Had an interesting conversation about this with an old squadron mate that just finished his Big XO tour. CENTCOM is obviously going to want to hold on to their current CVN "presence" even after OEF. Whether CJCS and higher agrees will be interesting to watch.
The question is, how many carriers are required for contingency operations in a given AOR and what does keeping multiple carriers in an AOR do to our big picture ability to conduct contingency operations in other places. Most contingency-type conflict in recent years has occurred where we didn't expect it. In my view, there's a benefit to relaxing our posture in the middle east in favor of focusing on getting our material and personnel training and readiness back to where it needs to be. As we "pivot" to the Pacific in the years to come, I believe we'll see a return to more standard 6 month WESTPAC deployments with an emphasis on building relationships with our regional allies and partners through exercises, ect.
A naval presence also allows the administration to play loose in the numbers game. How many troops are in theater doing what is important to politics, finance and simple visuals for both domestic and foreign eyes. We are supposed to be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2013. Don't be surprised if it actually results in a greater naval presence (not just CVW) to support the Afghans from afloat. Same logic may have more troops deployed to friendly 'stans for contingency ops. Don't laugh. I saw this sort of shell game with my own eyes when I was on a 4 star staff supporting the Balkans and Kosovo conflicts.
Having seen discussions with every service chief and several COCOMs this past year, I get the sense that they understand those challenges and are beginning to accept that doing "less with less" is a more realistic view than "more with less." I think the Navy and aviation will be largely insulated by any drawdown or cuts due to sequestration (which I don't believe will happen, but that's another story), but the Marines and Army are already scrambling to figure out how they're going to do business amidst the first significant drawdown since the Cold War. There are a lot of really smart people thinking in terms of how to avoid hollowing the force, including the 50# heads at OSD. I draw an analogy to the Growler transition within my own community. Some of the guys who designed how it would work had been through the abortion that was the Intruder sundown and said, "We're not ever doing THAT again." I think similar lessons are being applied at the 4 star level in this case as well.
