Cameron: shut down Libya's air force

Where are the carriers? It doesn't matter.

British Prime Minister David Cameron: "I have asked the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff to work with our allies on plans for a military no-fly zone."

The point of a no-fly zone would be to prevent by force the Libyan air force from continuing to attack civilians demonstrating against the country's dictator, Moammar Qaddafi (see, "Libyan jets armed to kill").

But where are the carriers?

US Navy: No carriers in the Mediterranean Sea.

Royal Navy: Britain has only a single aircraft carrier left in service, HMS Illustrious. Well technically, HMS Ark Royal will be on the active roll until 11 March, but its decommissioning work is completed. However, Illustrious is of "ski-jump" design and has no aircraft assigned to it, nor are any even available anywhere in the UK's arsenal. Harrier jets, the only type Illustrious can handle, are no longer in service there.

HMS Illustrious with US Marine Harrier jets conducting interoperability training in an undated photo. Britain's armed forces no longer fly the Harrier, the only type jet that the carrier can launch or recover.

French Navy: France has one carrier, Charles de Gaulle. Larger than Illustrious, it is smaller than American carriers but of similar design. Hence it can launch and recover conventional fighters and attack aircraft.

USS John C. Stennis, top and USS John F. Kennedy, bottom, flank the French carrier Charles de Gaulle, which is leading Britain's assault ship, HMS Ocean (a helicopter platform), in this 2002 photo.  

However, Charles de Gaulle has had its operational-readiness problems.

As President Nicolas Sarkozy prepares to use a historic London summit to announce the use of RAF jets off the Charles de Gaulle, his naval chiefs have told him she is no longer seaworthy.

Presumably the problems with the carrier's propulsion systems have been fixed, as de Gaulle just completed combined exercises with USS Abraham Lincoln.

Nonetheless, absent American carriers, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce a no-fly zone over the long term if the model is the no-fly zones the US and Britain enforced over most of Iraq after the Gulf War. Those years involved constant patrolling and substantial commitment of airframes and crews.

The reason for the difficulty is that the closest Allied air base to Tripoli is Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily, about 350 miles away. This is not next door for flying high tempos of air interdiction. The next closest is Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, more than 900 miles from Libya.

However, Britain and the US (and France and Italy?) need not institute constant patrolling to shut down Qaddafi's air force. A fair number of these BLU-107 Durandal cratering bombs will do nicely:



Developed by the French and type-adopted by the US Air Force in time for 1991's Gulf War, the BLU-107 creates enormous craters even in concrete runways. The Brits once used an even more diabolical cratering bomb, the JP233, that not only made a huge honking hole, it also scattered 215 anti-personnel mines around the crater as a disincentive to repair the runway. However, this bomb was withdrawn from service, mainly because the Gulf War proved it was dangerous to the bombing aircraft.

However, chasing down individual Libyan fighters, while technically quite possible, is pointless. Crater their runways from one end to the other and the problem is solved. Carriers, while desirable, useful and highly symbolic for long-term commitment, are not necessary to get this job done. Sky park a few Predator UAVs above the airfields so that if Libyan engineers try to repair the craters, we will know immediately - and the Predators can launch disincentives. For that matter, we can crater the runways again and maybe bomb a few pilots' barracks as encouragement.

Putting Libya's air force into no-fly status is not all that challenging and it does not require aircraft carriers to do.

Update, March 2: Libyan air defenses would have to be dealt with, of course:

Option 1: Turn the runway-neutralization mission over to the US Air Force's 509th Bomb Wing with its B2 Stealth bombers. I doubt Libya would be able to counter them.

Option 2: Notify Libyan AF's high command that we are going to crater their runways but will not attack personnel or other facilities. Make it clear, however, that if they resist in any way all our gloves come off and Libya will not have an air force left.

USS Kearsarge, now on station offshore, can mount combat search and rescue missions in support. An aircraft carrier would be nice but is not necessary for this mission.

This is not to say I support such an action; I have serious reservations. But simply as a military action, it would not be terribly difficult.

Endnote: The toothless Illustrious is due to leave service in 2016. It's replacement, Queen Elizabeth, will not enter service until 2020 at the earliest. QE and its later sister ship, Prince of Wales, however, will be super carriers rivaling the US Navy's and will be the largest warships ever for the Royal Navy. Curiously, both predecessor ships of the same names were battleships sunk in World War II.

Related: To be clear, I do not think that doing this would be a good idea.