The Navy’s penchant for building ever larger and more complex carrier strike forces is analogous to an effort to build ever larger mainframe computers while the world is already moving from distributed systems to the cloud. Precise weapons can also be placed on a wide range of craft — even fishing boats — raising the specter of the USS Cole suicide attack on steroids.

“Because the most critical naval competition will be a battle of signatures, a small signature-controlled combatant with long-range precision strike will be a decisive component of any fleet,” Hendrix pointed out in Proceedings.

The economics and efficacy of substituting modular and expendable payloads for large hulking platforms is compelling. Such a naval force structure would “more distributed, networked, numerous, elusive, small, long-range and hard to find,” David Gompert and Terrence Kelly of the RAND Corporation noted.

Although the supercarrier would remain in the fleet until the Ford comes out of service, the Navy must move away from its carrier-centric architecture. Large surface ships are increasingly vulnerable, and the Navy should not be build and operate them if the costs are unacceptable.

New and very low-cost landing ships such as the USNS Montford Point and John Glenn can be built at about 1/25th to 1/30th the cost of a supercarrier and project advanced missiles, drones, helicopters, V-22 Ospreys or jump jets. Instead of an arsenal of 90 missiles on an existing Aegis craft, the new Afloat forward stage base ship Lewis B. Puller can hold 2,000 missiles at one-fourth the cost of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

Another logical response to the strategic and technological realities facing the Navy would dictate a very marked emphasis on the improvement and development of a subsurface strategy — both manned and unmanned. Submarines are less vulnerable to cyber and electronic interventions than air- and surface-weapons.

“The sea acts as a massive electromagnetic barrier to interference and as a de facto armor against most forms of attack such as anti-surface cruise or ballistic missiles like the DF-21D ‘carrier killer,’” retired Commander Victor Vescovo stated in Proceedings.

The increasing vulnerability of carriers presents the U.S. in a crisis with a Hobson’s choice of acquiescence or possible exposure of the fleet to heavy losses and potential escalation.

The emerging doctrine of AirSeaBattle, besides possibly coming too late to be of use, would similarly present the U.S. with a policy option that seems to ensure escalation.

The pivot to Asia should result in a pivot in procurement to subsurface vehicles — including stealthy unmanned underwater drones and gliders — not with the objective of scrapping for a fight, but for deterrence and to preserve the peace.

Unfortunately, that’s not happening. The fleet of nuclear attack submarines — as opposed to strategic submarines armed with nuclear warheads — is now slated to drop from 54 in 2013 to cover the entire world to possibly as low as just 39 by 2030.

At present, the Navy is straining to build two attack submarines a year, while it could afford to build 10 at the cost of just one carrier and its air wing and, arguably, to much greater strategic effect. In addition, unlike most of the surface ship acquisition programs, attack submarine programs have had a generally good record for coming in on schedule and budget.

One of the most effective components of an effective submarine procurement program should be a back-to-the-future program involving very quiet diesel submarines. Diesel submarines are very hard to detect and can be procured at a rate of three or four per the cost of each nuclear submarine.

But here, as with Navy carrier policy, the leadership will encounter strong resistance from one of its “unions,” in this case the submariners who are committed to the nuclear Navy.

Sound policy will also require overcoming resistance to replacing manned subs with all manner of unmanned underwater vessels — from the very small to large-displacement unmanned vehicles.

Submarines, which were unsung game changers in both world wars, must continue to develop in terms of offensive capability as launchers of cruise missiles, non-nuclear ballistic missiles and eventually hypersonic missile.

The U.S. Navy is unquestionably the most powerful in the world today in the aggregate. Unfortunately, repeating that phrase like a standard campaign applause line isn’t helpful. While the entire U.S. Navy dominates in tonnage and sheer firepower, that may not be meaningful in a specific locale with the force on deployment.

Then again, although Navy war games often disallow this reality, the very fact that the American Navy is the most powerful to fight a specific type of naval engagement practically guarantees that a future opponent will be so rude as to play a different game.

Yet, the Navy projects into the future a force structure that really is an updated version of what fought in the Pacific in the 1940s, and which was really untested in the Cold War. The alternative force structure hinted at here would equip the Navy possibly for the next 30 to 40 years.

Projected advances in sensor technology, as Greenert noted, will “make stealth difficult to maintain above and below water.” So, too, will the increasing range and precision of hypersonic weapons and the disabling stealth of deniable cyber-attacks. At that point, going into the 2050s and 2060s yet a different force structure and battle concept will be required.

One thing is certain, however. The aircraft carrier will not be the relevant weapon in the second half of the century. Continued overinvestment in them only ensures that the nations and possibly non-state groups that understand the future will be the ones that control the waves.