Why hasn't Russia maintained significant numbers of aircraft carriers?

Question

The United States has 11 aircraft carriers in total. Russia has only one. This is reflective of the past, in which we saw that the USSR also didn't put much importance on constructing aircraft carriers and putting them into operation.

Why hasn't Russia bothered to keep a larger inventory of aircraft carriers? Why hasn't it wanted to project its power through carriers? Why has the United States wanted to project its power through carriers?

What is the main point of difference in these two strategies?

Well, I think it isn't historical (hence OT) as you're dealing with present time naval composition; but I am new on the site hence the question. — Alok, Aug 02 '12 at 18:13
This question appears to be off-topic because it is about a counter-factual incapable of historical evaluation. Ask instead about what Soviet naval strategy was. — Samuel Russell, Jun 07 '14 at 14:39
Russian Naval strategy was sea denial. US Naval strategy was sea control. Aircraft carriers are expensive, technologically difficult, and much less useful for sea denial than for sea control. — MCW, Jun 07 '14 at 20:17
I made the question "historical" (and therefore "more" on-topic), by putting it in the past tense. — Tom Au, Jun 08 '14 at 13:57
The Soviet navy was at heart a coastal defense force, with limited longer range capabilities mainly to defend egress routes for their ballistic missile submarines. No carriers needed when you're always within range of land based aircraft. — jwenting, Jun 09 '14 at 04:02

DVK · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-07T15:43:28.433

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First of all, aircraft carriers are expensive. Russia (compared to USA) was never resource-rich enough to be able to afford the expense; neither was USSR.
Second of all, Russia (or rather USSR) had no motivation. USA's main geopolitical goal is to safeguard seabourne trade routes; and to prevent strong competitors from arising and commanding great sets of resources ala Japan's goal in WW2.

Contrast that with Russia/USSR, which is dependent economically on seabourne trade to an enormously smaller extent; and whose main geopolitical concerns are right there on a landmass - protecting core russia by building a periphery barrier and keeping the populace under control. A carrier is of pretty much no help in that goal.

(as discussed in the comments - while Russia has a lot of maritime border, they aren't important for most part. Nobody'll invade - or trade - through Arctic. And since WWII, Japan hasn't been a credible geopolitical threat on the Pacific coast).

edited Jun 07 '14 at 15:43

answered Jul 21 '12 at 08:55

DVK

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I'd up-vote if you had sources. – Luke_0 Jul 22 '12 at 01:25
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@Luke Do you really need sources to point out that Russia is more land-locked than the USA? – quant_dev Jul 23 '12 at 09:34
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You didn't explicitly say that in your answer. 2. The USA has less coastline than Russia. Look at this CIA World Factbook page

Luke_0

Jul 23 '12 at 12:37

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Luke - That's kind of misleading. The vast majority of that coastline is on the north shore of the asian landmass. This area is geopolitically a non-entity, and isn't navigable a lot of the year due to ice. Although the latter issue has been changing lately... – T.E.D. Jul 23 '12 at 14:05

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@Luke - as T.E.D. said, total coastline is irrelevant - the total seabourne trade is what is important. Not a lot of trade happening through Taymyr :) Not only does Russia lack great trading ports geographically, it also lacks navigable river system for cheap transport TO those ports (think Missisippi river system + New Orleans). You don't need carries for defense of coasts, you need it for defense of trade routes and trade partners – DVK Jul 23 '12 at 16:18

@DVK I see. Nice answer. +1 – Luke_0 Jul 23 '12 at 20:41

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I thought that Luke's first comment points to first part of an answer. +1 for the seabourne trade, but factor of expenses seems to be irrelevant. – default locale Oct 05 '12 at 09:44

Also, Russia has only few navy ports for big ships – Greg Jul 13 '15 at 01:59

I'm not down voting, however the very first statment: "Russia (compared to USA) was never resource-rich enough to be able to afford the expense; neither was USSR." is flat out wrong. Russia is the largest country on planet Earth, containing vast supply of variable resources: oil, gas, minerals, etc. – Ziezi Jun 15 '17 at 13:21

score 17 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 24 '12 at 02:44

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The aircraft carrier is an offensive weapon; it is not very useful to protect one's own territory-- and the USSR was never planning an aggressive war. The USSR's main military preparations were for a defensive war in Europe similar to the Great Patriotic War during WWII and for nuclear deterrence so to avoid a nuclear strike from the United States.

