The Case For Small Carriers

The time has come, according to Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD):

“I think we need to have a working group that's involved in a more deliberate consideration” of the issue of reducing the size of traditional aircraft carriers to enable procurement of more vessels that may be smaller, but can be distributed across the globe, House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee Chairman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) said...The issue of building smaller carriers has emerged periodically over the last few years, with the most recent instance coming last year when OFT, under the leadership of then-director Arthur Cebrowski released an Alternative Fleet Architecture Design study, which proposed building smaller warships and aircraft carriers to distribute Navy assets more widely across the seas.
Shrinking an aircraft carrier was also considered as part of an analysis of alternatives conducted in the late 90s before efforts to develop the Navy's next-generations carrier, CVN-21.
Bartlett believes it is time to revisit the issue because the increased used of precision guided weapons that raise the probability of destroying a target, may be reducing the need for carriers that in the past launched multiple planes to ensure a hit.
“I've been asking the question, with the vastly improved capabilities and weapons today, why do we need a carrier that is larger than the minimum size necessary to launch and retrieve a plane,” Bartlett said.

It seems the main reason for continued production of the large deck carrier is to keep jobs in certain Congressmen's districts, rather than for national security reasons. Yet, warfare has passed these vessles by.

Murdoc has more with comments.