America the Beautiful

...Planes have to glide down, not crash down: You need at least four lines of arresting wires with 40-foot gaps between them, followed by a 320-foot runout, plus on-deck storage space...

...In most of them a carrier group was the heart of the force...

...I t ' s almost unbelievable...

...Military threats don't evolve so fast that the U.S...

...If there were a conventional war in Europe, we'd have to supply NATO via the Gulf of Mexico, through which passes most of our ship traffic with that part of the world...

...And one of the greatest perils to flight operations is foreign object damage, FOD in carrier lingo...

...Both the skipper and his executive officer are fliers, as is the admiral whose flag streams overhead as commander of the group of ships of which the carrier is the c o r e . The airmen form the unmistakable elite of t h e carrier...

...In seeking a de~ender of the "more smaller carriers" theory, one is always referred to Senator Gary Hart...

...Wyoming doesn't feel like an island, but on the map the U.S...

...A loose object dropped on deck can be sucked into a fighter's jet engines at the moment of takeoff, with catastrophic results, so not the smallest fragment of litter is ever allowed to remain...

...But in actual fact, a submarine may never be able to figure out where its target is...

...Volcker is doing a fine job, can be trusted, and is completely under White House control...

...They have radar satellites, but they can be jammed...

...So, even if the mini-carrier strategy were intrinsically desirable, it almost certainly isn't cost-efficient...

...Nine heavy bombs once exploded on the deck of the Enterprise in a catastrophic accithe America is vulnerable to sublaunched missile bombardment...

...If we don't want to be limited to either strategic bombers and invasion forces or nothing at ~all, then we need naval airpower...

...People complain about gunboat diplomacy, but it's a lot cheaper than landing an expi~ditionary force...

...Now, one can find a substitute for the carrier in most of its functions: the Rapid Deployment Force to land troops abroad, missile-firing vessels for fleet action, land air bases for land bombardment, and so on...

...And how do you do that...

...We're better at that than Russia or China, say, but even more i m p o r t a n t , it suits our geography...

...In fact, it's quite possible that not a single member of the 5,000-man crew could navigate with a sextant, and little chance that if the skipper, like Captain Bligh, were put over the side in a lifeboat by mutineers, he and his key officers would be competent to sail off to the nearest island...

...Volcker himself supports the idea, and has offered to step down if such a bill were passed...

...They didn't want to reinforce their handful of troops on the islands for fear of appearing provocative...

...In a defensive situation the carrier can be extremely useful: In evacuating our embassy in Saigon, the Midway's flight deck was necessary to land the large air force helicopters that were used...

...The British knew from their intelligence sources that the Argentines were thinking of invading...

...In other words, a carrier really can't be much shorter, unless you switch to the Harrier type of shorttakeoff jet that the British use...

...Theoretically, for instance, a ship l i k e radar, and bobs about tracking its target almost like a boxer...

...Oh really...

...Unlike a cruiser, for instance, with its extensive free deck space, the fourand-a-half-acre flight deck of the carrier is off limits except to the pilots and the men who handle the planes...

...The Soviets also have infra-red spy satellites, but they can't do the job through overcast or in foul weather, and anyway can be confused by decoys, as, indeed, can the satellites that look for electronic emanations...

...Jack Kemp seems to be leading a growing consensus in Congress, academia, and the popular press that the Fed must once again be reined in...

...There are the leaders (Plato's "guardians") and the led...

...The c a r r i e r , its electronic countermeasures, and the ships in its fleet with their electronic jammers are equipped to confuse an electronic searcher...

...One only hopes that Mr...

...The Phalanx should be able to down an Exocet...

...Furthermore, not only is putting men ashore, or dropping them, much more of a commitment--you can count on the locals to attack them and you've got to keep them supplied--but you may have a lot of trouble getting them off...

...There are, in a word, many situations in which the carrier is indispensable even for missile attacks...

...It should come as no surprise that the America contains very few oldfashioned mariners, men who could take a small boat across an ocean...

...The carrier defends itself with its own fighters, and is in turndefended by a screen of missile-firing warships...

...The significance of airpower for today's navy is not difficult to explain...

...A number of bills would alter the term to allow a President to appoint the chairman within a few months of his own inauguration...

...There would have been no war...

...It is aimed automatically by dent, causing damage comparable to n i n e conventional missiles...

...There are solid economic grounds for doing so: Markets will function more smoothly if they do not have to rely on tea leaves and $200,000 a year Fed-watcher consultants for information about what the bank plans...