Even in the case of war with the US, the USSR planned a land attack on the European NATO members with a massive tank rush.

The US, on the other hand, permanently conducts aggressive wars for resources against small and medium-sized countries overseas. The current military doctrine even calls for the ability to conduct two wars in two different countries at the same time.

Besides that, the best means to quickly defeat a small country is to put a carrier near its borders and to make a massive bomb strike. Transporting land weapons such as tanks on the other hand is expensive and takes much time.

edited Jul 24 '12 at 02:44

Luke_0

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answered Jul 21 '12 at 23:45

Anixx

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"permanently conducts aggressive wars for resources" - -1 for political BS without any proof. Last I checked US got zero free oil out of Iraq, never mind that only an idiot would assume they intended to get any resources out of Vietnam or Afghanistan. Never mind that the last war where a country expanded their territory by invasion was ... drumroll little adventure that Russia had with Georgia where they all by annexed South Ossetia. The last N times USA annexed any territory they gave it all to others (Kosovo to Albanians; Iraq to Iraquis in theory and Iranians in practice; etc...) – DVK Jul 22 '12 at 10:57
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Russia did not annex South Ossetia, you are wrong. Actually Russia tryed to mirror the US behavior in Kosovo. – Anixx Jul 22 '12 at 12:08
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South Ossetia is fully under Russian political control and there are Russian military bases there. No gas/energy deals (remember, you said it's all about resources) can be maid without Gazprom's agreement and to Gazprom's benefit. As far as Korovo, US acted in the interests of Muslim Albania. There are zero material benefits to the USA in having Kosovo be part of EITHER Albania or Serbia, resource wise or strategy wise. Just for the record, I'm one of those rare Americans who considered Kosovo the dumbest geopolitical mistake USA made in the last 50 years, since day 0 it started. – DVK Jul 22 '12 at 14:17
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You are wrong. You should learn how the US and German companies grabbed the Kosovo industry, hastily privatized by the rebel government. Particularly, the copper industry. – Anixx Jul 22 '12 at 14:39
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@DVK It is not true that the US did not at least try to extract resources from Afghanistan. American companies (JP Morgan, backed by Pentagon) were looking for gold there, for example: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/11/jp-morgan-hunt-afghan-gold/ – quant_dev Jul 23 '12 at 09:36
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@dvk - I'm one of those rare Americans who considered Kosovo the dumbest geopolitical mistake USA made in the last 50 years, since day 0 it started. - Vietnam, Iraq, bungling the Iranian Revolution, bungling Afghanistan, all peanuts compared to the enormity of our Kosovo intervention! – RI Swamp Yankee Jul 23 '12 at 12:37
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I actually rather like this answer, in spite of the gratuitous slap at the US. I would point out though that weapons aren't inherently offensive or defensive. Carriers are pretty much required for effective warfare in the islands of the Pacific. A USA without them could not realistically have Hawai'i as an integrated state, as it could not plausibly defend it against carrier-based attack. – T.E.D. Jul 23 '12 at 14:15
@RISwampYankee - Matter of fact, if not for Kosovo, both Afghanistan 2 AND Iraq may have gone a tad smoother, for Russians would be less inclined to screw things over just for sh&ts and giggles – DVK Jul 23 '12 at 16:25
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@quant_dev - there is a difference between "starting a war for resources" and "once you are present in a country, and there's an opportunity to invest, making the local's liveds better by building a mine so they can profit where before they had a pile of rocks" – DVK Jul 23 '12 at 16:34
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@DVK You wrote: "never mind that only an idiot would assume they intended to get any resources out of Vietnam or Afghanistan". Well, they did. – quant_dev Jul 23 '12 at 16:37
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Well people, my sentence that the US conducts wars for resources is just a figure of speech, do not take it literally. I know that actually the US conducted wars for resources, markets and geopolitical presence. But the resources are possibly the most obvious reason in some wars. – Anixx Jul 23 '12 at 17:21
