Where aircraft carriers die: stories of wars that grow old and fester

Aircraft carriers are and remain the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. The one imagined in Star Wars – a super-technological planetoid with a diameter of over 160 kilometres, housing around 1.7 million men and 400,000 droids – is called the ‘Death Star’, or ‘Morte Nera’ in the Italian versions. The Black Death from George Lucas’s first film trilogy is destroyed by a precise strike on its sole weak point: a waste disposal hatch. Subsequent versions, even more technologically advanced, meet the same fate. The weak point of American aircraft carriers is, it seems, their toilet flushing system.

The bodily waste of 5,000 sailors, marines and pilots becomes a problem, especially if they do not set foot on land for months. The USS Abraham Lincoln has been continuously deployed at sea for nine months, within striking distance of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran. A record mission duration for an aircraft carrier in modern times. It had left its base in San Diego on 21 November last year. A mutiny may not have broken out yet, but reports of grumbling, suicide attempts and even crew members throwing themselves overboard because they can no longer cope have been multiplying for some time, appearing not only in letters to family members but also in the press publications of the Navy and the armed forces. Rationed water, mouldy showers, spoiled food in the mess hall, gruelling shifts. It’s straight out of "The Battleship Potemkin". Democratic MPs have tabled questions. Admirals have flown out to investigate. They have bolstered the crew by sending five new naval chaplains and psychologists on board. The Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, dismissed the whole thing as ‘more fake news’. Trump went one better. To curry favour with the families of the servicemen, who were worried about their loved ones, when asked whether nine months without setting foot on land was a bit too long, he replied: ‘Too long? Not even a bit (No. No. No. Not nearly long enough).’

The toilet curse isn’t limited to the Lincoln. Another of the aircraft carriers deployed against Iran, the USS Gerald Ford, had to impose a prolonged stopover in Crete because all 650 toilets on board had become blocked. That ship, too, was on course to break the record for time at sea: it was heading straight for Venezuela, where it had taken part in the operation to remove Maduro. The organic waste disposal system (Vacuum Collection, Holding and Transfer, VCHT) is a technological marvel, similar to that used on some cruise ships. It saves water. But it tends to break down. On aircraft carriers, this fragility is exacerbated by a design flaw, whereby if one of the toilets becomes blocked, the others do too. Since setting sail, the Ford had experienced more than one breakdown a day. The procedure required to unblock the system involves pumping pressurised acid into the pipes. It costs $400,000 each time. And it can only be carried out in port.

It doesn’t reflect well on the world’s most powerful war machine. And even less so on the way Trump has treated it: out with the women, out with the Black people, out with generals and admirals deemed not sufficiently toeing the line. Out with the waverers. Out with the gay, out with those whose tests reveal low testosterone levels. Yes, it has always been the case that sailors have complained about the canteen, the facilities, combat fatigue, and that some of them have thrown themselves overboard. There were around 500 suicides a year in the US Armed Forces even before this. It’s par for the course for someone to lose their mind. But multiple symptoms point to a syndrome.

Another worrying sign is that, after just a few months of conflict – not all of which have been at full intensity, incidentally – stocks of ammunition and interceptor missiles are dangerously dwindling, if not running out altogether. So much so that the command structure is said to have ordered that they be conserved, intervening only to defend the most important targets – US bases – whilst sparing the extremely costly Patriot and THAAD systems if the targets being targeted by the Iranians are deemed secondary, such as facilities and equipment belonging to Arab allies. One can well imagine the heightened confidence in American protection felt by Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. As for Oman, which, in an attempt to protect itself, sought an agreement with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, it was met with a threat from Trump himself to be “bombed to smithereens if they get in the way” (we’ll bomb the shit out of them, in Fox News’s elegant phrasing). The latest: that the Strait of Hormuz is now “American territory”. It all ties together. Despite the denials and the repeated assurances that ‘everything is fine – in fact, it couldn’t be better’, many small signs reveal that something is amiss. We’ve got a problem, Arlington!

