What You Need to Know: The dominance of large surface warships, especially aircraft carriers, is increasingly threatened by advanced anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems developed by adversaries like China. Hypersonic missiles and other sophisticated weapons, such as China’s Dong-Feng 26B, pose a significant risk to these expensive platforms.
-The U.S. Navy’s reliance on carriers is becoming a liability in potential conflicts, as seen in Russia’s losses during the Ukraine War.
-To counter A2/AD threats, the U.S. must expand its submarine fleet, develop unmanned drones, and invest in hypersonic weapons. However, the Navy continues to prioritize legacy systems like carriers over future-proof solutions.
For centuries, navies around the world have taken pride in their large surface warships. The dominance of these warships persisted even after the advent of submarines. In fact, during the Second World War, when submarines became a primary weapons platform for navies, the aircraft carrier stole all the headlines.
Today, however, things are changing…
The rise of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) means that the large surface warship’s days as the primary form of power projection in a naval fleet are coming to an end.
Consider that the Ford-class aircraft carrier, America’s newest, costs $13 billion per unit, plus hundreds of millions of dollars per year to maintain. The more numerous Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, while older than the Ford-class, are also very expensive.
An aircraft carrier is a large, highly complex warship. Its purpose is to maneuver a floating airbase near the territory of an enemy in order to threaten that rival with precise and consistent airstrikes.
Yet for a fraction of the cost, China’s Dong-Feng 26B missile can either sink an aircraft carrier outright or simply destroy its flight deck, rendering the carrier useless in battle.
The carrier is the primary means of American power projection. Its absence or limitation leaves a critical gap in U.S. military capabilities. That is a strategic gap that a rival like China can easily exploit.
It’s not just aircraft carriers that are vulnerable to China’s growing anti-ship capabilities. Other surface warships are also targets.
The Chinese military has developed a growing coterie of hypersonic weapons capabilities that it is planning to launch against incoming U.S. warships. Whatever defenses those warships have against conventional anti-ship missiles, there are no known countermeasures on U.S. warships to protect against these hypersonic systems.
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