Richard Spencer, who was recently cleared by the Senate Armed Services Committee to be the next Navy secretary, is open to studying small aircraft carriers to outfit the future fleet, but has not determined the best strategy to fund the service's top acquisition priority: the multibillion-dollar Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill directs the Navy to begin designing a smaller carrier. Three entities conducted recent Navy force structure...