The Persistence of the Aircraft Carrier and Its Relevance for Tomorrow

Admiral Samuel Paparo authored a powerful, yet succinct message: “The carrier is still indispensable.” Citing the unparalleled magazine capacity and reload-at-sea capability, mobility as an enabler to survivability, and the fact that carriers have continually adapted to threats through time (and budget cycles.Relying predominantly on distributed networks and assets without proximate “nodes” in vicinity compounds the challenges. Each node or layer of a disaggregated system of systems introduces its own vulnerability and set of variables that an adversary could exploit. For an unmanned system commanded remotely, the vehicle requires satellite coverage throughout its route. It also requires the weather at...