They cost $11 billion each to build. And who knows how much it costs to operate one. That figure must be mind boggling. The only other countries that come close to us in aircraft carrier cred are the UK, and Italy, who each have two in service. France, Russia, India, Spain, Brazil and Thailand each have one. That’s it! The rest of the world is aircraft carrierless, and that includes China.
What does this say about the United States? And why do we need 11 of these floating war machines? Politicians in DC, and American presidents, often use the phrase “protecting America’s interests.” That’s an interesting phrase because it is quite different than saying “defending America from attack.” Which is a clue as to why we need so many of these gigantic war ships. Aircraft carriers are handy for starting wars to further “America’s interests” in other parts of the world.
And what might our interests be? Usually our “interests “revolve around access to oil and other resources, access to profitable markets, and access to cheap labor, all of which benefits our corporations. Of course, “pursuing our interests” has absolutely nothing to do with defense (scary pictures of mushroom clouds notwithstanding). We have just recently built 7 military bases in Columbia, a kind of trampoline for “defending our interests” in the rest of left leaning Latin America. And no, Virginia, they have nothing to do with the so called “drug war.”
Why not put all but one or two of those carriers in “moth balls,” (whatever that means in the nautical world) and stop spending our hard earned tax money on imperialist aggressions and adventurous wars that benefit that tax dodging, top 2% who run this country.
There never has been a U.S. imperialist aggression or an adventurous war that benefited an ordinary American working person. Not one.