Future Shock

The purpose of this thesis is to stimulate thought on what forces the United States should procure in the future in light of current and projected political and economic cli-mates. In this spirit, different types of conventional forces are compared using the cost of a Naval Carrier Battle Group as the point of departure. The forces are then placed in a hypothetical scenario meeting the criteria of a Major Regional Contingency, in an effort to determine which weapon system is the most cost effective in terms of cost to deliver a weapon. The combat effectiveness of each weapon system is also determined in terms of the time it takes to destroy an armored division, and finally, the time it would take each weapon system to render typical enemy forces combat ineffective.