The Price of Prestige

58 chapter three

University of National Defense has estimated that the cost of the life cycle

of one Nimitz- class carrier “is equivalent to the total military spending of

the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for six to seven years. This means

that if our entire armed forces do not eat, wear clothes, or buy any equip-

ment for six to seven years, the money thus saved will not be enough to

maintain the Nimitz” (Zhang 1999 ).

The prohibitive cost of the American carrier fleet is an almost fail- safe

guarantee that it remains “second to none,” at least in the foreseeable fu-

ture. However, since the United States has no naval competitors, the need

to maintain this degree of superiority is questionable. When it comes to

most littoral operations, the carriers are an extravagant overkill; in case

of a showdown with another major power, the carriers are likely to be vul-

nerable and inadequate. The carrier may be useful in dealing with a coun-

try lacking all air defenses, such as Afghanistan, but it would be forced

to stay away from shore in any future conflict with China. Observing the

record of the American carrier fleet, Chinese analyst Zhang Jian (Zhang

1999 ) summarized this paradox colorfully: “Why use an ox- cleaver to kill

a chicken?”

In order to better understand the symbolic value of naval vessels and

more particularly of aircraft carriers, in this chapter I open with a review

of the deep- rooted connection between conspicuousness and naval power.

I continue with a discussion of deterrence and conspicuous consumption

that seeks to disentangle the intrinsic strategic value of a vessel from its

symbolic value as a venue for conspicuous consumption. This analysis iden-

tifies methods for differentiating between primary- utility explanations of

procurement and those based on conspicuous consumption. In the last part

of this chapter I offer an overview of the state of the world’s carrier fleet,

highlighting the tension between carriers’ questionable strategic utility and

their well- established role as a vessels of prestige.

Naval Power and the Preference for Conspicuousness

The tension between the symbolic and the strategic value of naval ves-

sels is not a modern phenomenon unique to the aircraft carrier. As the

Vasa demonstrates, in extreme cases this tension can lead to catastrophic

results. Indeed, naval history is replete with examples in which the logic

of conspicuousness seems to overshadow strategic concerns, with vary-

ing degrees of deleterious effects. The famous naval arms race between