare state can’t be done.
We could easily afford to do it with a 10% welfare load. With a 50% and growing welfare load we can’t.
And that means we cannot afford missions we previously could. The money to pay for them, our wealth, is going to welfare.
The other two sections of the essay blatantly lead to the conclusion that underwater drones are the prime offensive/defensive weapon for the Navy.
Notice the self-defeating “attack a fort” quote?
LOL!
Air power, as delivered by carriers, infamously made stationary forts indefensible.
yeah I agree the biggest problem is that we are spending more and more of our budget on personnel costs and not ships anymore. these overhead costs are drowning us (pun intended) welfare and medicare on a federal level and family support and pensions and such on a dept navy level. you could freeze the budget now and over the years there would still be less and less money going into ship building
It is the classic battle of Guns versus Butter that all Great Powers in decline have faced, Butter usually wins out because it has more constituents. You just have to take a look at Europe and what they spend on defense. The US has provided the security umbrella to allow them to feed their welfare state. We won't have that luxury as our power declines.