The question he was asked, was:
…and his response was North Korea. It’s laughable that it even occurred to him that a country full of Starving people somehow needs me to pay for aircraft carriers to “protect” me from, which only backs up what Magiver’s point in the first place (and I will even point out I am no great fan of his).
Leaving aside the specific country of North Korea (and the strange capitalization of Starving), I would posit that just because someone is starving and/or desperate does not somehow mean they won’t be able to hurt you. People who are starving, desperate, poor, and/or perceive themselves to be out of options are a fairly predictable source of violence.
If your larger point was, “North Korea is so underfunded and technically backward, how could they hope to harm a rich, powerful country,” I might add that things like aircraft carriers are made by rich countries and in some senses are what makes those countries powerful.
The best point made so far is that a carrier is useful for intimidating less advanced countries.
Yes, in a full out blow-up with a superpower (Russia? China? Britain or France?) the carriers and the eastern seaboard would both be sunk. There’s the Daffy Duck cartoon where Daffy the Magician swallows a few gallons of gasoline and a few sticks of TNT and lights a match. “It’s a great trick, but I can only do it once!” That’s all-out nuclear war between peers. A 90% effective missile defence, on carriers or countries, is not a useful proposition.
This is about carriers, but think for a moment what would be the reaction if, for example, Iran even tried to lob a nuclear bomb onto Israel. Even if it fizzzled in the middle of Jordan, the reaction would be the same as with 9/11 oly 100 times worse since the threshhold of nuclear use would be passed. I imagine the president saying “hand over your top 10,000 government decision makers for Nuremberg trial, and allow occupation by the Allies, or face one bomb a week until you do.” (Essentially what we did to Afghanistan, but less stone-age than them.) All the civilized world, including Russia and China, would likely back up the USA.
Absent full-out war, the carrier provides muscle. Look at the Falklands - a collection of carrier wannabees with advanced weapons took out an invasion force whose aircraft simply did not have the range for an extended dogfight over the islands. In retun, they had the air cover to protect an invasion. that was 30 years ago, the tech has evolved even more since then.
If China wants to own the South China see and its reefs and islands, what better way than to send a few carriers to back up its ground forces ocupying those pesky rocks? If they want to back up their favourite African or middle eastern despot in return for oil, minerals, or food, they can move a high-tech base to just offshore - exactly what the Americans have done for decades.
If I were to point out a “current war” that the aircraft carrier is ill-suited for, it’s the ones the US has fought in the last decade or so - not the invasion of Iraq, or even Afghanistan - but the need to fight a guerilla insurgency once th land is taken - against an enemy not even as concentrated as Vietnam, than has sporadic and difficult targets. The USA has developed numerous other weapons and tactics for addressing this. The drones come to mind. But… that does not make traditional tools like carriers or tanks obsolete either. It’s just in the face of overwhelming traditional power, the best response by a less powerful opponent is harrassing guerilla warfare.
Until you can tell me HOW Aircraft carriers are what keeps North Korea from harming me, what you said is no difference than saying “Rolls Royces are made by rich countries and in some sense are what makes those countries powerful”.
You would think with the trillions the aircraft carrier groups cost you hawks would come up with better examples of who they protect us from. “Interests” are not good enough to me, because I am not a multinational corporation or working in the military industrial complex… I’m just one of the fools paying for it.
edit: And by the way if a starving and poor nation is no reason they won’t be able to hurt us, then the entire world can hurt the united states so lets keep with the status quo and try to spend our way to total safety, imagine what a NON POOR country could do to us OMG FEAR.
You keep spouting this stuff like you know what you’re talking about. Doctrinally, you don’t. From the perspective of our national interests and their protection, you don’t.
Oh, you’re right. Lack of stealth aircraft on the carrier demonstrates its obsolesence. How did I miss that?
To hunt, prety, and destroy what? Are you saying a drone will better knock out a Mig-29 than an F-18?
Again, doctrinally and from perspective of the entire DoD and, dare I say, the entire U.S. Government, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Tell me you’ve worked on a component command’s Plans shop and hold a clearance, and maybe I’ll consider what you’re saying. I, ftr, have on both accounts. Based on my experience, again, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Uh, you’re crediting me with words and concepts I did not utter. I have said nothing about OMG FEAR. I restricted myself specifically to addressing your nonsensical claim that starving people are somehow disinclined to use force in their struggle for resources.
How aircraft carriers are keeping North Korea, which threatened the United States two days ago, from reaching us with naval assets should be obvious.
