The debate over the vulnerability of aircraft carriers has raged for decades, ever since their emergence in World War II as the ultimate naval warfighting platform.

“The aircraft carrier is vulnerable to gunfire, submarine attack, and air attack — and aircraft carriers have been sunk in this war by all three of these means,” Lt. Cmdr. John Collett wrote for the U.S. Naval Institute publication Proceedings in 1942, while still arguing its inherent advantages made the aircraft carrier “the most formidable surface ship” of its day.