The end of the Cold War produced confidence that overwhelming American power made serious challenges irrational and future conflicts discretionary. Battle Force Zulu assembled Midway, Theodore Roosevelt, Ranger, and America for the Gulf War, concentrating mobile air power that could not be targeted like a fixed base. Carrier groups also retained Cold War methods for deception and could use one formation to draw surveillance away from another. The weakness was strategic: opponents did not meaningfully contest the carriers, encouraging assumptions that would later shape a smaller force.
Chapter · 1:17:18-1:28:45
From Gulf War mass to the wars-of-choice assumption
Four carriers in Battle Force Zulu demonstrated mobile mass, but post-Cold War confidence encouraged planners to assume future wars would occur only on Western terms.