Future Carrier (Including Costs)

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Carriers are not just about fast jets!

A NATO publication: 2021 Cutting the Bow Wave

The Atlantic Nexus

The North Atlantic, Arctic and Baltic regions form a strategic ‘Atlantic Nexus’. As recently demonstrated in the Russian navy’s 2019 Exercise Ocean Shield, assets from both the Northern and Baltic fleets can be redirected to concentrate force across this area. The character of the Atlantic Nexus has changed remarkably since the Cold War. Then, as now, NATO’s critical challenge in the North Atlantic is to protect the sea lines of communication and transatlantic resupply in a conflict by keeping Russian forces contained above the Norwegian Sea. But the Arctic, once valuable only as the cover for Russia’s nuclear - powered, ballistic missile - carrying submarine force, is now a contested civil and economic space. Furthermore, the Baltic dilemma is inverted from its Cold War manifestation: then NATO’s strategy was to keep the Soviet Navy from breaking out into the Atlantic through the Danish Straits or the Kattegat; today, the strategy focuses on ensuring that NATO maritime forces can break in to help defend its Baltic Allies.

The Atlantic Nexus disappeared from NATO’s agenda after the demise of the Soviet Union, and until recently few were adept in the art of transatlantic maritime resupply. Since 2014, NATO has recognised the challenge and in 2018 empowered MARCOM as the 360 - degree Maritime Theatre Component Command while establishing Joint Force Command Norfolk with the mandate to secure Atlantic sea lines of communication. The US Second Fleet has been stood up again with a strong Arctic and North Atlantic focus. The German navy is developing a Baltic-facing maritime headquarters at Rostock with the ambition to take on coordination and (during a conflict) command roles for Allied naval forces in the Baltic. The Polish Navy is developing a similar capability.

At the heart of this Atlantic challenge is the submarine threat. Recent years have seen an explosion in studies on the need to protect transatlantic sea lines of communication against the Russian submarine force as part of NATO’s credible deterrent posture. These have been paralleled by conversations and planning inside the Alliance. Unsurprisingly, reinvigorating NATO’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability is a high priority for NATO and MARCOM. More than any other form of naval warfare, ASW operations must battle the elements as much as an adversary. The sheer size of the oceans presents difficulties for both attacker and defender, not least as the result of the reduced fleets of surface ships, submarines and maritime patrol aircraft on all sides. New technology also portends a change in both the lethality of submarines and the possibility of detecting them by non-acoustic means.

But there is a second dilemma in relation to the Atlantic Nexus: the peacetime impact of the Russian navy’s ‘Kalibrisation’ coupled with these forces’ presence in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean. This leaves the western flank of Europe potentially vulnerable to missile attack from the sea. Although of limited use in a protracted and major conflict, such naval forces fit well with a hybrid strategy based on a short-war model that seeks to intimidate the Alliance into backing down in a crisis.

Effective deterrence in this scenario depends on NATO’s ability to counter that threat and assure Allies through its credible naval capability and persistent presence when needed, before crisis occurs. That requires a fully resourced Standing Naval Force and close coordination among Allied forces operating under national command.

The defence of Norway and Iceland presents unusual joint challenges that have maritime power at their core. Both countries occupy critical strategic space in the Atlantic Nexus. Carrier strike and amphibious power projection provide the main, although by no means exclusive, sword and shield in contesting the North Atlantic in a conflict. New questions abound: how can NATO best use aircraft carriers in the North Atlantic given today’s technologies? How does the Kalibrisation of the Russian fleet alter both Russian and NATO strategy? Arguably, Norway and Iceland are even more valuable to the Alliance deterrent posture today than during the Cold War, given NATO’s need to reinforce its ability to operate in contested northern waters against credible adversary forces.