(This is a response to a nice article posted at TheSaker http://thesaker.is/the-russian-navy-at-the-crossroads-paradoxes-and-choices)
Nice piece, interesting thoughts !
I have some ideas on the subject...
John Keegan concluded in "The Price of Admiralty" that CVNs, and surface shipping more generally, in the blue-water context, were rendered obsolete (in Tier-1 conflict type) by anti-ship missile developments; that the future of naval combat belonged to submarines and aircraft.
One paradox of CVNs is their psychological hold on the imagination, seemingly preventing for common analysts the elementary distinction of the aircraft from the carrier. Techno-historically, aircraft had to be "carried" to theatre because of limited range, persistence; infrastructure requirements. By the 1970s, B-52s were circumnavigating the globe with fuel-tanker support, and the CVNs were credibly threatened by land-based naval Tu-22 "Backfires". The burden of proof in the CVN debate in any navy concerns comparisions of investment in CVNs versus comparable investments in long-range aviation. I judge long-range aviation as the far better yield potential for generating blue-water and force-projection capabilities, over the full range of use-cases, including those requiring ground force insertion and support.
There are many technical aspects to this judgement, perhaps the most salient relates evolution of air-superiority operations and associated technologies, existing and prospective. Techno-historically, requirements indicated small, fast, maneuverable aircraft to contend. As long as this remained/s the case, the CVNs will have --in principle-- a future as mandatories for any aspirinant to force projection on the globe. In my amateur opinion, a super-heavy, in many regards, strategic, air-superiority fighter is now feasible. In much the same way the early torpedo-boat concept was sound but predated its technical feasibility, the 20th-century experiments in BVR missile-duel-centric platforms were premature, but reflected sound analysis. There was even in the 1950s a USAF experiment carrying a light-fighter on a bomber, to be launched when close to defender interceptor area of operations. With the rise of combat drones, networked swarms of dogfighter drones capable of 20g turns becomes something to seriously consider, and the possibility remains of ferrying these to operational zones in larger aircraft. The carrier in this case is not a ship, but a larger aircraft. What is the difference between this dogfighter drone and a simply more-capable long range missile ? Maybe not so much, for example it may be possible to create missiles with better persistence and turning capabilities; together with advanced data-networking, could kill off kinematic evasion as a workable tactic. Other defensive technologies are maturing -- lasers and directed energy weapons can fry seekers and electronics. In this case the larger platforms become better air-superiority option than the small fighters, because of larger airframe to accomodate the necessary gear. A similar dynamic occurs in the stealth/counterstealth/radar/jamming contest. If we make a big air-superiority fighter out of the Tu-160, we have a tremendous capacity for accomodation of gear mass: L-Band radars, lasers, jammming equipment, decoys, missiles, drones, bigger better IRST modules. The prospective AA Tu-160 pretty massively out-equips traditional opponents; an RCS optimised airframe (snake intakes, faceted body, twin-canted tails would go a long way), supercruise abilities, the range... A big enough L-band array and capable enough IRST modules on a Tu-160, I don't see the F-35/F-22 or equivalents having stealthy sneak-up options. I think they'll be detected at 200-300km in a vague-enough sense to have sensor drones launched in their direction, which will close to ranges sufficient for more accurate targeting-level tracking with AESA &or IRST. Simply by making the Tu-160 airframe into a giant L-band/AESA antennae, not clear what the result would be --I'm an amateur and have not graduated MIT--, simply I guess it would be roughly equivalent to an A-100 AWACS in certain respects, sufficient to detect 5th gen fighters at high BVR engagement ranges, especially if augmented by ferried sensor drone ring networks. Over the open ocean, I think 300km engagement ranges would be typical.
CVNs take weeks ingress, and weeks to egress; in the most abstract mechanics of maneuver-warfare on the strategic plane (speed * mass applies at scale, maneuver principles apply at scale), it is highly significant that equivalent (or substantially better) strike, airborne (in lieu of so-called "amphibious", even though large proportion of these operations are now helicopter-borne assault rather than LCS beach storming), &or air-superiority packages could be put into operation in hours. Equivalent 'mass' of force, but 10 times greater speed, offers to policy makers vastly expanded pallete of 'options'.