And your Rolls Royce analogy makes no sense. It’s perfectly obvious that a carrier battle group projects military power. That’s completely aside from the morality of where and why the US has projected power historically. Your beef is with other posters, or with your own understanding of physics and power, not me.
[QUOTE=rogerbox]
Until you can tell me HOW Aircraft carriers are what keeps North Korea from harming me, what you said is no difference than saying “Rolls Royces are made by rich countries and in some sense are what makes those countries powerful”.
[/QUOTE]
Do you like trade? Do you use any products that come from Asia? Do you know anyone who uses such products? Well then, whether you realize it or not (obviously not), the US military, including the Navy, is preventing North Korea from harming you by acting as a major deterrent preventing the North’s stated intent of reunifying the Korean peninsula by force of arms.
Your analogy isn’t even a good strawman analogy, btw, as it’s completely incoherent.
What’s laughable is that you still don’t get it, and you are wearing your ignorance on your sleeve. And you think that by displaying your ignorance you have won some sort of point here. 
US air craft carriers provide a strong deterrent force by the fact that, contrary to Magiver’s ignorance of how they are used, they allow the US a powerful strike capability against any country acting aggressive. Your assertion that because North Korea is starving (true as far as it goes…they go through periods of starvation for the average citizen) that means they are no threat. That just compounds your ignorance on this subject, since you seem to not realize that North Korea has one of the most powerful and vicious military forces in the world today. You don’t seem to realize that while the people are starving, the military is well fed and kept pretty happy…and that, starving or no, North Korea could batter South Korea with literally 10’s of thousands of artillery pieces, probably destroying their capital and killing 10’s or 100’s of thousands of South Koreans. What do you care, right? But, you see, you should, because the Korean peninsula is astride one of the biggest trade routes, bringing you and the rest of us goods and services from just about every Asian manufacturing center…not to mention that South Korea provides a ton of goods and services in it’s own right, goods and services that we wouldn’t get if they were being pounded into scrap by the North.
They aren’t good enough for you because you don’t understand them, and you obviously don’t want to understand them. Some people just wear their ignorance like a badge…and that sort of ignorance just can’t be fought, sadly.
United States should be capitalized, since it is the proper name of a nation. Like you did with North Korea.
While I’m at it, I might as well address Magiver as well:
[QUOTE=Magiver]
The list is zero. There is no country on this planet that poses a threat to the United States which a carrier will stop. The role of the carrier changed with the advancement of rockets after WW-II and the invention of nuclear weapons. They will never be used as a primary defensive weapon again. The world has changed.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, but you are simply wrong…again. Many, many countries pose a potential threat to the US and our interests and the interests of our allies. Trade coming from Asia needs to be protected. Trade from the Middle East needs to be protected. Heck, trade from the Mediterranean and Europe and around Africa needs to be protected. The Navy, and our carriers allow us to project power on a global scale and act as a major deterrent, curtailing nations who might threaten our interests.
You keep bringing up nukes as if this is a meaningful trump card. However, ALL of the post-WWII conflicts that the US has been engaged in have used carriers, in most cases heavily. None of them have used nukes. Do you understand the point of that?
Even assuming that’s true, so what? Most of the attacks work we are doing today is against insurgents and terrorists, and we are doing it from bases that we have in the area because we are fighting there. Most drones that we have don’t have the ability to take off from the US, fly quickly to their station, and provide rapid and persistent coverage. They just don’t have the capabilities to do so at this time, and might never. They certainly don’t have it today.
So, unless you are arguing that in order to replace carriers we need to invade countries throughout the world, build bases there, and then fly our drones from there, your assertion here makes no sense TODAY.
Yeah, nothing beats a drone for flying low and slow, able to loiter around and fire a missile or two reasonably cheaply and without the risk of a pilot. However, that isn’t going to deter someone like North Korea or Iran from, well, anything at all, and, as I said earlier, you’d need to invade a country to set up an air base to fly them out of in order to use them. Finally, they are really good at attacking and killing insurgents and terrorists, no doubt…but that’s not exactly a flexible set of operating parameters there…unless you think that all we will ever be fighting from here on out is in Afghanistan or Iraq, or somewhere else close to a base and against terrorists and insurgents.
You keep saying this as if it IS self explanatory…it’s not. Who would these ‘major powers’ be that we’d be fighting…and what makes you say that they are easy to destroy? Because of nukes (again)?? Because in that case, EVERYTHING IS EASY TO DESTROY…and the least of our worries would be the loss of a carrier. The loss of New York or LA or most of the rest of our large cities would be far, far more of a concern at that point.
Short of nukes, however, carriers are not easy to destroy…and I don’t think they are too expensive to risk, either, if that’s what you were getting at.
