Long-lived carriers return to a multipolar world

In this interpretation, the emerging order resembles the multipolar world before the First World War more closely than the post-Cold War system. That earlier order differed from the later interwar bloc structure: Britain remained first among unequal powers while several regional and aspiring global powers pursued their own interests. The United States had the potential to assume the world-policeman role after the First World War, but Senate funding priorities delayed the conversion of potential into deployable naval power. The carriers’ value appeared to rise and fall as political fashion shifted between seeing them as the apex of American power and as outdated symbols. Their underlying flexibility and mobility remained, even after the cancellation of nuclear strike cruisers and the loss of nuclear escorts. The visible absence of a carrier from a region can change allied and adversary behavior in a way that land bases do not always match.