...Third, change the Fed chairman's term to coincide with the President's...

...But a "fully capable" carrier group in the area early in the game would have ended the discussion...

...It costs twice as much to apply the same force using two smaller carriers as one big one, because of economies of scale...

...A carrier, on the contrary, has its own supply system, and when the need has passed it just drops down over the horizon again...

...But to do that you have to move your ship correspondingly close to the enemy...

...Some dozens of these cards make a "black box," whose computing power is almost unimaginable...

...The Berlin blockade was harsh, Eisenhower's use of the atomic threat to stop the Korean War was harsh, recovering the Falklands was harsh...

...Foreign bases are also exorbitantly expensive...

...You can shoot a missile at an enemy, goes the argument, without risking the loss of a plane...

...The support and maintenance of these systems requires a complement of testing machines, which are themselves composed of enormous arrays of microcircuits and are in some instances the size of a small room...

...This isn't even a ship that allows the men on board to roam the decks...

...But these things happen cotistantly...

...So just as it was for England in past centuries, our fleet has become our basic line of defense...

...But the ultimate argument against more, smaller carriers is probably financial...

...He does not seem influenced by the facts of the case, but rather treasures it as one of his inventory of "new ideas," perhaps not susceptible to analysis in terms of dollars and cents or the efficient creation of power...

...If a cruise missile gets in close enough, or a bomber penetrates the screen of outlying ships, the Phalanx squirts superhard uranium-core high-velocity shells at it during its last seconds of flight, simultaneously tracking both the target and its own projectiles until there's a hit...

...George Bush, Howard Baker, and Robert Dqle, take note...

...It's the cop-on-the-beat principle, which holds that we have responsibilities all over the world, and the task of discharging them is more than our present fleet of fourteen carriers can handle...

...What this country needs is a few good ships...

...The~, are dressed not in blues, like the navy enlisted men who work the ship, nor in khaki, like the officers, but in dark green flight suits with bulging pockets...

...This would at least clarify what the Fed is up to...

...In any case, the reaction of the stock market over three days is no datum on which to base four years of economic policy...

...In addition, our system of alliances requires control of the seas...

...The Falklands, incidentally, showed the indispensability of these early warning aircraft...

...Now, a single tiny computer chip these days equals a large conventional calculator...

...That is the harsh language of seapower...

...For the sake of overseas bases, America has been forced into exceedingly costly deals with Greece and Spain...

...How do you deploy it where you can't land transport planes...

...After all, just as the airplane has superseded the naval gun, so too the missile--in essence a cheap, nonreturnable aircraft--is superseding the plane...

...Hart seems to think that we need smaller carriers because we need more carriers...

...Though they disagree violently about what Fed policy should be, liberals and conservatives, monetarists and supply-siders alike seem to agree that something on the order of the steps outlined above must be done...

...All know their place and work pretty much 'round the clock...

...Furthermore, if you buy a smaller carrier, sacrificing whatever you have tO sacrifice, it still won't be that much smaller or cheaper...

...As for the notion that there are no levers short of firing Volcker, let me suggest at least four: First, put a spotlight on the Fed's operations...

...Then, there's the quantity of electrical wiring...

...Threaten plausibly to cut them and Europe starts making concessions, fast...

...We could reach only part of the island from the U.S...

...By' comparison, a carrier group is the very model of independence and flexibility...

...And indeed, all of these satellites would be attacked on the outbreak of hostilities...

...All across that vast distance there flows, day and night, every day of the year, an artery of tankers a few miles apart bearing Japan's energy supply...

...In practice, however, there are many problems with each alternative...

...Targeted exactly, land bases can be hit by missiles at any time...

...however, strong reasons to think the President will .adopt one or all of these strategies...

...As republics go, it's certainly a lot closer to Sparta than Athens: t h e r e ' s little room for art or philosophy, and a lot of emphasis on the martial virtues...

...On a lower level of conflict they require infantry to protect them...

...In its offensive posture, the carrier can administer the entire spectrum of force, from a mere demonstration, such as sending supersonic jets to scream past a few yards above an objective, to machine guns, cannons, rockets, or bombs, including atomic bombs...

...Imagine a city of 5,000 whose inhabitants dwell far below street level and rarely come up to daylight...

...And there are ample political grounds for making the nation's most powerful economic institution more accountable...

...That ship was hurt, but was back in flight operations two hours later...

...It's so complicated and expensive that for the moment we're the only serious practitioners...

...One certainty: No President or presidential candidate can safely afford to ignor~ the Fed...

