Also not a military expert, but thought I'd chime in. It's complicated, and depends a lot on your objectives. If you just want to defend the waters in your regi

Also not a military expert, but thought I'd chime in. It's complicated, and depends a lot on your objectives. If you just want to defend the waters in your region, using a bunch of smaller surface combatants backed up by land-based aircraft can seem like a more attractive option. Especially when you consider the extreme difficulty and expense in developing advanced aircraft carriers. But here's some things to keep in mind. The biggest is that this is a game of reconnaissance. Ever since the advent of large fleet carriers in WW2 navies have had access to extreme firepower capable of striking at extremely long ranges. So it becomes a race to find the enemy before they can find you. Aircraft have the clear advantage here. They are faster, cheaper, can cover more ground, and with a powerful surface search radar can detect a ship from outside the range of SAM batteries. So you need aircraft to search for enemy ships, and you need to destroy your opponents reconnaissance aircraft before they can find your ships. Again, this is a job that aircraft can do very well. Carrier-based fighters can intercept aircraft at ranges exceeding that of even the most advanced surface combatants, and that means you don't have to expose your destroyers or frigates by turning on their radar. Don't get me wrong, carriers absolutely have their downsides. They are very expensive, and if they are hit it will take them out of action (but not necessarily sink them, carriers can take a lot more punishment than you would think). A proper airbase on the other hand is cheaper, and can be repaired fairly easily and quickly if struck. It's also a much easier target since its location is known in advance and it isn't mobile. A good balance would be a series of small ad-hoc bases distributed around, like the Swedish Bas90 system or the USMC expeditionary advanced base concept, though both have their drawbacks. In short, I don't think there's a decent replacement for the carrier if you need to carry out offensive operations. And I'd note that China, while developing some very advanced long-range anti-ship missiles, is also working very hard to develop their own carrier fleet, so the PLAN doesn't seem to think the idea is outdated yet. Some interesting reads on the ideas of the future of carrier warfare: https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pdf https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pd... and https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2000/RR2006/RAND_RR2006.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/...