My thought is that we have enough carriers. The Arleigh Burkes are not big enough. I believe we need to go up in tonnage to cruiser size,18,000 tons or so, nuclear fast and capable of either joint or independent tasks and with both missiles as well as traditional weapons. As a way to save money, get rid of the littoral ships. They are as useless as monitors came to be.
What mission requires 18,000 tons without a flight deck?
The Burke's come in at 10,000 tons...adequate to host 128 VLS tubes and all the supporting electronics, fuel and crew.
Unfortunately, there's only about 60 of them.
We are now in a situation where we cannot put enough platforms at sea. Much of the reason is that ships have the same tendency as cars...every year they get bigger.
The last Destroyer I went to sea on came in at about 4,000 tons. We need at least 100 net-new ships in that class to keep our presence in the world's sea lanes...which has kept America rich and free, and has also benefited the world as a whole.
As for the LCS, they are NOT useless. Do more research.
LCS-1, at $500mil and 3,500 tons is an ideal platform size to augment the Burkes and DDG battle groups.
OF COURSE they need a weapons upgrade, something the Navy said before the first keel was laid. But the "modular weapons package" is a good idea as they now have a Surface Warfare package with a more powerful gun and anti-ship missiles to go with their small, standard package of AA missiles.
They also have a range of 6,000NM and can get along at 40kts.
The ONLY shortcoming I can see is that have no land attack capability...but it was not a design parameter.
You can put 4 of them to sea for the cost of a single Burke.
And, I think you would agree, we have an urgent and pressing need to upgrade our sub fleet. In addition to a slight increase in the production rate for our standard SSN of the era (changes through time), we need at least 50 DE boats for the littorals...South China Sea, Persian Gulf, the Med.
Now for the carriers. While standard platforms are the backbone of Sea Control, NOTHING projects power like a CVN. That's why Navies the world over lust for them.
When one needs to slap the sh!t out of some dictator or Jihadi, nothing else comes close.
Many argue against the CVN as too vulnerable. And yes, it's a big ship, high visibility.
But the price for one is, and has always been...existential war. And who would take that risk against the USA?