James Holmes
When should you hazard pricey, hard-to-replace capital ships in battle? That question has vexed wartime naval commanders as long as there have been navies to command. Nor is it hard to see why. Societies sink inordinate resources into ships of war. Cruisers, destroyers, and submarines are what economists term “lumpy capital,” costing taxpayers upwards—commonly well upwards—of $1 billion per copy. Aircraft carriers are the lumpiest of them all. Any sane commander would think twice before sending a $13.3 billion ship of the line like a Ford-class nuclear-powered carrier in harm’s way.
That’s a lot of public capital to wager—and perhaps lose—in an afternoon. That America’s standing in the world depends on sea power only compounds commanders' qualms before giving the order dispatching major combatants into a fleet action.
That being the case, fashioning a risk calculus ahead of time is no idle exercise. Senior uniformed and civilian leaders warn that the balloon could go up in the Western Pacific in the next two or three years. Many within the Beltway bandy about 2027 as the prime danger zone. When and if it breaks out, a new Pacific war would presumably see a domineering China mount a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. Chinese Communist Party supremo Xi Jinping has certainly ordered the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready for military action by 2027, while confounding aggression and preserving the island’s de facto independence would be the point of U.S. and friendly military intervention.
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