Porta-aviones ¿Grandes o Pequeños?

¿Grandes porta-aviones o porta-aeronaves más pequeños y económicos? Una pregunta que solo puede contestarse a la luz de las ambiciones políticas de cada Estado.

Over the Horizon: Symbol and Utility in the Great Carrier Debate

Robert Farley | 11 May 2011

La mole de 100.000 T del "USS Gerald Ford".



Driven in part by a recent article in Proceedings, the magazine of the United States Naval Institute, the debate over the nature and utility of aircraft carriers has once again erupted between naval analysts. In "Twilight of the $uperflous Carrier," Capt. Henry J. Hendrix of the U.S. Navy and retired Lt. Col. J. Noel Williams of the U.S. Marine Corps argue that modern supercarriers are simply too expensive and too vulnerable to be usable weapons of war. They contend that the era of the supercarrier has come to an end, and that the future of naval power resides in warships like the USS America, a big-deck amphibious assault ship that will eventually be capable of operating the F-35B Lightning II VSTOL fighter jet. Bryan McGrath of Information Dissemination disputes several key assumptions of the article, including the relative vulnerability of supercarriers and big amphibious ships, and the role that UAVs will play in the future of carrier aviation. has argued that Shi Lang's importance is primarily "symbolic."

It is worth unpacking the idea that aircraft carriers play a "symbolic" role, because as Phil Ewing argues, U.S. carriers are also expected to have "symbolic" importance. Typically, the term "symbolic" is understood to be in tension with "utility." So when Willard suggests that Shi Lang will be symbolic, he is essentially arguing that the Chinese ship will not be very militarily useful in and of itself.

El "pequeño" "USS America" de solo 45.000 T.

But while this discussion has thus far been useful and productive, it sidesteps some of the most important ways in which aircraft carriers matter for national defense and national power.

The American debate over the utility of the big carriers is echoed in the United Kingdom and, presumably, in China, where aircraft carrier programs are either resuming or ramping up. The British navy, having decommissioned its last strike carrier, will be without a serious naval aviation capability until the HMS Queen Elizabeth is commissioned near the end of this decade. The British government's lead role in calling for the air campaign in Libya has already caused some to question the wisdom of creating such a gap in British naval air capability and has also reawakened concerns about the design of the Royal Navy's two new carriers. In China, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is expected to commission its first aircraft carrier -- Shi Lang, formerly the Ukrainian Varyag -- later this year. Observers continue to debate China's motives and expectations for its carrier aviation program. Pacific Command chief Adm. Robert Willard, for example,

El costoso F-35B en vuelo vertical.

The necessary follow-up to this argument is to ask whether states tend to employ a utilitarian logic for weapons acquisition, or a symbolic logic. If the former, powerful states want to acquire aircraft carriers because carriers allow them to do things, or at least threaten to do things. The United Kingdom would like to have aircraft carriers because such ships would make striking Libya easier, for example. The issue of whether to equip the new British carriers to fly the F-35B or the somewhat more capable F-35C then becomes a question of cost and effectiveness. Similarly, if China is seeking a carrier capability for operational objectives, the question of whether the PLAN has aircraft that can fly from Shi Lang then becomes relevant, as does the question of what kind of destroyers will support Shi Lang.

The symbolic logic of acquisition, on the other hand, suggests that states want carriers in order to demonstrate and perform their roles as powerful states. In this sense, the mere possession of a carrier is sufficient to indicate to observers that China is a serious, powerful country that needs to be consulted when important decisions are being made. By this logic, if the British are interested in resuming a carrier capability primarily for symbolic reasons, then their interest in the F-35C may have less to do with the fighter's range and payload than with the fact that the United States will fly the same aircraft. The maintenance of the huge U.S. fleet of massive supercarriers should also be understood as symbolic performance: The United States is "playing the role" of global naval hegemon, for which it requires certain props. Big, slow amphibious assault carriers, however "useful" they may be, lack the same symbolic impact of nuclear supercarriers. Some acquisition decisions appear to weigh symbolism very heavily indeed. The HTMS Chakri Naruebet, pride of the Royal Thai Navy, plays an almost wholly symbolic role, largely because she never leaves port. The South American navies of the Southern Cone maintained ancient battleships into the 1950s, relics of an era in which dreadnoughts indicated power, modernity and independence.

A third method of interpreting weapons acquisition -- and naval aviation -- is through a combination of the utilitarian and symbolic logics. In this framing, the symbolic has utilitarian import, while the utilitarian has symbolic effect. That the U.S. Navy's fleet of aircraft carriers is viewed as the fundamental arbiters of world naval power is relevant for perceptions of U.S. power, and consequently for U.S. policy. If the America-class amphibious assault carrier has less -- or different -- symbolic resonance, then policymakers need to take that into account when making procurement decisions. Similarly, for Chinese policymakers, creating the impression that China is a serious player is an important policy goal, and should affect decisions about where weapons acquisition funds should go. If the United Kingdom wants to continue to be consulted about major intervention decisions, and if the differences in perception of the F-35B and the F-35C affect whether that will happen, then it makes sense to take advantage of symbolic politics.

Of course, the respective importance of utility and symbolism can be misleading or subject to the vagaries of chance. The Pearl Harbor raid and the destruction of the battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales off Malaya in December 1941 helped hasten the symbolic demise of the battleship, even if the vessels themselves retained utility for many years. Similarly, the Southeast Asian tsunami helped put the amphibious warship on the symbolic map by developing a perception of its utility. So the first time a supercarrier is sunk by a diesel electric submarine or by a ballistic missile may very well be the last moment in which such vessels carry symbolic weight, despite their utility.

And so the question moving forward, both for the United States and for other countries, is not simply, "Do we need aircraft carriers, and if so which kind?" Rather, the question should be formulated as, "What do our naval aviation choices indicate about the role we play in international society?" F-35Bs may be "good enough" for a country like Italy, but not for the Royal Navy. Heavy investment in submarines and ballistic missiles may be the best choice for a China interested in fighting and winning wars, but not for a China that wants to play a role in the most important political decisions made in international society. The mighty carriers of the U.S. Navy carry not just F/A-18s, but also a set of understandings about what it means to be a powerful nation. 

Dr. Robert Farley is an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His interests include national security, military doctrine, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination. His weekly WPR column, Over the Horizon, appears every Wednesday