It has happened before. A striking example of overextended supply lines – of biting off more than one could chew – was Napoleon Bonaparte’s decision to invade Russia with an army that was colossal by the standards of the time, thereby opening a second front in addition to the guerrilla war led by Wellington in Spain. Napoleon was no fool. He knew full well that the Grande Armée – over half a million men, comprising French and European allies – faced formidable logistical challenges. An analysis of his correspondence between October 1810 and July 1812 reveals an obsessive attention to detail. A full third of all his letters were addressed to the Minister for War Administration. The Emperor went into great detail on how to feed, supply with ammunition, and equip men and horses. He even took charge of the new uniforms. He ordered that each man be provided with four pairs of shoes: one on his feet, two in his rucksack and one with the regiment’s baggage. It was not enough to prevent catastrophe during the long retreat from Moscow.

An even more catastrophic overreach was that of the Wehrmacht when Hitler invaded Russia. They numbered in the millions, many times more numerous than the Grande Armée. They were far more brutal than they had been on the Western Front. They had been indoctrinated to believe they were dealing with Untermensch – subhumans – beasts to be treated without mercy. From the very outset, the order was to exterminate Jews and communists. Civilians were to be starved and subjected to gruelling forced marches. They were to destroy everything, setting villages and crops alight. They were to be wary of women, who were ‘infected’ and extremely dangerous. Children loitering amongst the ruins were to be shot on sight, as they were ‘all spies’, even more dangerous than combatants. The consequence, to quote Vasily Grossman, was that between the two oppressors – the Communists and the Nazis – the Russians chose to side with the one who spoke their language. By sifting through service orders, publications and letters from officers and soldiers of various army corps, divisions and regiments, the Israeli-born historian Omer Bartov has provided a picture that is as rigorous as it is chilling in his book "The Eastern Front". German Troops and the Barbarisation of War 1941–1945 (Il Mulino, 2003). It feels as though one is reading the news bulletins and television reports on the wars of those years.

However, this is not merely a matter of technical or logistical issues. There is a fundamental problem: that wars which drag on too long are more terrible than others. The longer they go on, the worse they become. Generally, they do not end well for the side that seemed destined to win in no time at all. A Blitzkrieg only pays off if it truly is one. A protracted war wears down even the strongest. Those who enter a conflict as certain victors emerge from it as the defeated. Trump, however much he twists and turns to claim he has won – indeed, won by a landslide – would be neither the first nor the last.

The Vietnam War had lasted twenty years before they withdrew with their tails between their legs. They were certain they could not lose it. Instead, they had become bogged down. Some had realised this. Among them was the ‘great sage’ George Kennan, the very man who, at the start of the Cold War, had coined the idea of ‘containment’ of the USSR. He debunked the ‘domino’ theory, according to which, once Vietnam had fallen into the clutches of the communists, all the other Asian allies risked toppling one after the other, like precarious dominoes. Kennan warned that this kind of containment was counterproductive. He was convinced that the United States was becoming overextended in East Asia. He even cited the case of Indonesia as an example of the troubles a power brings upon itself. Excessive Chinese interference had led to an epoch-making defeat: the massacre of Indonesian communists. Kennan was right. But no one listened to him.

More recently, another American war – the one in Afghanistan – has proved utterly pointless, indeed counterproductive. It too lasted twenty years. Twice as long as the Soviet invasion: which began in December 1979 with a palace coup in Kabul and a glorious blitzkrieg to support the ‘modernisers’ installed by Moscow, and ended with an inglorious withdrawal of the Red Army in February 1989. The same year that the Wall came down, and then the Soviet Union collapsed. The mujahideen, the predecessors of the Taliban, had not only the support but also the sympathy of the West. If that strikes you as strange, go and rewatch "Tomorrow Never Dies", the eighteenth film in the James Bond series. The film is not from prehistoric times; it is from 1997 – just four years before the attack on the Twin Towers. Few people noticed that among 007’s comrades-in-arms in that film was Osama bin Laden.

The American invasion of Afghanistan took place in October 2001. It began with a swift and spectacular success: the expulsion of the Taliban from Kabul and other major cities, and the flight of Mullah Omar, with a bounty on his head. However, it lasted even longer than the Vietnam War. It ended with an ignominious withdrawal decided upon during Trump’s first term and implemented by Biden at the end of August 2021. Against all expectations and logic, the Taliban emerged victorious, having been back in power for the past five years. The invasion had been conceived by Bush Jr as punishment for harbouring Bin Laden. It ended with the triumph of Taliban obscurantism. In that case too, in addition to the duration of the conflict, the excessive stretch – the overextension – of the supply lines was unsustainable. Unlike in Vietnam, the Taliban enjoyed no one’s sympathy. Not even among Pakistan’s then-near-allies among the Islamic world. Just as, prior to Trump’s war, the odious Iranian regime of the ayatollahs enjoyed no sympathy in the West. There has been a change of regime. But for the worse: it should now be called the Pasdaran regime, no longer the regime of the ayatollahs.

