Supercarrier named after George H.W. Bush commissioned

Back in the day, US carriers were named after famous battles (Lexington, Saratoga), or famous admirals (Nimitz). Now they and other warships are named after civilian politicians - living civilian pols, at that. This is a tremendous cultural indicator of the role of the appropriations process in our nation's defense posture.

 

Can't agree with that more. Absolutely dead on. There were plenty of former presidents they could have honored following the GW. It was the Stennis, then the USS US (OMG!) and then the Reagan.

Uhm...

He was the next "great" president they could think of?

 

I vote for the USS Chuck Norris. Or the USS Ryan Sonner. ;D

 

And this is an argument?
You give your brain and/or sense of humor the weekend off, because, wow.

 

I'll try and answer...

Carriers give us two key advantages:
1) Projection of power wherever it is.
2) Ability to respond rapidly to any situation anywhere.

From a military perspective, having the uninterrupted ability to do both of those is incredibly valuable.

And despite the supposed roll call of 11 carriers, only a percentage of them are actually available to meet those missions. The rest are in various stages of overhaul, because quite frankly, after a deployment and months of pre-deployment cruises, carriers need a lot of work.

 

The Blow Job

 

And what a sad day in Trekkie Land that will be.

 

And I understand both of them, and let us leave aside the argument about most of the places where we are "projecting force" because I think we probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
The fact remains that the number of carriers, and the expenses thereof, are costs we bear that almost nobody else does, and the fact that we're still building "supercarriers" leads me to believe that it's more about the defense budget than it is about national defense.

 

What does this have anything to do with anything? Nothing. It just makes me laugh.
As you were.

 

See, they're called aircraft carriers because they, you know, carry aircraft. They take them all over the world, which is a big place, where they might be needed on a moment's notice. If you only had, say, three, you could hardly defend our own shores, let alone all the other nation's we seem responsible for defending.

If you want to ask why we need enough nuclear warheads to blow the world up 11 times over, I'll second the need for that knowledge. Aircraft carriers are a vastly important means of defending our shores and others'. You can't fly F-15s from Hawaii to Spain.

 

We can't defend our own shores unless we have 11 aircraft carriers?
Who's invading, the Vikings?
Please let aa respond on this one, OK?
The stoogefest is down the block.

 

I don't think we CAN separate that argument from the issue because the nature of those places where we need that deterrent doesn't always allow for a permanent presence. Sure, we can reach Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan with long-range bombers from places like Diego Garcia and Doha, Qatar, but those options seem awfully limited and may not always offer a war planner exactly what he/she needs. The option to drop 1,000 Marines on the ground, for example.

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The fact remains that the number of carriers, and the expenses thereof, are costs we bear that almost nobody else does, and the fact that we're still building "supercarriers" leads me to believe that it's more about the defense budget than it is about national defense.
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I don't think we can let the fact that other nations have or don't have aircraft carriers dictate our highest-level strategies. And Alley made a great point about the number of carrier groups actually "in the fight" at one time.