The offensive weaponry is becoming smaller, more stealthy and more lethal. As you say it will not be with a solitary missile or even on weapon system that surface ships will be attacked.Imagine a Chinese junior officer behind a console with a joystick in hand directing a flock of stealthy “seagull drones”, launched by a submarine based cruise missile 1000 miles away from a detected target, each less than 18 inches and packed with C4 plastique.
Frankly an ethical senior Admiral will have a dilemma ordering young people to crew those ships.
“Imagine a Chinese junior officer behind a console with a joystick in hand directing a flock of stealthy “seagull drones”, launched by a submarine based cruise missile 1000 miles away from a detected target, each less than 18 inches and packed with C4 plastique.”
That is exactly what I am imagining. There will be no such thing as complete control the battle’s air space. Even Humas and Hezbollah are using drones now. (Hezbollah has also deployed Silkworm missiles from the shores of Lebanon.) One of the reasons the US Army has wanted to move away from the Abrams tank is the logistics train is hugely vulnerable to exactly the attack you describe. A mile of so behind the tanks are two lines of tanker trucks; one coming, and one going. They are soft targets and killing them, which is easy, is the same as killing the tanks. Without fuel they are suddenly a gun platform that is too hot to sit inside and operate.