don't tread on me

The image above comes courtesy Gerard Van der Leun, who notes that there may be more to this month's naval “exercises” than meets the eye.

As a seafaring friend of mine once remarked, an aircraft carrier is not really listed on the books as a “ship,” but as a “strategic asset.” And when a country starts to move 7 out of 12 of these assets around on the global chessboard, it might betoken something more than just a summer 'exercise.'

Indeed, if this were wartime (What? It is? Who knew?) moving this much killing power out onto the seas would be thought of as a fleet surge.

Truman, Enterprise, Stennis, Washington, Kennedy, Reagan, Kitty Hawk. It could all be, of course, just prudent planning and practice. On the other hand, given the various signals being sent by Homeland Security, the nearness of the Olympics, and the advent of the elections, it may be a case of “Fortune favors the forward deployed.”

Oh, did I mention that another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln is listed by the Navy as underway as well?

It's also interesting that the same page: U.S. Navy - Status of the Navy tells us that 92% of our surface ships are currently underway or deployed, and that 91% of our submarine fleet is either underway or deployed.

Last week I neglected to properly commemorate Bastille Day (apart from a brief mention here). There is simply no better way to make amends than to extol the, uh, triumph that is the carrier Charles de Gaulle.

The new French nuclear carrier “Charles de Gaulle” has suffered from a seemingly endless string of problems since it was first conceived in 1986. The 40,000 ton ship has cost over four billion dollars so far and is slower than the steam powered carrier it replaced. Flaws in the “de Gaulle” have led it to using the propellers from it predecessor, the “Foch,” because the ones built for “de Gaulle” never worked right and the propeller manufacturer went out of business in 1999. Worse, the nuclear reactor installation was done poorly, exposing the engine crew to five times the allowable annual dose of radiation. There were also problems with the design of the deck, making it impossible to operate the E-2 radar aircraft that are essential to defending the ship and controlling offensive operations. Many other key components of the ship did not work correctly, including several key electronic systems. The carrier has been under constant repair and modification. The “de Gaulle” took eleven years to build (1988-99) and was not ready for service until late 2000. It's been downhill ever since. The de Gaulle is undergoing still more repairs and modifications. The government is being sued for exposing crew members to dangerous levels of radiation.

More, from November 2001:

One of the most embarrassing sagas in French maritime history took a further twist last week when France's most accident-prone warship began the countdown to another attempt to take to the high seas.

In the Ministry of Defence and on the quayside at Toulon, where the 40,000-ton aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle had been dry-docked, sceptical observers crossed their fingers and prayed for a fair wind.

The idea of France's first nuclear-powered carrier was dreamt up in 1986. It soon became a pet project of the then president, Francois Mitterrand. The ship that was built has proved, however, to be a humiliating and expensive naval failure. Fifteen years and £7 billion later, it has still to complete its first successful tour of service and has suffered a series of mishaps.

An attempt to go to sea in November ended characteristically in disaster somewhere in the Bermuda triangle. A substantial part of a 19-ton propeller broke off, obliging the carrier to limp back to southern France. […]

The ship's flight decks, it became clear, were too short to accommodate the American Hawkeye radar aircraft that France had bought for the vessel. In addition, the decks had been painted with a substance that eroded the arrest wires used to slow the aircraft as they landed.

The ship's electronics circuits were malfunctioning, while its personnel, it emerged, were being exposed to unacceptable levels of radiation. The ship was simply not fit to sail. After many months of repairs, the Charles de Gaulle was relaunched last year on a cruise to Guadaloupe. Then the propeller problems began.

Not fit to sail. An apt metaphor for French foreign policy, c’est ne pas?