I do agree with most of what you say. Let’s keep in mind though that there are some pretty clever people in other countries thinking up ways of sinking those floating cities or at least limit their sphere of influence.

In the last 20 years there have been huge advances in SAM technology, largely as a result of Desert Storm. The Navy is trying to figure out to stop huge amounts of high speed missiles from reaching their carriers. At the current time, they wouldn’t be able to stop them all.

Even if the carrier isn’t sunk by high speed missiles, submarines or aircraft, there are new SAM systems that pretty damned effective these days, of course only very few countries deploy such advanced systems. This severely limits a carriers sphere of influence either against another navy or land based targets.

Some would argue that our aircraft can intercept and engage beyond visual range but this causes all sorts of problems. Number one, without visual confirmation we tend to shoot down friendlies. Number two, Russian electronic warfare confuses our missiles by detecting and duplicating the radar signal and sending back a false one, making those long range missiles ineffective. At this point, unless either side runs away it will come down to a dogfight.

You don’t want to compare the f-18’s to the new 4.5++ Sukhois and Migs. Given equal pilot skills and force ratio the Sukhois and Migs will always win dogfights. Good thing there are very few around the world and we have hundreds of aircraft of our own….but still. This wouldn’t change with the JSF or f-22.

Stealth was a great idea 20 years ago and worked great but is largely ineffective against modern adversaries today. The f-22 and JSF are both turkeys and can be shot down by countries fielding modern equipment. Admittedly, they were both designed to penetrate enemy airspace but the countermeasures against stealth developed quickly and are cheaper.

The US Navy is still the most powerful in the world, no doubt, but complacency will get people killed. Always maintain a healthy amount of paranoia and never underestimate the craftiness of the enemy.