Bottom Up Review, Carrier Force Levels and the Bureaucratic Process

Abstract

On 1 September 1993, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin published the Bottom Up Review, an assessment of the United States military's post-Cold War overall force structure requirements Citing an"era of new dangers which included the continued threat of weapons of mass destruction, regional "bad actors," threats to new democracies and economic dangers, this review outlined the strategy, force structure, modernization programs, industrial base and infrastructure needed to meet the changing threat 1. A principle force structure recommendation made by the Bottom Up Review was sizing the Navy's aircraft carrier fleet at 12 -- a fleet that stood at 15 plus one training carrier in 1990, and at 12 in 1993 2. The study highlighted two separate requirements which drove this number. First, from a warfighting perspective, four to five carriers were needed for each of two major regional contingencies (MRCs). Second, the Navy's continuing overseas presence mission imposed additional deployment requirements for aircraft carriers which exceeded the total number needed to win two MRCs 3.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1996
Accession Number
ADA441352

Entities

People

  • John W. Tennant

Organizations

  • National War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Carriers
  • Aircrafts
  • Boats
  • Budgets
  • Cold War
  • Defense Industry
  • Department Of State
  • Deployment
  • Force Structure
  • Governments
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • Naval Warfare
  • Navy
  • Procurement
  • Security
  • Uss Ronald Reagan

Readers

  • Aerospace logistics and air mobility.
  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.