WASHINGTON — Hawai'i's strategic value, a plus in saving the Pearl Harbor shipyard in last year's round of base closings, may not count as much as dollars when a decision is made next year about where in the Pacific to base another aircraft carrier.

Despite record-setting budgets in the past few years, the military's current funding situation is "at best precarious," said Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i.

"Right now, if they are going to have shifting of carriers, they are going to go to the place where they figure it would be the least cost," said Inouye, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. "There was a time when cost was not the major consideration, but war strategy and planning were."

Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter has said he will make a decision in April or May on whether to base the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier, at Hawai'i, Guam, San Diego or Puget Sound. The carrier is now undergoing nuclear reactor refueling and overhaul in Virginia.

Building a carrier homeport would cost an estimated $2.2 billion in Hawai'i and $5 billion in Guam. In comparison, putting another carrier in San Diego or Puget Sound, each of which have two already, would be minimal.

A 20-year defense plan issued this year called for a greater Navy presence in the Pacific because of the shift in trade and transport to that region and China's growing power. In response, the Navy plans on having at least six carriers and 60 percent of its submarines in the Pacific.

A report by the federal Overseas Basing Commission last year also said a sixth carrier, to be based in Hawai'i, might be needed. Currently, the only carrier based away from the continental United States is in Japan.

Thomas P. Ehrhard, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said as long as the carrier is based in the Pacific, even on the West Coast, it still sends the right strategic message.

"The overarching strategic issue here is that it is a Pacific-focused carrier," Ehrhard said.

The key strategic value of basing a carrier in Hawai'i or Guam is the shortened sailing time to potential trouble spots such as the Taiwan Strait, the Korean Peninsula or the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia. From Hawai'i to the Taiwan Strait at 30 knots, for example, requires about a day and a half less than from Puget Sound.

But Ehrhard said the impact of the longer travel times from the West Coast is lessened by joint Navy and Air Force operations, such as using air-to-air refueling to extend aircraft ranges, and by advanced warning systems that let commanders analyze and respond faster to developing problems.

"It's always an issue of how much is enough," Ehrhard said. "We have a gigantic defense budget and yet you still have tradeoffs that have to be made."

But Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawai'i, said the strategic importance of basing a carrier in Hawai'i or Guam far outweighs the cost of building a homeport for it.

"This is about the forward positioning of our defense capability into what will easily be the most crucial and critical area of the world for our country over the next 25 years," Case said.

Defense analyst Loren Thompson said it was "illogical" that tight budgets would keep the military from basing a carrier in Hawai'i.

"If you wanted to save money, you would put your key war-fighting assets as close as possible to their likely areas of use," said Thompson, who is with the Lexington Institute in Alexandria, Va. "The operational and budgetary advantages to operating from Hawai'i to the Western Pacific rather than California or Washington are so great that you probably could get by with one less carrier in the fleet."

The question of where to base the carrier is coming up at a time when the military is under a budget strain because of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The services are scrambling for dollars, which is staggering to think about when you are looking at a $460 billion annual budget plus almost another $100 billion for the war," said Christopher Hellman, a defense analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington.

"But there are numerous examples of nitty-gritty, dollars-and-cents cost-cutting that the services are undertaking right now because they are cash-strapped."

The Navy, for example, wants to cut its strength by 12,000 sailors and the Air Force by 23,200. The Army is reducing custodial and grounds maintenance at its bases — including those in Hawai'i — and instituting civilian hiring freezes.

Hellman said the Pentagon's budget request for 2008, which is being put together now, includes less training hours for all the services.

"When you start getting into training hours, you are talking about some serious problems," Hellman said.

But Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he didn't believe the carrier's homeport cost was a big subject of debate, given the impact of the already high cost of the Iraq war, which is "sucking money from everything."

"The carrier situation is probably off in a corner somewhere,'' he said, "puttering along on its own as it wends its way through the web of bureaucratic decision-making in the Navy."

Reach Dennis Camire at dcamire@gns.gannett.com.