US surface ships move beyond the carrier-escort role

Friedman's history identifies a late-twentieth-century change in US cruisers and destroyers from escorts toward capital ships in their own right. From the middle of the Second World War through the 1970s, their main task was protecting carriers, even as missiles and computers transformed their equipment. Carrier aircraft still outranged surface weapons and could attack targets far inland. Harpoon extended the older anti-ship function of guns and torpedoes but did not solve the land-attack problem. The passage defines strategic independence by what a ship can threaten, not simply by how modern its sensors and weapons appear.