As I mentioned upthread, the US is having trouble keeping carriers on-station full-time - I suspect you're also over-estimating what a carrier and its escorts are capable of (and you're also out of date, the new term is 'Carrier Strike Group') - we're talking about a grand total of five warships and under 50 combat aircraft; a useful force against massively outclassed opponents who can't strike back effectively against it (though still far from decisive in all but the smallest conflicts) but not exactly the massive engine of military might that most people think of when they hear "carrier battle group". Also, carrier numbers have been on a long, gentle slide downhill for quite some time (as have the number of combat aircraft they carry) - the 10 carriers you brag about are only 2/3's of the USN's carrier strength in 1991.
Or, to put it another way, you seem to be thinking of one of these:
and possibly influenced by some dim idea of this:
But the actual reality is:
Much like you're confusing modern American wishful and grandiose thinking about our military capabilities with the reality, you're confusing Imperial Japan's
plans for the
Yamato with her actual fate:
"Drawing on US wartime records, an expedition to the South China Sea in 1982 produced some results, but the wreckage discovered could not be clearly identified. A second expedition returned to the site two years later, and the team's photographic and video records were later confirmed by one of the battleship's designers, Shigeru Makino to show the Yamato's last resting place. The wreck lies 290 kilometres (180 mi) southwest of Kyushu under 340 metres (1,120 ft) of water in two main pieces; a bow section comprising the front two thirds of the ship, and a separate stern section."
You really don't have the slightest idea about what you're discussing; argument I can do, and often enjoy, even if it involves strong disagreements - but I draw the line at playing chess with ignorant pigeons. <plonk>
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It looks to me like you're verging on willful ignorance here, Kellhound; take a look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq right now (and at their histories since the US "won" wars against them): Vietnam is a (modern, quasi-capitalist) communist state where the US has had little influence - the US supported government is dead and gone, Afghanistan is still full of American soldiers while the Taliban conduct strikes in the capital on a regular basis and there are no plans to actually abandon the puppet government there because everyone and their pet hamster knows it will go the way of the government of South Vietnam soon after we pull out, and US troops are on the ground in an Iraq in near-constant chaos where large chunks of the country are under the control of hostile powers and the so-called "government" can't recapture one of its own cities until we bomb it into rubble for them.
To quote Clausewitz, "War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will." Or alternatively, "War is a continuation of policy by other means." If the result of war is not the successful imposition of a nation's will on its enemies, if its policies are not achieved, then any claim of "victory" is nothing but sophistry. These are the same sort of "victories" won by Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union in its final years - I hope the US will act (and fare) better than those vanished powers.
Or to put it another way, "
Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatetur". (The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not accept his defeat. And the US had been horrible at actually vanquishing its enemies in the 21st century.)
And why do you think the Chinese will be content to confine any war with them to the Spratly's and South China Sea? (Or to "the sea and small islands"?) Their conventional power projection is certainly limited compared to a
bona fide superpower, but (presuming the conflict doesn't go nuclear) they have a number of options, including (but not limited to):
-get the North Koreans to invade South Korea
-strikes against US allies in the region
-invade Taiwan
-use their several-dozen diesel-electric subs to attack conventional shipping (and possibly US shipping hubs as well).
-cyber warfare
-arming US-opposed state and non-state organization
-launching unconventional and/or terror attacks against US infrastructure (including
distributed but vital US infrastructure, like the Panama canal).
If you're thinking that Sun Tzu's birthplace will fight using Marquess of Queensberry rules, and give up after a losing a round or three in a salle, I'm sadly confident that you will find yourself gravely mistaken. (Though they certainly might pretend to.)
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A duty for which they are eminently suited.
It is sacrificing some of it's bomb load, but thank you for the info - almost 600nm is better than I'd thought it could pull off (although I cannot resist point out that the Hellcat can carry the same bomb load with an 800nm combat radius...
)