The Chief of Naval Operations has rolled out a new strategy that challenges decades of default thinking about how the U.S. Navy responds to global crises. Instead of automatically dispatching full carrier strike groups to every flashpoint, the plan calls for faster, leaner force packages tailored to specific threats. The shift arrives as adversaries develop weapons designed to target the Navy’s most expensive and visible assets, raising hard questions about whether supercarriers can still justify their central role in American sea power.
Why the Navy Wants to Stop Defaulting to Carriers
For most of the post-Cold War era, the standard American response to a brewing crisis has been predictable: send a carrier strike group. That reflex served well when the United States faced no near-peer naval competition, but it has also created a pattern of operational strain. Carrier deployments have stretched longer and grown more frequent as global commitments multiply, wearing down crews and hulls alike. The new plan from the CNO directly addresses this problem by arguing that moving faster and leaner should replace the instinct to reach for a carrier every time tensions spike, especially in crises that demand speed and precision more than raw volume of firepower.
The logic is straightforward. A full carrier strike group, which typically includes a nuclear-powered flattop, a carrier air wing, guided-missile cruisers, destroyers, and logistics ships, takes time to assemble and costs enormous resources to sustain at sea. When the threat does not demand that level of firepower, sending the whole package is wasteful and slow. The CNO’s rollout ties this insight to real operational strain and deployment practice, pushing the service toward more tailored formations that match the force to the mission rather than defaulting to the heaviest option available. In theory, that means fewer instances where a billion-dollar asset is parked off a coastline mainly for symbolic presence, and more instances where the Navy sends exactly what a combatant commander needs, no more and no less.
Tailored Formations Over One-Size-Fits-All Deployments
The heart of the new strategy is selectivity. Rather than treating the carrier strike group as the Navy’s universal answer, the plan envisions a menu of force packages. Some crises might call for a surface action group built around destroyers and frigates. Others might need an amphibious ready group with Marines embarked to signal that the United States can put boots ashore if necessary. Still others could be handled by submarines operating quietly below the surface or by stand-off missile shooters that never approach hostile coastlines. The carrier strike group remains in the toolkit, but it gets reserved for situations where its unique capabilities (long-range strike aviation, airborne early warning, and sustained air superiority) are genuinely required.
That distinction matters because the Navy’s carrier fleet is finite. The service operates a limited number of nuclear-powered carriers, and at any given time several are in maintenance or working up for deployment. Overcommitting available decks to routine presence missions leaves fewer ready for a major contingency. By building more tailored formations and reducing the default reliance on full carrier strike groups for every crisis, the plan attempts to stretch a limited fleet across a widening set of demands without simply asking sailors to deploy longer and more often. It also encourages planners to think in terms of effects rather than platforms: what combination of ships, aircraft, and cyber or space assets can best achieve the political and military objective at acceptable risk, even if that combination does not include a carrier at all.
The “Moving Target” Argument for Carriers
Critics of large carriers often point to the threat posed by anti-ship ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, and networked drone swarms. The argument runs that a carrier is too big, too expensive, and too slow to survive in a contested environment where adversaries can track and target it from hundreds of miles away. But senior naval leaders push back hard on that framing. Adm. Jones has argued that the great advantage of a carrier strike group is that it is always a moving target, a quality that fixed bases and land installations simply cannot replicate and that complicates any adversary’s kill chain.
That mobility advantage is not trivial. A carrier can reposition hundreds of miles overnight, complicating an adversary’s targeting at every step, from initial detection and tracking to fire-control solutions and terminal guidance. Satellites may detect a carrier’s general location, but by the time a missile arrives at the coordinates, the ship and its escorts can be far from that spot. The ocean is vast, and a moving formation surrounded by layered air defenses, electronic warfare systems, and submarine escorts presents a problem set that no adversary has yet solved in combat. The “too big to survive” critique assumes a static target, and carriers are anything but static. In practice, the question is not whether a carrier can be found once, but whether it can be held at risk consistently enough to deter it from operating where its aircraft are needed most.
What the Plan Changes for Real-World Operations
The practical effect of this strategy, if the Navy follows through, would be visible in how the service responds to the next crisis. Instead of a predictable carrier deployment that takes weeks to organize, combatant commanders could receive a smaller, faster task force within days. That speed carries its own deterrent value. An adversary calculating whether to escalate must account for the possibility that American warships could arrive before a fait accompli is complete, even if those ships do not include a flight deck with dozens of strike fighters. A destroyer squadron with long-range cruise missiles, for example, can still threaten key infrastructure or military assets, and its presence signals that the United States is willing to put ships in harm’s way on short notice.
This also changes the calculus for allies and partners. Smaller, more frequent naval task forces showing up in contested waters can sustain presence without the political weight and logistical footprint of a full carrier visit. For nations in the Western Pacific or the Eastern Mediterranean, the difference between seeing American destroyers regularly and waiting months for a carrier port call is significant. Consistent presence, rather than episodic shows of force, tends to build stronger operational relationships and better intelligence sharing. At the same time, the strategy does not abandon the carrier’s role as the centerpiece of high-end naval warfare. The plan’s logic is additive, not subtractive: carriers remain the only platform that can project sustained, sovereign airpower from international waters without relying on host-nation basing rights. But they are no longer assumed to be the first answer to every problem.
A Bet on Flexibility, Not Obsolescence
The deeper message in this strategy is a rejection of the binary debate that has consumed defense circles for years. The question “Are carriers obsolete?” assumes a yes-or-no answer, but the Navy’s new plan sidesteps that framing entirely. Instead, it treats the carrier as one tool among several, powerful when used correctly and wasteful when used by default. The real risk to the carrier was never a single missile or drone. It was the possibility that the Navy would continue to employ its most valuable assets in predictable, inefficient ways that made them both easier to target and harder to sustain. By elevating flexibility as the guiding principle, the CNO is betting that the service can preserve carrier relevance while adapting to a world in which precision weapons and contested domains are the norm.
In that sense, the strategy is as much about culture as it is about force structure. Breaking the habit of reaching for a carrier in every crisis will require combatant commanders, policymakers, and even allied leaders to adjust their expectations about what American naval power looks like on scene. It will also demand rigorous experimentation to validate which tailored formations work best against specific threats, from gray-zone maritime militias to high-end anti-access networks. If the Navy can make that shift, carriers will still matter, as part of a more agile, resilient posture that spreads risk, conserves scarce assets, and gives Washington a broader set of options when the next crisis breaks.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
