Truman to Trump: The Call “Where Are the Carriers” Still Sounds
The MOC
By
Dr. Steven Wills
March 5, 2026
Carrier-based aviation has been at the leading edge of U.S. joint force combat operations from President Truman’s order to the U.S. Seventh Fleet on 27 June 1950 to commence combat operations against North Korean forces invading South Korea with USS Valley Forge, to President Trump’s deployment of a second carrier (the USS Gerald R. Ford,) to the Eastern Mediterranean to support Operation Epic Fury. Carrier strike groups with air and missile weapons are usually the first U.S. military component in theater ready to commence operations, and often the first units to commence combat operations. In an age when access to air bases is menaced by drones and missiles in theater, or by political forces such as the case with Diego Garcia, the mobile, survivable carrier could in many cases be the only dependable provider of combat aviation assets in theater. The U.S. now possess only eleven carriers, with one of those (USS Nimitz, aged and so to retire,) and its replacement, the new USS John F. Kennedy still conducting builder’s sea trials. While carriers might not possess the most powerful elements of strike capacity in a joint task force, their presence and embarked aviation assets are essential to attaining and retaining sea control as needed to accomplish operational requirements. Despite being expensive, and susceptible to attack due to the nature of their operations, carriers must remain an essential component of U.S. Navy force structure now and unto the 21st century.
The resident theater carrier strike group is often the first element of the U.S. joint force in theater with combat credible capability to act, and if not, the nearest carrier group is immediately dispatched to the scene of crisis. In June 1950, the USS Valley Forge carrier group, along with its British counterpart in theater HMS Triumph, were the first and sustained Allied air response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea, commencing operations on 3 July 1950, just five days after President Truman’s decision to intervene in the conflict. Most airfields in South Korea were quickly overrun, and carrier-based aviation was essential in supporting the remaining Allied ground forces in the Pusan perimeter areas, their eventual breakout, and General MacArthur’s amphibious invasion at Inchon less than two and half months after fighting commenced. In the Vietnam war, the Gulf War, operations in the former Yugoslavia, and later against Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, carrier-based aviation formed the spearhead of coalition air capability and brought with them extensive strike capacity in the form of surface ship-based cruise missile weapons. The current operation against the Iranian regime entitled Epic Fury, did not commence until a second carrier strike group was in the wider Middle East theater of operations and could participate in strike operations.
Damage incurred as a result of the Iranian missile and drone strikes against regional U.S. installations, as well as the uncertain future of the U.S. presence on the strategic island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean further underscore that challenges of land-based aviation facilities. Many U.S. adversaries, including non-state actors such as the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon now possess missiles and drones that allow them to strike against land-based aviation in theater, such as the purportedly Hezbollah attack against the British air base in Cyprus. Even relatively secure locations like Diego Garcia could be lost due to the political effects of a change of ownership, or a decision by a host government, even of an Allied one, to not permit U.S. use of a facility for a specific operation.
Carrier-based aviation largely obviates the need for regional land bases. Carriers are not constrained outside the twelve nautical mile national waters boundary and are not subject to the political or logistical limitations of land bases. The posses four strike aircraft squadrons and associated support aircraft, that when combined with their missile-armed Arleigh Burke class destroyer escorts often possess more greater credible, combat capability than many nations might field at short notice.
While used extensively over the last thirty-five years since the Cold War’s end as tools to project power ashore, the carrier remains as essential to sea control as it did during the Cold War. Carrier-based aircraft have much greater endurance in ability to continue the fight than do even larger missile-equipped surface units and submarines that must return to base to rearm after perhaps one or two missile salvos. Missiles are the main weapon of naval combat, and while the carrier might not launch the largest missile strike of a campaign, its aircraft are essential to the maintenance of air superiority that protects surface ships and submarines from air attack, as well as the command and control necessary to manage fleets at sea.
The carrier and its air wing are not without significant weaknesses. Its airwing’s range and ability to self-support with tanking are much reduced from the Cold War period. Carriers have always been very susceptible to attack, vulnerable to damage if hit, and difficult to recover and restore to full capability after damage due to the nature of operating a large airfield at sea. Carriers and their airwings are expensive instruments of national power and are often the first target of so-called “budget hawks,” that suggest their cost and vulnerability outweigh their utility in war. Other analysists suggest that the Navy won’t commit carriers to the most important fights, fearing their loss, such as the Imperial Japanese Navy feared committing their Yamato class battleships to action in World War two until it was too late to have an influence.
These critiques are however outweighed by the continued utility of carriers and their constantly changing “main battery” of aircraft. The unmanned M/Q-25A tanker is poised to join the airwing and substantially increase its range and endurance, as well as end the destructive practice of using combat aircraft as tankers known as “buddy tanking.” The U.S. has not shown fear in committing carriers to the fight, as seen in operations against the Houthis by the Eisenhower and Truman strike groups, as well as the committal of USS Ford to the Iran operation. Carriers have the mobility and self-defense inherent in the ship and its escorts that land bases do not possess. The greatest threat to the carrier is perhaps U.S. resolve to maintain a large enough formation of such vessels to support continued U.S. combat operations around the globe. The U.S. is truly an eleven carrier navy in a fifteen to twenty carrier world. If U.S. national command authority continues to summon carriers for operations, then it must better resource the flattop fleet, or future calls for “where are the carriers” might ring hollow.
