Aircraft Carriers - What is their future?

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(07-19-2017, 08:10 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: There are quire a few people who feel that way. 

My concern about carriers isn't their usefulness in peacetime or during conflicts with minor countries, but more of their usefulness against someone like China and Russia. 

Afghanistan may be one of the most expensive places for us to send troops on the planet. We have had to secure overland supply routes through Pakistan and air support bases in places like Uzbekistan. Of course, that is one of the reasons why terror organizations choose hard to get places like that. They fester in the armpits of the world. Naval aviation can't help us a whole lot there because of how far inland it is.

Not sure about the $2.1 million figure, but the lower figures ($850K to $1.4 million) don't surprise me.  Plus our nation-building experiment efforts are massively expensive. Not sure if it is worth it. But by the same token, as soon as we move out, the cockroaches move back in.

If we are in a situation where we needed aircraft carriers to be useful against someone like China or Russia, no military force would be all that useful anyway, because the world would be a barren radioactive ball.

Really, I can only ever imagining there being 3 states for the military anymore:
-Peacetime
-Conflicts with minor countries
-Nuclear war

So if they are good for #2, and help reinforce #1 so that #3 doesn't come around, then I am good with carriers.

Either way, so long as nukes aren't thrown into the mix, aircraft carriers ensure you can have domination over the oceans and skies. Might be a different thing if we come to a point where all combat is done by drones and such, but until then it's good to go.


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Besides, the SciFi lover in me knows that once we fully expand our civilization into space, the closest comparison a military spaceship will have will likely be a submarine mixed with a carrier. Best not to lose the technology/knowledge/experience like we did with NASA.