...At present, a President must wait twoand-one-half years to name his own man at the bank...

...The world's naval staffs are still pondering the lessons of the Falklands, but one of them seems to be that in an unpredictable situation a specialized carrier may be less useful than a "fully capable" one that you can send into action, confident that it can take care of itself...

...But in examining his statements on the subject, and talking to naval officers who have spent a .great deal of time going over this question with him~, I strongly suspect that Hart's obduracy on the subject is an id~efixe...

...Almost all agree, however, that Congress, which created the Fed, can tell the Fed how to conduct policy, and that the economy would be better off with even a bad policy than with none at all...

...After all, there's nothing you can do when you get to the surface except stand in a confined area, called "Vulture's Row," where you can look around but only walk a few dozen steps...

...He seems to be much the best-known protagonist of this idea...

...From a strategic standpoint, then, 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984 the carrier is irreplaceable...

...In Vietnam we lost a total of 400 planes sitting on the ground to enemy action--equivalent to more than all the aircraft on four carriers--plus 2,000 damaged...

...In any event, under normal circumstances, an enemy submarine can be detected 100 o!" more miles away, even if its presence is not already known from intelligence data, and can be attacked by the ship's anti-sub aircraft...

...Since 1945, there have been well over a hundred occasions in which we have sent our navy into a hostile environment...

...The Soviets have satellites that look for electronic emissions, but the carrier group as a matter of routine can turn off all its radiation-producing equipment when such satellites, which have a known schedule, pass overhead...

...city makes its own rules...

...The big carrier, like the skyscraper, is an American specialty (although both the steam catapult and the angled flightdeck are British inventions, along with the mirror-based optical landing control system...

...No supply-sider, monetarist, or Keynesian true to his model would say this after the last five years, but the argument survives...

...Then, however, you are accepting a grave performance handicap against a potential ad,/,ersary...

...It's required to keep the system going, including AWACs, bombers, tankers, radar jamming planes, fighters, and "smart" munitions...

...Well, the Navy doesn't agree...

...The America, for instance, carries not only F-14 Tomcat Mach-2 fighters, but A-6E Intruder attack planes--armed with bombs and missiles--S-3A Viking antisubmarine planes and SM-34 antisubmarine helicopters, EA 6-B Prowler ECM (electronic countermeasure) planes, which mess up an attacker's radar, and other specialpurpose a i r c r a f t , such as E-2C Hawkeye early warning reconnaissance planes...

...Japan has no oil of its own, and depends for survival on a line of tankers, like a procession of ants carrying bits of leaf from a fallentree back to the anthill, running from the Arabian Gulf across the Indian Ocean and through the East Indies to Japan~itself...

...For one, we have the rising prestige, within the White House and even in Time and Newsweek, of the supply-side model, which has after all predicted virtually every turning point over the last six years...

...You need the whole electronic village to make the system work...

...The same is true of the other arteries that run from the oil wells of the ~iddle East: one through the Suez Canfal into the Mediterranean, and the other around the Cape of Good Hope and up the west coast of Africa to Europe...

...At other times the price has been higher, and bases have so aroused local political emotions that they have weakened the position of a government friendly to the UnitedStates...

...The whole repair section has hundreds of men working in it...

...No, we don't need a new fleet of mini-carriers...

...There remains, of course, the great argument: Doesn't the carrier make a huge, lucrative target--especially to the shore-based missiles or the lucky torpedo boat attacks of some two-bit country...

...Another school concedes that Volcker may be a grave threat, but says there is nothing that can be done to hold him in check: "The markets and the bankers wouldn't stand for i t " if Volcker were removed, one White House aide argues...

...The Soviets have visual satellites, but they don't work at night or through clouds...

...they create political friction, and they require their own ground defense...

...Reagan will set himself up for a regular briefing from a Reynolds, Roberts, or Jude Wanniski about the cause of high interest rates or the nuts and bolts of the Fed...

...I t is this elusiveness that makes a carrier a difficult objective to sink...

...In the Falklands, the British had to use most of their carrier's Harrier jets just to defend the ship...

...you need reconnaissance aircraft, and so on...

...So the arrival of a carrier group in a warlike mood is a threat that's always taken most seriously by its potential target...

...Other forms of attack are equally_ tricky...

...The carrier itself, t o use a term one hears constantly in discussions of naval warfare, is essentially the "platform" for the air wing it carries...

...And short of removal, this school argues, there is little you can do to rein in a Fed chairman...

