What Have Our Carriers Done For Us?

A reader recently posed a ‘what if’ type of scenario in which aviation had never attained ascendency in the Navy.  Inspired by that, I’d like to pose the question, what have our carriers done for us in modern times?
 
Here’s the reader’s comment and alternate history scenario: 
 

(Jjabatie April 8, 2023 at 7:56 AM) 

The second no-or minimal-carrier scenario would sprout from the historical Navy/Air Force fight surrounding the USS United States. In the alternate, not only is the new supercarrier torpedoed, but future ones are as well, when the Air Force achieves a much larger victory in their push for primacy with their bombers. Long range bombing is somehow pushed through and overwhelmingly accepted as the nations primary system of conventional and nuclear attack. The Navy is punished/penalized for the fight and loses a massive percentage of their funding. Most of the Essexs dont get upgrades, angled decks, etc. New jet aircraft development lags behind for the Navy, as they have neither the funding to stay current, nor the platforms capable of carrying them. It becomes circular, as later cries for supercarriers are countered by the lack of capable aircraft needing such a platform, and requests for new aircraft and ships are dismissed. The missile age solidifies the Air Forces budgetary grip, as they hold all the nuclear forces. They conspire with the Army to massively expand airlift capabilities, yet another way to deprive the Navy of a mission and funding, by claiming theyve replaced sealift. SSBNs do arrive, but  nearly a decade later than in actual history, again due to budgetary constraints and opposition to the need for a triad from the Air Force dominated Pentagon. SSGNs become the naval strike arm, and become the USNs most numerous platform. As the Vietnam era comes and goes, the Essexs start to age out. The handful of angled deck conversions have become CAS platforms, the unaltered ones, helicopter platforms to support Marine Corps operations- precursors to the LH platforms that eventually appear as the Navys newest, largest warships in the 70s...

 
Suppose we had gone down the path the reader postulates?  Suppose we had no significant carrier aviation component?  Or, posing the question in a different manner, what have we gained by having a fleet of modern carriers instead of a massively larger Air Force bomber/fighter inventory and capability? 
 
Well, let’s consider the historical events that involved modern carriers and see how they would have differed if we didn’t have carriers.  For this discussion, modern carriers are defined as those from the USS Forrestal (CV-59) on.
 
Vietnam War – While our carriers sat offshore and conducted daily bombing attacks, those attacks were ineffective in the overall conduct of the war.  I know this will offend many but the truth is that carrier aviation didn’t alter the course of the war or produce a definable achievement.  Alternatively, a much larger Air Force presence and capability could have accomplished the same thing.
 
Desert Storm – Carrier aircraft flew many sorties but did not materially affect the course of the war and could have easily been replaced by Air Force aircraft.
 
Kosovo War (1998-99) – NATO forces generated something on the order of 40,000 sorties and the carrier Roosevelt generated 3000 sorties – a minor role.
 
Afghanistan/Iraq – Carrier aviation was reduced to truck plinking and contributed little of value that an increased Air Force presence couldn’t have easily handled.
 
 
 
One notable contribution of carrier aviation was Operation El Dorado Canyon (1986).  Ironically, the Navy was not, originally planned to play a major role.  The strike was assigned to F-117 stealth aircraft but they were removed from the mission at the last moment due to security concerns.  Instead, Air Force F-111 and Navy A-6 Intruders flew the strike.  Even then, the Navy A-6 attack aircraft were unable to meet the mission requirements.  From Wiki,
 
Although the F-111s would be required to fly from distant bases, they were essential to mission success, because the eighteen A-6 available aboard USS Coral Sea (CV-43) and USS America (CV-66) could not carry enough bombs to simultaneously inflict the desired damage on the five targets selected.
 
It seems clear that there have been few tangible benefits from having a fleet of modern carriers.  Of course, the real question is not what have the carriers done but what could they do?  Many of the weapons and capabilities in our military have never or rarely been used and yet we find value in them for what they could do, if needed.  For example, our nuclear arsenal has not actually accomplished anything, never having been used in modern times, but we find it to be very valuable because of what it could do. 
 
Thus, the question becomes, what can our carriers do in the future that makes them worth the cost, as opposed to the carrier budget being routed to the Air Force, instead?
 
I see great value in carriers but only if they’re used correctly and, unfortunately, I see zero evidence that the Navy has any strategy for effectively utilizing carriers in combat.
 
It is fascinating to ponder what the Air Force could have done with all the Navy’s carrier and aircraft budget.  How many more bombers would we have?  How many more bases?  How many more types of aircraft?  How much more globally dispersed would the Air Force be?  And so on.
 
Note that I am not advocating eliminating carriers.  This is just a fantasy, speculative post although it offers the opportunity to assess how we’ve used (or misused) carrier aviation and what our proper position should be in the future.  It’s an open-ended post in the sense that I’m not offering any conclusion.  I leave it to you to draw your own conclusion and maybe share your thoughts in a comment.