국가전력으로서의 항공모함 확보조건 분석

Aircraft carriers : National ships or paper tigers? - Conditions to acquire aircraft carriers analyzed by tracing cases -

Aircraft carriers: are they national platforms to maximize national interest or just simply paper tigers to be little useful for states' development? To some states such as U.S., U.K, and France, aircraft carriers functioned as national assets which is indispensable to their interest. By contrast, Thailand's aircraft carrier was a dead platform which is useless to its national interest and India's ones were little used on the mission field. What is the mechanism leading to this difference? The key is whether states make aircraft carriers connected to overall national evolution when it comes to establishing military strategy and planning a long-term force structure. Put it another way, conditions to acquire them need to be analyzed regarding two variables-national status(prestige and economic power) and threat(mission)-for the future as well as in the present. The former acquired carriers under the condition of making them becoming national platforms which is balanced with their overall development. However, the latter simply bought them without carefully taking account of economic obstacles, e.g., the poverty rate, when it comes to force planning. At the same time, we should not neglect to identify that states of the former cases might have a hard time in maximizing their key interests if they did not have carriers. Accordingly, conditions on carriers' acquisition need to be carefully examined and a typological theory suggested here could shed light on this process. This theory shows that South Korea's status is eligible to have a necessary and sufficient condition to acquire carriers.