Not Enough Carriers

At the end of the Second World War, the United States Navy had more than 100 aircraft carriers in service. The vast majority were decommissioned after hostilities ended, but approximately 40 remained in operation in the 1950s, and around 18 took part in the Korean War.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States shifted towards operating the large supercarriers, moving away from smaller escort carriers. As a result, today the sea service has just a tenth of the number that it had in 1945, with 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers now in the fleet.

Yet, even into the 1990s and early 2000s, the service had between a dozen and 15 deployable carriers – both conventionally powered and nuclear-powered. Five of those carriers were directly involved in the opening, main strike phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, supporting the initial “Shock and Awe” campaign. A sixth aircraft carrier arrived later, and a seventh U.S. Navy supercarrier remained in the Pacific to provide deterrence even as the U.S. focus was on Iraq.

The situation is vastly different today.

“This war has reinforced the value of carriers, which are mobile and have intrinsic defensive systems, at the expense of fixed bases,” explained naval historian Dr. Robert Farley, senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky.

“Hitting fixed bases with drones and missiles is just a math problem, while the ability of carriers to move is a huge advantage,” Farley wrote in an email.

Building More Won’t Solve The Problem

The solution to the U.S. Navy’s troubles seems to be the building of more aircraft carriers; yet, instead of solving a problem, it only creates new ones. First, the U.S. Navy doesn’t have the budget to simply build more carriers, even with the Trump administration’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget.

The USS Gerald R. Ford cost approximately $13.3 billion, making it the most expensive warship ever built. That was also vastly higher than the estimated $5.1 billion that the U.S. Navy contracted for the vessel in 2008 as new technologies were employed.

Factoring in all the money spent on research and development and other program costs, the investment in the new class of carriers exceeded $37 billion.

The program also faced nearly 16 months of delays in construction and then years afterward. Although USS Gerald R. Ford was commissioned during President Donald Trump’s first term on July 22, 2017, her first overseas deployment didn’t begin until May 2023. The situation is made worse by the fact that the supercarrier needs upgrades to operate with the Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II, the carrier-based variant of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Those updates could occur during the next Planned Incremental Availability, the scheduled period during which a carrier undergoes extensive maintenance, repairs, and modernization to meet future operational demands. That could sideline a carrier for a year or longer.

Maintaining The Flattops Is Costly And Time Consuming

It isn’t just the USS Gerald R. Ford that will need to undergo such a lengthy maintenance period. At present, the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is undergoing scheduled maintenance in her homeport of San Diego, “while remaining a combat-ready force dedicated to protecting and defending the United States,” the U.S. Navy has confirmed.

The USS George Washington (CVN-73) is in port following her last deployment that ended in December 2025, and won’t be ready to head out on another mission until the end of the year at the earliest and more likely sometime in early 2027.

Two other carriers are almost certainly sidelined for all of 2026.

The USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) is completing her midlife refueling and complex overhaul, which is conducted at the midpoint of a carrier’s service life. CVN-74 will have another year of sea trials and shakedowns before her next deployment. USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) is now undergoing a drydock PIA in Bremerton, Wash.

Another flattop, the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), is now preparing for her RCOH, and won’t be back in service until the end of the decade at the very earliest.

The maintenance work on these carriers is to ensure that each can accomplish the mission, as the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln did in the Middle East.

Building additional carriers won’t solve the problem, however.

The U.S. Navy has a limited number of facilities to maintain the carriers, and the shipyards are already overburdened. Before the Pentagon could even think about building more carriers, it would need additional shipyards and more workers to build and maintain them. Thus, this isn’t really a problem of just too few carriers, but the entire carrier industrial base.

“I’d be hesitant to argue that the U.S. has underinvested in carriers,” said Farley. “They are extremely important assets, and of course, you can only have a limited number operational at any given time, but they do make up a huge portion of the budget. This war has reinforced how carriers are critical but can also be a wasting asset, in that there’s a limit to how long they can remain on station.”

Each lengthy deployment will require an equally lengthy time in port. It is the carrier’s law of physics.

Speeding the process along requires even greater effort, a point underscored by work carried out on the second Nimitz-class supercarrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), aka “Mighty IKE.” CVN-69’s PIA was completed last month ahead of schedule. It required successful coordination between Norfolk Naval Shipyard, the ship’s crew, and contractors.

“The entirety of the project team mustered more than 4,000 people daily, all with one common vision—deliver IKE, fully mission capable, back to the fleet before our commitment date,” said Project Superintendent, Cmdr. Jason Downs, in a U.S. Navy statement. “The highly skilled tradespeople and sharp engineering acumen are the heroes in the IKE FY25 PIA story.”

The short-term solution will be to rotate the carriers as they become available, but that could mean longer deployments, which will only create other problems.