If you want to replace carriers, you need to look at each role they're playing and see what works to fill that role. Air-to-air: Fighters based half a world aw

If you want to replace carriers, you need to look at each role they're playing and see what works to fill that role. Air-to-air: Fighters based half a world away don't do much good if you need someone to shoot enemy planes down right now. Carriers are still useful for this in many situations. Air-to-sea: I think this is where the article makes its best point as missiles and smaller craft make it much harder to keep these safe. Air-to-ground (strategic): Land based bombers and drones work as well or better if you have your targets planned out 12-hours in advance. Putting a carrier there in this case may be a waste of resources. Air-to-ground (tactical): Having this awesome air force half a world away is kind of useless when you're getting beat up on the ground right now. Drones may be able to take up the slack on this, depending on what the enemy has to counter it, but carriers are still good for this role. So basically, if you are unchallenged at sea, but have to fight against an enemy with aircraft nearby, like Iraq, or you need air support because you're fighting someone who is able to do alot of hit and run tactics, like Afghanistan, then carriers are useful. If you're fighting against another country with a huge navy, or you have some place with a friendly airbase nearby that's relatively safe, you might not need them. Considering the types of wars we've been fighting lately in the U.S., we can probably do with fewer carriers, but still need a fair number.