2017: year of the aircraft carrier

摘要

I am indebted to Nick Childs, Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), for the title of this comment. As he pointed out in a recent comment of his own, 2017 will see major milestones reached in a number of aircraft carrier programmes around the world. These will have significant implications for both carrier and naval power developments in general in the coming years. As Childs noted, the year began with another gap in the US aircraft carrier presence in the Middle East, while Chinas sole aircraft carrier, Liaoning, conducted exercises in the South China Sea. The former underscored the continuing strains in the US Navy's under-strength carrier force, the latter the symbolic significance of China's carrier ambitions, albeit still with limited capability for now.