...Furthermore, they would each have to be defended, so you might end up increasing the size of the entire group...

...Fourth, even without taking any of the above steps, the White House could substantially influence Fed policy simply by telling the Fed what it wants...

...Missile-firing vessels, in place of carriers, admittedly have a seductive logic to them...

...The battle for Reagan's succession is already underway...

...You need fighters to defend the ship and your own bombers...

...Add to this that America's decks are given over to its 90 planes--n~ost of which are lashed into position topsides--and it becomes clear that a carrier is more a part of the air than the sea...

...It is stationed just off the Persian Gulf, and its name is the USS America, one of the fourteen aircraft carriers that form the core of our surface navy, and probably the one that will move into action if the Saudis or their neighbors appeal for air cover against Iranian attack on their territory or their shipping...

...It has huge warehouses, room upon room full of state-of-theart electronics, a hospital, and newspaper offices--in all about 2,400 compartments...

...A microcircuit card contains dozens of chips, and amounts to the heart of a powerful computer...

...You might call it an electronic village within the maritime city, representing a commitment of capital and talent that could never be matched by a Third World antagonist...

...Well, some of the planes on the America contain dozens of "black boxes," equaling whole armies of technicians operating with the speed of light...

...Offduty crewmen wandering around would be all too likely to drop something, even if they were not in danger from aircraft or an inconvenience to the men moving the planes in and out of congested spaces...

...It might prompt a major rally...

...Even if a missile should get through, say an Exocet, it is doubtful that a carrier could be incapacitated...

...In other words, to spare the plane you put the ship at risk...

...The Phalanx fires 3,000 rounds a minute-50 a second--and sounds like a motorcycle...

...If the Soviets ever cut that artery, they bring Japan to its knees...

...In fact, the THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984 17 America has almost all the components of an airbase on shore: not just jet bombers and fighters and hangars and barracks and munition storage facilities, but a television station, a typewriter repair shop, a jail, and a health club...

...And, as in the Exocet attack on the Sheffield, a radar-guided missile, like a falcon, needs to be shown a target and "locked o n , " which is done by the plane that carries it...

...Others would prefer a quantity rule (monetarism) or interest rate targeting, and have their own bills in the hopper...

...Why bother...

...When you stand on the bridge of the America and look out at the watery world around you with the skipper's eyes, you become skeptical about that notion...

...That's likely to remain true...

...And which is more vulnerable...

...It's almost a form of industrial warfare...

...Much careful general staff calculation goes on in Teheran, Baghdad, Riyadh, and elsewhere about what the America represents, with its accompanying ships and their potential reinforcements...

...It couTd have started to sink the invading transports from hundreds of miles away as they entered Falkland territorial waters...

...And like any sword, it can administer nicely controlled force: a silent threat, a feint, a slap with the flat side, a flesh wound, or a deadly thrust to the vitals...

...Actually, if the "market" is any guide, the replacement of Volcker with a suitably knowledgeable man-Preston Martin, Lew Lehrman--might prompt a Wall Street rally...

...Then, a missile carried near the target by plane gives that much more reach...

...Unfortunately, when Reagan tried this in his first term, his signals were either hopelessly vague or, worse, contradictory...

...Of the 5,000 men on board, half belong to the air wing, and half run the ship...

...Then, too, there are politics...

...carrier group got within range...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984 19...

...Virtually cut off from the rest of the world--mail comes and goes at intervals, but there is no telephone--the John Train is author o f The Money Masters, Remarkable Names, and other books, and is a columnist in Le Matin (Paris), Harvard Magazine, and Investors Chronicle (London...

...If ever fully committed, the America by itself could probably destroy the Iranian air force in toto and demolish all the significant targets in the country...

...At thirty knots it can arrive from even 2,000 miles away in three days, and with its thousand-mile reach can put its planes on the target after two...

...Quite true...

...If your opponent also carries a sword, having one yourself doesn't establish superiority...

...For instance, every now and again you're conscious of a tiny earthquake: The whole city shudders slightly, and you hear a gasping sound, as though Old Faithful had spouted up above...

...The unique advantage of naval airpower is that it can be deployed either defensively or offensively, and in a way that administers just the amount of power desired...

...In other words, the carrier is one tough target...

...Carrying out that business requires a sophistication and complexity far beyond any normal ship...

...Right in front of his face, in fact...

...There are some odd features about this city...

...That, in fact, is its business...

...America is about 1,140 feet long, the smallest size that can simultaneously land aircraft and catapult them off...