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@quant_dev - intended being the key word. Care to prove that the intention to invade Afghanistan was caused by a possible gold mine? Note that they didn't steal a working mine from poor natives. They invested so the mine can be built. – DVK Jul 23 '12 at 17:46
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@DVK the US presence in Afghanistan is possibly aimed at Iran and Central Asia both of which are plenty of resources. The US has bases in Kyrgyzstan and other places which they justify by the need to support their forces in Afghanistan and so on. If there was no Afghanistan operation, the Kyrghis government and Russia would not allow to establish the Manas base. – Anixx Jul 23 '12 at 17:49
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Also note that opium production raised dramatically when the US set up their government there and there are multiple allegations that the income from opium trade is used to pay American companies. – Anixx Jul 23 '12 at 17:51
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@DVK "Note that they didn't steal a working mine from poor natives." Of course it's not about the mine itself, but the gold mined therein. By taking over the resources they prevent the Afghan nation from mining it independently in the future. (Of course your racist assumption is that Afghans would never be able to do it by themselves, right?) – quant_dev Jul 24 '12 at 08:00
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@DVK What is certain is that the opium trade surged after the Americans arrived: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204450804576625003263984480.html – quant_dev Jul 24 '12 at 08:02
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@DVK Coming back to the topic: why do you think that Afghans need US help to develop their gold resources? Gold is not going to disappear from Aghanistan if it is excavated later, by their own mining companies once they are developed. – quant_dev Jul 24 '12 at 11:27
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You have a point in that the USSR was a land power and as such maximized its advantages by playing to its strengths and investing in armored divisions instead of in carriers Very sensible. (One can say quite safely that German investment in their surface navies was a waste in both WWI and WWII, the USSR may have learnt from that mistake). However, I'm afraid I can't upvote an answer that begins with "the USSR was never planning an aggressive war", that would be a travesty of historical truth... – Felix Goldberg Jan 08 '13 at 23:36
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@Felix Goldberg what aggressive wars the USSR planned? BTW, the USA is also a land power, yet they invest in fleet because they do not need defense (their neighbors are friendly and weak), rather they need weapons for attack countries located far away. – Anixx Jan 09 '13 at 00:10
@Anixx: Just for starters, have a look here: http://www.solonin.org/en/article_comrade-stalins-three-plans or http://www.solonin.org/article_tri-plana-tovarischa-stalina for the Russian version. – Felix Goldberg Jan 09 '13 at 01:53
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@Felix Goldberg it explains a theory of Viktor Suvorov that the USSR was preparing an attack on Nazi Germany, long ago discredited. No serious historian now takes it seriously. Even according Suvorov, the attack should be to liberate the Germany-occupied countries, in agreement with the British. – Anixx Jan 09 '13 at 02:21
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@Anixx: It is far from discredited. But of course if by "serious historian" you define "historian drawing his salary from the Russian MoD" than you've got a technically true sentence. :) Anyway, a simple question: was the Winter War against Finland a war of aggression that the USSR started? – Felix Goldberg Jan 09 '13 at 09:23
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@Felix Goldberg, no historian at all. They are not historians. Regarding war with Finland, yes, one can consider it an aggressive war, but note that it was dictated by the necessity of protection of Leningrad against land invasion in the expected war with Germany. As we are discussing aircraft carriers, this only supports the idea that the USSR was concerned with defense against land invasion from Europe rather than attacking something far abroad. – Anixx Jan 09 '13 at 12:25
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – T.E.D. Aug 25 '16 at 16:41