You almost touched on another point: 4.5 generation fighters (like the F/A-18E/F) would be challenged to operate in high-threat environments with modern air defenses. Predators, Global Hawks, and similar UAVs wouldn’t last a minute in the same scenario. Drones simply can’t do what manned aircraft do, and they probably won’t for quite a few years to come.
I didn’t claim that either, that would of course be stupid. I simply called out XT on his stupid claim that Aircraft Carrier groups keep ME safer from North Korea. Which they don’t.
You cannot use us meddling in Korean affairs for 60 years and then turn around and say that carrier groups keep us safe from North Korea. That is circular justification for a worldwide military hegemony, which is the only thing people justifying said worldwide military hegemony can do, since there isn’t a sensible defense of the current status quo other than "I’m a weapons contractor to the military, please keep the gravy train coming 
"
So you are making the case that if I snapped my fingers and all 11 aircraft carrier groups disappears, North Korea would _____ to ME (assume I am any American civilian in the mainland U.S. wherever you want to place me)? Think carefully.
I’m at work typing fast, I didn’t mean anything by it. I express my “patriotism” if you can call it that by criticising our foreign policy in hopes that it will one day turn sane and I can be prouder of being an American.
Sure. It’s only in conservative land where we need over 3x the military spending of our next competitor to “trade” at the end of the barrel of the biggest gun in the universe.
If we didn’t have 60 years of military meddling in the Koreas we wouldn’t be the DPRK’s enemy and even if they did reunify they would just trade with us. Fail.
I have won. No one outside of American right wingers thinks being the World Police is a net benefit to us. It surely is to our allies who can save on their own military budgets. You have to live behind the bubble to believe it. 9/11 would never have happened if we were not world police and had bases in Saudi Arabia either. The price of worldwide military hegemony is ASTRONOMICAL in dollars and lives.
So tell me about DPRK’s amphibious assault ability to land on the Continental United States since you know so much more than me? You know diddly squat about what I know about North Korea. Unless you can tell me how the DPRK can hurt the mainland U.S. you have zero point, because their soldiers can chew metal and bleed iron but they have zero capability to even get here to hurt us. Red Dawn is a movie.
Again, defenders of Carrier Groups make arguments that justify virtually unlimited military spending because we have to stop EVERY bad guy on earth, what a surprise
I care but it is a stupid use of massive amounts of resources that make yet another enemy for the united states with not enough benefit. I repeat we never should’ve been involved in Korea anyway.
Don’t right wingers love to extole the virtues of the free market and how a business will step in to provide a needed good or service so gov’t interference isn’t neccessary? Just another big lie.
Technically, you should type it like this: United States
I think 50 million South Koreas would tend to disagree. Or at least they should, unless they secretly envy their neighbors north of the DMZ.
Yes I’m sure every country that we fight wars for would agree, therefore, we should fight for the good guys in every war.
I think this is kind of the point of the OP. Sure, drones can’t do what conventional fighters can do, but maybe that’s an advantage.
First, in the sort of ‘lukewarm’ war the US is fighting in Afghanistan/Pakistan/wherever, drones are highly effective. More effective than manned fighters would be. Both for intelligence and for attack.
And drones are cheaper, lighter and don’t carry somebody’s son or daughter.
I also have to imagine that drones require less infrastructure to maintain and use than conventional fighters. And they can be used at any time with ‘pilots’ able to ensconsed in a safe location and swap out when they become tired or stressed.
All these factors seem to indicate that a smaller, more flexible, drone-based airforce is the face of the future of warfare. Given this, I think it’s reasonable to expect that aircraft carriers as we know them are an endangered species.
Even with the smaller, more flexible drone force, you still cannot project power at the same level of lethality and speed which the carrier battlegroup affords. So, if we decide as a nation that we no longer need to project power as we currently do and that much less is needed, then yes, it is an endangered species.
For intelligence, sure. For attack, no way. That isn’t even remotely true – the payload of manned aircraft is several times what any UAV can carry. It isn’t even close.
Sure, carriers can be replaced by something better. But it is going to be generations before there’s any autonomous vehicle that has the speed and payload of a modern fighter along with the range and loiter needed to launch from airbases much further away that would obviate the relevance of tactical fighter/attack aircraft. You just can’t make something that is fast, survivable, has legs, has payload, has loiter, and is cheap.
Can you explain this to me? Why does a large aircraft need a pilot any more than a smaller one? Why can’t a drone have the same payload and weapons systems as one with a cockpit and 200 lbs of very vulnerable human flesh?