Dr. Steve Wills,is the Navalist at The Center for Maritime Strategy.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Dr. Steven Wills
Carrier-based aviation has been at the leading edge of U.S. joint force combat operations from President Truman’s order to the U.S. Seventh Fleet on 27 June 1950 to commence combat operations against North Korean forces invading South Korea with USS Valley Forge, to President Trump’s deployment of a second carrier (the USS Gerald R. Ford,) to the Eastern Mediterranean to support Operation Epic Fury. Carrier strike groups with air and missile weapons are usually the first U.S. military component in theater ready to commence operations, and often the first units to commence combat operations. In an age when access to air bases is menaced by drones and missiles in theater, or by political forces such as the case with Diego Garcia, the mobile, survivable carrier could in many cases be the only dependable provider of combat aviation assets in theater. The U.S. now possess only eleven carriers, with one of those (USS Nimitz, aged and so to retire,) and its replacement, the new USS John F. Kennedy still conducting builder’s sea trials. While carriers might not possess the most powerful elements of strike capacity in a joint task force, their presence and embarked aviation assets are essential to attaining and retaining sea control as needed to accomplish operational requirements. Despite being expensive, and susceptible to attack due to the nature of their operations, carriers must remain an essential component of U.S. Navy force structure now and unto the 21st century.
The resident theater carrier strike group is often the first element of the U.S. joint force in theater with combat credible capability to act, and if not, the nearest carrier group is immediately dispatched to the scene of crisis. In June 1950, the USS Valley Forge carrier group, along with its British counterpart in theater HMS Triumph, were the first and sustained Allied air response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea, commencing operations on 3 July 1950, just five days after President Truman’s decision to intervene in the conflict. Most airfields in South Korea were quickly overrun, and carrier-based aviation was essential in supporting the remaining Allied ground forces in the Pusan perimeter areas, their eventual breakout, and General MacArthur’s amphibious invasion at Inchon less than two and half months after fighting commenced. In the Vietnam war, the Gulf War, operations in the former Yugoslavia, and later against Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, carrier-based aviation formed the spearhead of coalition air capability and brought with them extensive strike capacity in the form of surface ship-based cruise missile weapons. The current operation against the Iranian regime entitled Epic Fury, did not commence until a second carrier strike group was in the wider Middle East theater of operations and could participate in strike operations.
Damage incurred as a result of the Iranian missile and drone strikes against regional U.S. installations, as well as the uncertain future of the U.S. presence on the strategic island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean further underscore that challenges of land-based aviation facilities. Many U.S. adversaries, including non-state actors such as the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon now possess missiles and drones that allow them to strike against land-based aviation in theater, such as the purportedly Hezbollah attack against the British air base in Cyprus. Even relatively secure locations like Diego Garcia could be lost due to the political effects of a change of ownership, or a decision by a host government, even of an Allied one, to not permit U.S. use of a facility for a specific operation.
Carrier-based aviation largely obviates the need for regional land bases. Carriers are not constrained outside the twelve nautical mile national waters boundary and are not subject to the political or logistical limitations of land bases. The posses four strike aircraft squadrons and associated support aircraft, that when combined with their missile-armed Arleigh Burke class destroyer escorts often possess more greater credible, combat capability than many nations might field at short notice.
While used extensively over the last thirty-five years since the Cold War’s end as tools to project power ashore, the carrier remains as essential to sea control as it did during the Cold War. Carrier-based aircraft have much greater endurance in ability to continue the fight than do even larger missile-equipped surface units and submarines that must return to base to rearm after perhaps one or two missile salvos. Missiles are the main weapon of naval combat, and while the carrier might not launch the largest missile strike of a campaign, its aircraft are essential to the maintenance of air superiority that protects surface ships and submarines from air attack, as well as the command and control necessary to manage fleets at sea.
The carrier and its air wing are not without significant weaknesses. Its airwing’s range and ability to self-support with tanking are much reduced from the Cold War period. Carriers have always been very susceptible to attack, vulnerable to damage if hit, and difficult to recover and restore to full capability after damage due to the nature of operating a large airfield at sea. Carriers and their airwings are expensive instruments of national power and are often the first target of so-called “budget hawks,” that suggest their cost and vulnerability outweigh their utility in war. Other analysists suggest that the Navy won’t commit carriers to the most important fights, fearing their loss, such as the Imperial Japanese Navy feared committing their Yamato class battleships to action in World War two until it was too late to have an influence.
These critiques are however outweighed by the continued utility of carriers and their constantly changing “main battery” of aircraft. The unmanned M/Q-25A tanker is poised to join the airwing and substantially increase its range and endurance, as well as end the destructive practice of using combat aircraft as tankers known as “buddy tanking.” The U.S. has not shown fear in committing carriers to the fight, as seen in operations against the Houthis by the Eisenhower and Truman strike groups, as well as the committal of USS Ford to the Iran operation. Carriers have the mobility and self-defense inherent in the ship and its escorts that land bases do not possess. The greatest threat to the carrier is perhaps U.S. resolve to maintain a large enough formation of such vessels to support continued U.S. combat operations around the globe. The U.S. is truly an eleven carrier navy in a fifteen to twenty carrier world. If U.S. national command authority continues to summon carriers for operations, then it must better resource the flattop fleet, or future calls for “where are the carriers” might ring hollow.
Dr. Steve Wills, is the Navalist at The Center for Maritime Strategy.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.