Tom Au · Answer 3 · 2014-06-09T20:39:43.820

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Russia is not a true naval power. It has only a handful of ports: St. Petersburg, Vladlivostok, Archangelsk, and Sevastopol (and all but the last are icebound for several months of the year). Its naval needs are primarily defensive, meaning that it can use land-based aircraft, rather than aircraft carriers for this purpose. Of course it needs a surface fleet and submarines to defend these approaches.

edited Jun 09 '14 at 20:39

answered Jul 22 '12 at 14:21

Tom Au

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To add a point, few of Russia's ports are warm water. – Luke_0 Jul 22 '12 at 19:24

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 16 '15 at 22:11

The other answers are all correct and worth an upvote. Money, land-bound, defensive mentality were factors.

However, I will add one key element the others have not mentioned, which is that it was a deliberate part of their strategy. Soviet military planners considered the United States to be a threat to their polity and they deliberately made an "anti-USA" strategy, which dictated designing weapons and methods which were specifically for countering US technology.

In naval warfare, this meant that they deliberately decided to put all their money into submarines. The hope was that in a "sub vs carrier" war, the subs would win. By focusing completely on subs, they were hoping they could surpass us in this one key technology which would trump our other advantages.

I don't think this is very accurate. They put "all their money" into subs because the sub is the most anti-sea vessel known mankind. USSR and Russia have the doctrine of Sea Denial. USA chose Sea Control. Russia does not need subs to sink carriers. A modern carrier has 90 jets, and USA last I checked has 11 carriers, so 990 jets. This is not going to invade a large piece of land like Russia. Land supports many air bases, many more than 990 jets, as well as all sorts of AA weaponry. Carriers can only be used offensively against island nations and weak nations near water like in Middle East. — DrZ214, Sep 04 '15 at 06:11

score 5 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 07 '14 at 14:23

The Soviet Union believed in spreading Communism (an ideology) through giving communist revolutionaries weapons such as guns, tanks, and planes.

The USA believed in projecting military power to guard its economic interests, which included containing the spread of communism (domino theory). Sometimes the US even gave weapons to bad people (Saddam Hussein, the Taliban of Afghanistan, etc.) to counter the spread of communism or guard its economic interests. The US has good reason to believe that it cannot rely on many of its fickle "allies." Therefore the US needs another method of projecting military power. That is where the carriers come in. They are much more reliable than dictators etc. However carriers are also much more vulnerable.

Nuclear Powered Icebreakers were more important to the Soviet Union (and now Russia) because no other ships (neither aircraft carriers nor tankers) can survive the ice of the Arctic Ocean, which is where much of Russia's oil resources are located.

The Soviet Union did build aircraft carriers, but on a much more limited scale than the USA. Communism prevented the Soviet Union from trading as much as the US, since it believed in centralized economies. Centralized planning also allowed convoys of ships to have military escorts such as those to Cuba. With the end of the Cold War, Russia has little need for naval power and Ukraine (former USSR) recently sold a partially completed Soviet aircraft carrier to China.

It should also be noted that the the most humiliating defeat in America's recent history was the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was conducted from Japanese aircraft carriers.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 09 '14 at 20:46

This is a very interesting question. To answer it I had to see if you are correct, that indeed Russia/USSR did not have a larger number of aircraft carriers.

Based on this article, Russian Aircraft Carriers Sold Journal: American metal market, Date: 11/16/1994, Vol: 102(222): 11 - 11 you are correct. Russia did not have a large number of aircraft carriers. A South Korean company bought a decade ago two Russian aircraft carriers for scrap metal: the Minsk and Novorossiisk.

Based on the same article I have to conclude that the limited number of aircraft carriers is due to the fact that Russia believes the cold war has ended:

The two 37,000-ton aircraftcarriers, built in 1979 and 1984, were the mainstay of the Soviet Union's Far East Naval Fleet, but with the end of the Cold War, Russia decided to decommission them.

Why hasn't Russia maintained significant numbers of aircraft carriers?

6 Answers6