The geo-political and strategic plates are shifting beneath our feet. In global terms I have lived virtually all of my life under the American ‘umbrella’. It has cost me, or to be exact, my country, a fortune. Americans as individuals are by nature a generous people but their governments are as tight-fisted and ruthless as any mafia loan-shark demanding his 'vig' - or else! So, the 'umbrella' has only come at a heavy price and we have been left diminished by it. However, in my opinion we would have been even more diminished by lack of it. I know that many highly intelligent and much more distinguished thinkers than me, from Enoch Powell onwards, have urged us to politely give the 'umbrella' back and quietly disassociate ourselves from what they see as the constant folly of American foreign policy. They point derisively at what they call the blunders of Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. Powell, in particular, maintained that the entire ‘cold war’, with its huge conglomeration of American-led NATO forces was based on a totally unfounded fear of Soviet invasion into western Europe which was never a possibility. And, needless to say, they rubbed in the fact that when we needed some American ‘tea and sympathy’ over the Suez Canal, the various efforts we were making to leave our colonies and, finally, the invasion of the Falklands, the Americans were not just disinterested but sometimes hostile.
Much (but not all) of that is true but, I would maintain, only a partial truth. I do not intend here to argue the ins and outs of each of those scenarios. Nor do I wish to deny that the greater some powers are, the greater the blunders of which they are capable. The history of my own country when it became the first global power is too full of such foolishness for me not to recognize it. So, since 1945 America has stumble-bummed its way around the world, doing good here, not so good there and positively badly somewhere else. So far, so normal! We can all admit it whilst bearing in mind, which many of us do not, that if certain other nations had been the global power of the past 70 years it would have been almost totally bad everywhere! A simple thought experiment will demonstrate the truth of that proposition: imagine if the Prussian loonies who ran Wilhemine Germany had actually won WWI, conquered the whole of Europe, dominated the Middle East and taken over whole swathes of Africa – what sort of world would we have ‘enjoyed’ then? Dwell on that thought for even a few minutes and suddenly America doesn’t seem that bad!
And all of that leads me on to the indisputable fact that the American ‘umbrella’ is slowly but surely being furled and put away. Perhaps a more accurate metaphor would be to say that having been held up for so long in so many rough conditions it is now exceedingly threadbare, worn and holed and now – there is no money and, more important, no will to repair it! Some, out of woeful ignorance, will celebrate and I would simply remind them to beware what they wish for. Others will celebrate out of sheer malignancy and the joy of future prospects. I am uneasily aware that much of what I have written is more than somewhat airy and theoretical, so allow me to point you to the very down to earth, or to be precise, down to sea level, writings of ‘Sir Humphrey’, stoutly holding the ‘Thin Pinstriped Line’.
Yesterday he wrote an analysis of what can only be described as the decline and fall of the US Navy. It is well worth reading although you may require Wiki to decipher some of the acronyms. He concentrates on the business end of the US Navy – their aircraft carriers. The other day I repeated the news that for the next several months there would only a single carrier Task Force in the Gulf. This more than anything should convince Netanyahu, if he isn’t already following the several less than friendly meetings with the President of his principal 'ally', that Israel is on its own should they attack Iran’s nuclear capabilities. That, if you like, is an operational detail but ‘Sir Humphrey’ reminds us that if you look harder you will see a much greater underlying deterioration in US Navy capabilities:
On paper from next week the USN will operate 10 aircraft carriers, all NIMITZ class, after the USS ENTERPRISE is decommissioned. In reality those 10 vessels are going to be thinly stretched across the globe. Right now, of the 10 hulls, Nimitz is undergoing repairs, three are forward deployed (two are in the Gulf, one is in Japan) and another is available for tasking in the US. One (Abraham Lincoln) is available, but is about to enter deep refit for refuelling, while two more are in deep refit or being refuelled, with a further two in minor refit. As of today, the US Navy has just three operational deployed aircraft carriers at sea, with a fourth available in the US if required, and this is unlikely to change before summer 2013. (A good source of information can be found here - http://gonavy.jp/CVLocation.html)
The worry is that these sorts of availability problems will continue to grow as the class gets older. Make no mistake, these are some of the most complex and capable warships on the planet, but they are also getting old. Three of the hulls have now been commissioned for over thirty years, and another two for over twenty years. Although designed for an optimised 50 year lifespan, it is likely that as they age, maintenance is going to be increasingly difficult and availability will suffer.
Although a replacement class is now under construction, only one has been ordered so far [my emphasis], and the deep budget cuts likely to hit the DOD over the next few years means that it is by no means certain that further orders can be guaranteed in time to generate replacement hulls on time. This is a grim situation and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
In the light of the recent presidential election you will now see why I stressed earlier that apart from lack of money there is no will for defence spending so there is no imperative for Obama to consider anything other than more and deeper cuts; and the carrier force, despite its huge power, is eye-wateringly expensive, not just in capital costs but in manpower – the crew on each ship, not counting the air wing, exceeds 3,000 people! In future, overseas operations, assuming(!) that the USA is prepared to undertake them, by American forces will require the close proximity of land air bases to provide the necessary cover for the fleets to operate in safety. Obtaining air bases from foreign governments will only prove successful at a hefty political as well as a financial price. A further incentive for Washington to withdraw inside ‘Fortress America’! ‘Sir Humphrey’ sums it up, thus:
The ability of the USN to operate with impunity across the globe, steaming where it wanted on its terms, and able to stand its ground against almost any aggressor has gone forever. Todays’ USN remains a fiercely capable and strong navy, but its ability to exert unlimited and unchallenged control of the high seas has gone, probably forever. Instead it would be more realistic to judge that the future USN will provide a capability to deploy power into some areas, but only at the cost of reducing capability and influence in others.
“Oh, brave new world!”
