Combatant commands competing for carriers

Should the United States return to a different command structure?

He sees competition among command bureaucracies as strategically unhealthy, especially when it drives demand for carriers without durable support for them.

Separate command bureaucracies can compete over assigned carriers, aircraft, and other combat units as measures of institutional importance. That contest can substitute possession for a mission-based argument about why a carrier is needed in a particular theatre. Constant demands for several carriers also wear the force and create a future replacement bill. The contradiction appears when commanders who demanded carrier presence then resist naval spending because it competes with their own service's tanks or aircraft. Strategy requires aligning operational demand with willingness to fund the force over its full life.