Three aircraft carriers exercise together in the Pacific. Near to far: USS Theodore Roosevelt, USS Ronald Reagan, USS Nimitz.
Breaking Defense: Navy Scraps Big Carrier Study, Clears Deck For OSD Effort
The study into what kind of carriers the Navy might need in a decade’s time was problematic from the start, and conflicted with the Pentagon senior leadership’s redo of the Navy’s force structure plan.
WASHINGTON: Acting Navy Secretary James McPherson has scuttled a major initiative of his ousted predecessor, canceling a planned 6-month study on the future of the aircraft carrier, relying instead on a DoD-led effort to determine the size and structure of the future fleet.
The acting SecNav, who has kept the ship steady since taking over from Thomas Modly last month, “recently determined the Department of the Navy will not, for the time being, move forward with the Future Carrier 2030 effort,” Cmdr. Sarah Higgins told me in an email. Instead, the Navy “will fully support the Department of Defense’s internal study on future force structure requirements, which will include a carrier review.”
The carrier review was the brainchild of Modly, who resigned in March amid the chaos of his firing of the captain of the COVID-19 stricken carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
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WNU Editor: In the end it will be the Pentagon and their political masters who will determine the future of the US aircraft carrier fleet.
