James R. Holmes takes on the carrier in his latest article at The Diplomat. Building on Sir Julian Corbett’s strategic thought, he lays out the “naval repertoire”: dispute command, win command, exploit command, police the sea. From there, he asks, how useful are carriers. Not very, Holmes concludes, arguing the platforms are too expensive, too few, and too vulnerable.
Unfortunately, he only covers a specific section of the range of military operations (ROMO), arguably about 1/3 of the more kinetic range, perhaps a little more with the nebulous inclusion of “police the sea.”
This negates the much larger segment of the ROMO (and since I’m a Cowboys fan, that word/name literally and figuratively is a 4-letter word), namely everything that would otherwise fall under the “soft power” header (as I noted here, the vast number and types of operations performed in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief [HA/DR] operations, presence/influence operations, and of course messaging, just to generally cover a few). None of those are about kinetic or Phase I-III operations. As a matter of fact, many of the types of missions to which I am referring could arguably prevent Phase I from even taking place (and also assist in ensuring a successful transition out of Phase IV).
Are these the missions for which the carrier was designed, built, and marketed? Decidedly not, but we do not live in Sir Julian’s strategic environment, so the terms of reference need to be updated to more accurately reflect the way the world is today, as well as the way the world may develop tomorrow.
To fixate on the carrier as only a battle platform is myopic by at least half.
CDR Elton C. Parker III is currently serving as the Special Assistant to the President and Military Assistant to the Provost of National Defense University. A career naval aviator, his most recent tour was as Speechwriter and Special Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the views, opinions, or positions of the National Defense University, The U.S. Navy, or the Department of Defense.
Image: U.S. Navy, aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70)transits in the Arabian Gulf, March 9, 2012
John T. Kuehn 
RShaw 
I wrote this several days ago in response to an article I say in Defense Daily, but it applies to the above discussion.
“As for nuclear powered airfields (yes think of them this way, it changes the entire equation to think of them as roaming air force bases at sea), they solve a key problem, access and basing rights. And they never run out of fuel or water for all practical purposes.”
I tend toward the Jerry Hendrix/Holmes position, but to undervalue these ships or to undervalue them because of what you think they bring to the table is an error just as large as overvaluing them at the expense of new ideas and concepts such as Holmes, Rubel, Hendrix, Harvey, Kline, et al. are offering the very exciting pages of the Naval Institute Proceeding these days as well as here at WOTR.
vr, John Kuehn
Views are my own represent no official position of anyone other than me.
The newest class of aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford Class, cost $9 billion each and has a $7 million daily operating cost. Meanwhile, the Chinese DF-21 anti-shipping ballistic missile (with maneuverable re-entry vehicle) costing only hundreds of thousands. As Navy Captain Henry Hendrix pointed out in “At What Cost a Carrier” the modern day aircraft carrier is obsolete http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS%20Carrier_Hendrix_FINAL.pdf).
I would rather have a couple of LHA of the USS America class (with a MEU, 6 F-35 and 12 V-22s) and a dozen littoral combat ships at the same cost. With the spare change left over, invest in to high speed, unmanned fighter and strike drone aircraft instead of the $153 million F-35A (and associated pilot cost). Now you’re talking capability to cover the ROMO.