Based on my reading, most experts, and maybe a consensus, think aircraft carriers are weapons for the last major war, and will be of little use in the next war between major powers (if such a thing happens). Missiles can travel 2-3 times further than planes, and modern technology makes them very accurate.<p>Therefore the carriers won't get close enough to the battle to fire a shot (or launch a plane), much as carriers kept their predecessors, battleships, out of range and helpless in WWII.<p>Also, a carrier concentrates a very large amount of value in one very juicy target: Maybe $15-20 billion in assets including planes, 5,000 lives, and around 20-33% of available naval air power. An enemy could target a carrier with 1,000 missiles costing $1 million each, and still get a large economic net benefit ($1 billion spent to destroy $15-20 billion + 5,000 casualties). Current plans for high-end war use 'distributed lethality': Spread out the offensive power and assets so one lost ship isn't so costly.
This should also be discussed in the context of the first combat usage of an Admiral Kuznetsov-class carrier, which Russia began today. After passing through the English Channel, the Admiral Kuznetsov, accompanied by a Russian carrier group comprising most of the Northern Fleet including a nuclear-powered battlecruiser, established station, and began a renewed aerial bombardment on the Syrian city of Aleppo.<p>Over the next few months, we can expect the dominance of the United States Navy to be increasingly challenged, as the other great powers try to determine the limits of the President-Elect's isolationism.
China's second carrier is definitely under construction, and the third carrier. a larger model, seems to be.[1] The PLAN's near-term goal seems to be dominance of the South China Sea and the strait of Taiwan, everything inside the "nine dash line". (Or the "ten dash line" version, which goes outside Taiwan.) That's consistent with their land-based anti-ship missiles, new large Coast Guard cutter type ships, and airfields being built on expanded islands in the South China Sea.<p>China now has some blue-water naval capability. So far, it's been used mostly to protect China's supply chain, in anti-piracy operations. That's good practice for operating far from home base. This worries some people. There are very few countries today with a military that can operate effectively on a large scale far from home. China may want to join the superpower club.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eastern-arsenal/model-chinas-next-aircraft-carrier" rel="nofollow">http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eastern-arsenal/model-chi...</a>