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Originally posted by fastpat My take on this statement is that all large aircraft carriers, that is any aircraft carrier, has no mission related to the defense of America. I agree with that. Second, aircraft carriers are "force projection" tools against countries and governments without significant defense capabilities, which I think is beyond argument. And last, Lind's essay begs the question of why America funds such ships which are vulnerable to any country with an adequate defense, for example a barrage of Exocet, or similar, anti-ship missiles will take any of them out, sacrificial screening vessels or not. Ships that cannot defend America at all.
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Unless you need air cover / interdiction / force projection against countries and areas with 3rd world defense systems - in which case Carrier Groups are a pretty good option. Force projection alone seems to counter the "no mission" argument. Not all actions are against countries with significant anti-ship systems.
Seems like they are valuable tools in our arsenal. Maybe we just need to adjust how many we have while developing a different force projection system?