The Price of Prestige

86 chapter three

of the American carrier fleet, were needed to support a relatively modest

military effort in Afghanistan (Lambeth 2005 ). Yet the participation of

the carriers in these conflicts further bolstered their symbolic value, espe-

cially following President Bush’s “carrier speech”— in itself an exercise in

conspicuous consumption, which came with the not insignificant price tag

of $ 800 , 000 to $ 1 million.

While the American fleet of ten supercarriers is, without a doubt, “sec-

ond to none,” it is also second to none in terms of its expense. Estimates

for the life- cycle cost of a US carrier vary. However, it is even more difficult

to provide clear assessment for the opportunity costs of such gargantuan

expense. Sokolsky argues that this unprecedented maritime supremacy

produces paradoxical results. American carrier supremacy is “so over-

whelming it was taken for granted by some; at the same time its very rel-

evance was doubted” (Sokolsky 1989 ). While the carriers’ ability to serve

as an effective instrument of invidious comparison is uncontested, their

strategic utility is challenged by technological and geostrategic develop-

ments. Yet the carrier’s established symbolic value suggests that any actor

wishing to claim an equal status to the United States will find it difficult

to resist the need to develop comparable carrier capabilities regardless of

their strategic merit.

China

China is the newest member of the carrier club. In September 2012 , China

officially commissioned its first carrier, the Liaoning (a Soviet Kuznetsov-

class carrier renamed Varyag in Ukraine). Furthermore, China is reported

to be in the process of constructing two additional, locally designed carri-

ers. The Chinese carrier program attracts a lot of international attention,

and its potential strategic and political significance is a topic of contention.

The debate within China regarding the desirability of carrier procurement

is illuminating.

Chinese naval analysts are loosely divided into two camps: those who

advocate specialization in submarine and missile technologies as a form

of asymmetric naval warfare against the United States, and those who

prefer carrier procurement in order to directly balance American capa-

bilities. Members of the first camp tend to emphasize the exorbitant cost

of the carrier and the potential for a Gatsby effect. Moreover, with limited

technological know- how, little operational experience, and no advanced

defense systems, a carrier might become a “floating coffin” (Diamond 2006 ,

51 ). Carrier advocates, on the other hand, focus on the symbolic value of