The Agenda Stop the Navy’s carrier plan
.. the USS Gerald Ford, which cost $15 billion to build
.. The U.S. Navy currently possesses 10 of these behemoths, and while China, Russia, Brazil, India and France each claim a single carrier in their naval inventory, none comes even close to matching the capabilities of an American flattop.
.. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor with carrier-based aircraft, naval strategists began looking at carriers in an entirely new light.
.. That period of grace may have ended as China and Russia are introducing new weapons — called “carrier killer” missiles — that cost $10 million to $20 million each and can target the U.S.’s multibillion-dollar carriers up to 900 miles from shore.
.. The Navy could also revamp the carrier’s relevance by repurposing a program to develop a carrier-based drone, which is currently intended solely for surveillance missions, so that it is also capable of performing long-range strike missions. Sixteen stealthy unmanned aircraft built to fly 1,500 miles while carrying three tons of precision-strike ordnance would allow the U.S. to launch strikes from the carrier while keeping it out of the range of carrier-killing missiles.