Why a carrier is more than a mobile airbase

The unusually long interval since the Falklands War matters because it remains the nearest recent case of carrier forces preparing for naval combat. Argentina's Veinticinco de Mayo did not launch on the decisive day, but its presence and the submarine threat still made this a fleet conflict rather than a one-sided air campaign. A carrier avoids some of the cost, political uncertainty, and physical capacity limits of overseas air bases such as Ascension Island. It brings aviation to the theatre while remaining a warship exposed to fleet combat.