One thing I truly enjoy about Mr. Lind is the different perspective he brings to our attention through his essays.
The U.S.Navy needs big carrier task force groups in the 21st century; but not so it can wage naval surface warfare against other surface ships. The Carrier Task Force Groups will be used to attack land-based forces -air, missile, armored- and their installations, while at the same time defending itself from counterattacks. There may very well be Amphibious flotillas which will invade these land targets, and which will fight alongside these carriers task forces.
The Navy is struggling with the concept of amphibious raids and surface interdictions. This was the hallmark of the U.S. at the start of our Navy. The Littoral Combat Ship may not be able to "outfight any ship it could not outrun; and outrun any ship it could not outfight" as the Constitution class of ships could do; but it is a good step in the direction of the surface raider, which Mr. Lind seems to favor.
Not to mention the SSGN conversions, which greatly increase the Navy's ability to strike targets ashore, while also being the first purpose-(re)built SEAL support ships. He sounds like he thinks we should just dump carriers and heavy surface combatants entirely, or that they are only useful for ship-to-ship combat.
And what happens if/when the Chinese or some other power does develop heavy surface combat capability?
I'm wondering where Mr. Lind got his great expertise in all things Navy?
YAWN. Does Lind sit at home and think to himself "OK so I have Mahan and Corbett, I have excluded LCS and the return of brown water sailors in Iraq. 4GW? Check! Now if I can just somehow integrate Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness" into it, I'm good!"
I am inclined to agree with orionhawk. Mr. Lind has impressive academic credits - but where has he acquired hands on experience?
As usual he makes a good case for his articles and essays and I enjoy reading them. My problem with most of what he writes is his singular paint of view.
The Navy needs to be a balanced force, ok we are not fighting the Japanese - the Chinese you notice he did not mention that they are currently building Carriers. Their carrier is not a "Super Carrier" yet they are building power projection.
China is very highly interested in taking a major role in the Pacific, please note that the Japanese have built a small carrier. You think that was done against the US? I don't think so.
Mr Lind needs to look at all aspects of the situation instead of continuosly pushing his 4th generation concept as the only way to deal with the world around us.
It takes more than one concept or process and the U.S. Military needs to be able to cover all the ground not just the hill they happen to be on at the time.
I think what we are forgetting here us that the US Coast Guard has all the training, units and manpower available to do these small unit operations, and to train other countries to protect their waterways (piracy (terrorism) in Nigeria, Somalia, the Straits of Malacca...)
What it lacks is the will, and the funding, to create a streamline deployable capability. right now units in Iraq are pulling guard duty when they could be doing so much more. Leave the blue water to the navy, and the brown to the coasties
You are missing the point regarding carriers. Of course carriers still have uses, the problem is, they are incredibly vulnerable to non-convnetional attacks. Does no one pay attention to warfare anymore? Did no one see the significance of the Hezbollah air attack on the Israeli ship? What kind of mess do you think a carrier would be in if a few dozen Cessnas packed with explosives slammed into it? Better to control the coast than rule the sea.