Persistence concerns addressed by a combination of tanker support enhancements and high-persistence aircraft designs, those that can stay aloft and on station far longer than traditionally.
WIG -- Wing-In-Ground amphibious platforms for heavy-troop assault, patrol, high-speed missile-carrying platforms. Soviets went far and this technology has great promise to wide range of applications, including surface naval combat. These are more audacious than the corvettes, but offer the same sensor and weapons loadout with far greater speed, yielding better survivability and maneuver-warfare potential. Depending on amphibious properties, these may be the future of the small-node / small-craft doctrine. For carrying heavy payload (mechanised units) over oceans, they have unmatched speed/payload potential of any competing tech out there.
Keegan may have been partly wrong to judge the surface ship totally obsolete. They offer a highly persistent platform with ample surveillance and strike caps over a wide region. Paraphrasing, we could say the maxim in modern war-planning is to make the nodes of our combat networks as small as possible but no smaller. What do I mean ? Well, it depends on the weapon and sensor requirements; for the Kalibr a little boat is okay, even a bomber. For an S-500 battery and a radar system capable of theatre aerospace missile defence one might require a Leader class, or maybe the Gorschkov platform would be sufficient.
The light-carrier concept renaissance (Wasp, America) I consider a weak, though esthetically seductive option. It has the advantage that all the technology is worked out, and in Tier-2 conflict types (Falklands classic example) it can show high utility, but in contemporary terms, a country capable of first-class engineering will yield better return on investment with the more techically adventurous path outlined above. Airborne troops, strategic air force, heavy air-superiority fighters, ample tanker support, high-persistence drone networks, heavy transports, maybe WIG amphibious transports and missile-boats. When an 'airhead' (airborne equivalent of beachhead) is established, helos and light frontal aviation can be brought in, for all the advantages they confer, but at least in initial assault stages of prospective strategic airborne assault, heavy crafts can perform CAS and frontal interdiction duties with precision short-range weapons. For countries that cannot afford the investment --financially or in terms of technical resources, the light-carrier represents a good balanced option. Neither the USA nor Russia I would put in that category. Both would benefit from dropping the CVN concept into historical memory and proceeding apace putting the majority of their blue-water chips into aerospace and submarine forces, with surface combatants like Gorschkov and Leader conceived more as peacetime sentinels, valuable as intelligence/sensor nodes, valuable as missile platforms in the opening stages of a Tier-1 conflict, but not expected to survive long. The newer corvettes option is cool, in the brown-water, riverine, home region operations of Russia, as well as a distributed blue-water attack network. I think in the long-run these should be supplanted by WIG amphib equivalents for persistent blue water patrols (carrying Kalibrs, Zirons), and supplanted by newer variants of the naval Tu-22 (or perhaps a naval strike Tu-160, or perhaps an as-yet unknown platform) for targeted strike combat operations. Consider, between the corvettes, the WIG, the Tu-22, they all can carry the same missiles, so what is the advantage of the corvette that makes up for reduced maneuver value ? Only persistence, and persistence is only relevant in peacetime anymore. If I can fly an aircraft around the world in some hours, it matters less that a ship is already on station out there somewhere. When it took weeks to get to that place, then it mattered. Now, not so much.
The paradox of the submarines is that while difficult to attack, they pose no threat to aircraft, and have very limited surveillance capabilities with respect to anything not in the water. Therefore, outside the boomers and land attack, if surface combatants are minimised by technological obsolescence, subs can only threaten merchant shipping, cannot have a major influence on naval battles that are primarily between aircraft. For this reason, I will put my amateur 2cents on Keegan's judgement, and say the future of naval warfare belongs to aircraft, period. Subs and surface-combatants will continue to be important, with critical roles, but the central players in any Tier-1 conflicts will be aerospace units. Over the oceans and in intercontinental force-projection situations it will be aerospace units that determine the outcome. For modern navies this indicates a culturally difficult but technically mandatory transition away from their familiars of millenia -- the boats and ships. The Soviet Navy was quite progressive in having an independent air-combat arm in the Backfires; this is a tradition to renew, strengthen, and run with.