A “hot war” will start and end quickly. There probably won’t be time to send a CVN in. I guess what I worry about is that we may have some carriers unwittingly drawn into an area that suddenly erupts. That is a good probability considering our current leadership that’s left over from the last 8 years.
So what? They sink/damage one carrier and we destroy their Navy. A surprise attack is always a possibility. Like I said so what? You are not addressing the correct issue. The problem is not having CVNs, the real problem is do we, as a nation, have an industrial infrastructure capable of quickly repairing/building CVNs in a hot war scenario? I say the answer to that is a resounding no.