...A number of other navies have limitedpurpose carriers, a few have a couple of big ones, but none has a full fleet of carrier forces that can defend itself against all attackers from the air, the surface, and under the sea--and launch its own attacking planes, with its own air cover and refueling aircraft, against the target...

...Poverty has been vanquished...

...At that prodigious rate of fire, the Phalanx wears out its barrels in seven minutes, and is worn out completely after an hour of firing--more than it would ever get...

...The market reacted favorably throughout 1983 to news leaks suggesting Volcker would not be reappointed...

...You might * chop off 150 feet, an eighth of its length, but this could mean sacrificing the all-around capability, so that you would need to send two carriers instead of one into a danger zone, an even more expensive hostage to fortune...

...But the point is that because a carrier has its planes and missiles do the attacking, it's able to stay out of harm's way, well offshore...

...If you pulled them all together they might be as thick as a man's torso, or even the body of a horse...

...And you can't fire a missile at what you don't know is there, so you probably need air reconnaissance, again presumably requiring a carrier...

...The Rapid Deployment Force does not really exist, but if it ever does it will have problems in many situations...

...Cut those arteries and Europe starts to die...

...When you talk about a smaller carrier you have to leave things out--but what...

...However, of all the world's navies only ours has a fully developed air arm...

...He has apparently been doing so in sparse measure through such aides as Bruce Chapman and Edwin Meese, whose understanding of the monetary debate has allowed them to fill a gaping power vacuum on the Reagan team...

...A carrier in that situation is like a Rolls Royce in Harlem...

...There are several dozen countries at war in the world right now...

...And there are many disadvantages to land bases...

...Fourteen-hour days aren't unusual...

...That system in turn produces the extraordinary kill ratios against hostile aircraft--Syrian, Libyan, and so forth--ten to one, twenty to one, fifty to one, that we see in recent air encounters...

...A good example lies at our doorstep...

...Sometimes Reagan asked for a Fed policy to "continue growth at a sustainable, noninflationary level...

...For the rest we'd need carrierbased aircraft...

...Our carrier-based planes did not sustain any such loss or damage...

...But Cuba is a bone blocking the throat of the Gulf, lying just a few miles off Florida...

...Jack Kemp has a bill to base that policy on the gold standard...

...is a huge land mass largely surrounded by water...

...There are...

...The Falklands war illustrates the point admirably...

...I recently came back from the city in question...

...The last forty years have seen America lose many such bases outright--Cam Ramh, Ton Son Hut, and others--while through combat operations from Korea to Vietnam no one has ever sunk a carrier...

...Is it any wonder that countries in the Middle East have been sensitive about giving us base rights, even to protect their oil...

...My own guess is that the news of Volcker's replacement would at worst produce a drop on the market one day of 15 points, to be met by a rise the next day of 15 points...

...Kemp is hardly likely to stop pushing the issue he has championed now that he is unofficially running for President...

...Like a [~ack of radio patrol cars, a carrier moves right along...

...To neutralize Cuba's Powerful air force, and the Soviet subs based there,, would require tactical airpower...

...More than one international crisis has simply stopped when a U.S...

...At any moment an F-14 may come screaming over the stern to land, or be catapulted off the bow...

...Richard Nixon told me not long ago that one of his '!biggest mistakes" was not learning about the operations of the Fed, an ignorance that led him to lose in 1960 and to buy the mistaken arguments of Volcker and Company in the 1970s...

...I n short, the carrier is a sword: It advances a deadly point toward the enemy...

...certainly, given the Russians' enormous production of submarines, you must be able to defend yourself from undersea attack...

...has to have a policeman on every corner...

...International politics is harsh...

...One bill now in Congress would require immediate and complete release of the Fed's minutes, including transcripts...

...In some areas if you look up you can see running along the ceiling hundreds and hundreds of conduits, large and small, from the equivalent of fingers to bundles like arms or even legs...

...Second, have a clearly defined monetary policy--the best way to promote accountability...

...In addition, it carries Sea Sparrow missiles, and for close-in defense, Phalanx 20-millimeter guns with six rotating barrels, like Gatling guns...

...What about the idea of more, smaller carriers...

...Reagan should take that offer up...

...Indeed, in organization it resembles Plato's ideal republic...

...This is a different kind of ship, a ship not of sailors but of specialists, right down to the ship's dog, who is used notas a mascot, but rather to sniff out illegal drugs...

...That infantry in turn requires air power, and before you know it you're hooked...

...It is bound to fade, absent a Volcker loosening in the coming months...