Four or five flight decks are readiness arithmetic, not aggrandizement

Duffy's call for four or five carriers follows from availability rather than institutional ambition. The same arithmetic applies to a continuous ballistic-missile-submarine patrol, where several hulls are needed to guarantee that one is at sea. Five flight decks offer a practical chance of keeping two available for different roles, whereas a smaller fleet loses resilience during maintenance and refit. A recurring Far Eastern task group would add to the need for an Atlantic capability at the same time. A government cannot assume it will choose the date of a crisis or war, so force structure must survive inconvenient timing.