The war in Ukraine has now lasted longer than the First World War. The conflict of 1915–18 was also supposed to be a Blitzkrieg. European governments had recently experienced only short, decisive wars: the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). They thought it would unfold in much the same way: rapid mobilisation, decisive offensives, and the defeated side negotiating peace. What Pope Benedict XV would have called "the senseless slaughter" had instead become bogged down in the trenches. Just as the ‘special operation’ launched by Putin four and a half years ago remains bogged down. It was intended to conclude within 48 hours with Russian paratroopers in Kyiv, Zelenskyy killed, kidnapped or on the run, and a new regime free from any stirrings of independence from Moscow. How many would have bet on Ukrainian resilience? Even the Americans had written them off. In effect, we find ourselves in a war of position and attrition, despite the fact that fighting is currently taking place with drones and missiles striking deep into each other’s territories. Here too, the war has not gone well for those who thought they could win it quickly. In July, they recorded a monthly record number of casualties: over 40,000. Two-thirds were killed by drones. There is no end in sight to this carnage. Nor is there any sign of it being called off. Biden had pinned his hopes on regime change in Moscow: “Putin is a murderer. He cannot remain in power,” he had said. But that’s a pipe dream. Killers are hard to get rid of. It could well be that the Ukrainians, weary of war and all that it entails, will oust Zelensky before the Russians oust Putin.

It is by no means certain that Israeli voters will succeed in ousting Netanyahu and his appalling coalition. He might well be replaced by someone even worse. The war in the Middle East causes me particular anguish. It has deep-rooted causes. The outcome of this latest, particularly atrocious phase, which began on 7 October 2023, remains unclear. Even if – and this is by no means certain – they manage to eliminate Hamas, to eliminate Hezbollah, and to inflict a defeat on the regime in Tehran from which it cannot recover, what then? How can Israel survive in an environment where everyone, near and far, is hostile towards it? Without the slightest notion of coexisting with the Palestinians? Even if – and this is by no means certain – Iran never acquires the atomic bomb, what is to be done about Pakistan, which does have one, and about Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which might acquire one, and have just signed a mutual assistance pact with Pakistan? Was revenge against Hamas and Gaza worth isolation from the whole world? “Stop it, everyone hates you,” Trump himself would have told Netanyahu.

Long wars fester. It is even worse when religious fanaticism is added to the underlying causes. The Thirty Years’ War, which devastated and bloodied Europe from 1618 to 1648, was a massive, atrocious, protracted massacre between Catholics and Protestants. And to think it arose from a very local incident: the Protestant Bohemian nobles had thrown the representatives of the Catholic Emperor out of a window at Prague Castle. At the root of the dispute was the Protestants’ claim to build a new church on land that the King had donated to the Catholics. In short, Europe’s first true ‘world war’ arose from a dispute over property. God forbid that the same should happen in the West Bank.

If a war drags on for too long, it may end in a compromise, with one of the contenders backing down. Often, this is the side that was thought to be the certain winner. Alternatively, it may end in an escalation leading to the elimination of one of the parties. Extermination comes at a terrible cost, not only for those who suffer it, but also for those who carry it out. In Russia, they frequently threaten to use nuclear weapons if cornered. It would risk being the end of the world, not just for Ukraine. The most striking example of a war that has never truly ended, but has been frozen indefinitely by the fear of a world war, is the Korean War. It is noteworthy that Trump, who continues to treat all his allies appallingly – from the Europeans to Japan, via the Persian Gulf – continues to treat the last heir to the communist dynasty ruling North Korea well, almost pampering him. The latest exchange of love letters coincides with the decision to scale back the US-South Korea joint military exercises which provoke Pyongyang’s wrath every year. Is this a slap in the face for allies Seoul and Tokyo? Or is it a necessary dose of realism towards a country that now possesses around sixty nuclear bombs and missiles capable of delivering them almost anywhere? Is a major new deal on the cards?