>DE + Carriers

Carrier escorts do the defense. Escorts won't be nuclear, they'll have power plants for DE, but again that's replacing current DDGs with DDGX, which is decades a way. You can plop some DE on carriers themselves, but the issue is fires generation, the virtue of interceptors / missiles is you can engage multiple targets, i.e counter salvo with salvo. I'm doubtful entire CSG will have enough DE to engage 100s of incomings. A task force of 4 carriers operating together is... very risky/unlikely. I don't think DE is dead end, I just don't think it's a panacea in a naval environment.

>cut the kill chain will do

Context dependent, I can only evaluate with respect to PRC scenario within 1st/2nd island chain.

- Prevent from seeing, unlikely. Prior point about space infra is constellations trending towards 1,000s with persistent coverage, impossible to shoot them all down. The answer to ASAT vulnerability going forward is to spam them until it becomes infeasible / not economical to shoot down entire network before they can be used to counter strike.

- Stay out of reach unlikely, projected future naval air operation ranges are more or less locked in (inclusive of tanking), IRBMs will out range them, i.e. they can either stay away and maybe be safe but useless, or engage and be in danger.

- Shoot down, yes but matter of magazine depth/saturation, PRC will have more firepower bandwidth than multiple carrier groups can intercept. EW/missing is a big unknown though.

- Survive, IMO redundant, I think mostly assumed modern naval hulls will survive / keep floating due to advances in damage control, but being hit will likely end in mission kill.

There’s also considerations like PRC systems destruction warfare that targets US weak points like replenishment fleets that supply carrier groups, or tankers or AWACs. Just taking out a handful of fast combat support ships basically turns entire navy into single deployment assets - carrier groups have just days of endurance operating at high tempo, carriers can still sail on nuke power, but unlikely without escorts.

> long range bombers

They're also not panacea, but in lieu of regional basing, i.e. PRC doesn't have access near the US, and US basing near PRC is not survivable, they're decent platforms to penetrate and systematically take out enemy defense networks from more survivable homelands. Especially with a fleet of 100+. Mainly "cheap" global strike options, and probably largely something the US can exploit with a good pacific tanking network... assuming survivable. PRC H20 is mainly good for up to Hawaii, but there’s a lot of US mil infra in that range (i.e. all the shit in AU) that will substantially cripple US presence. For CONUS there’s ICBM/hypersonic for….

> home front strikes

Both sides are currently pursuing prompt/precise global strikes with ICBMs for a reason - 30 minutes to take out any global strategic infra that can be hit with 100M CEP. Which includes basically all power generation infra, refineries etc that are resilient, nor are ABM/defense currently feasible, especially at scale. No one has resources to ABM thousands of strategic nodes. WW2 strategic bombing failed at forcing capitulation but succeeded in breaking the war machine. No one thought it would be MAD, which was conceived post WW2 for nuclear brinkmanship. Besides DE/JP never had a chance to strategically bomb the US - it wasn't mutual. Modern global strikes are MAD, because it's mutual, and basically the escalation rung before going nuclear. It's good not to "see" such war as possible, because that's the point, mutual vulnerability = mutual deterrence. Question who is deterred more. In TW scenario, I would argue favours PRC, since they're willing to escalate further for TW.

On TW: island would never turn into an unsinkable US carrier because US assets are not survivable that close to PRC, or JP, or SKR in shooting war. PH and west AU are increasingly vulnerable as well. That’s both a PRC perk and curse of geography, anyone close enough to try to contain the PRC during peacetime is close enough to be turned into glass during war by foremost industrial power. Regardless, whatever happens in Taiwan theatre, I think a US blockade is also increasingly unlikely, due to aforementioned homeland vulnerability. Blockading (act of war) PRC energy/calories is going to be met with PRC running blockade, or countering with hitting US energy/calorie infra - US sustains 130 refineries for fossil + derivatives like fertilizer. The blockade only works when the US can unilaterally enforce with impunity, which is true for all adversaries for the last 100+ years due to geography, hence why I think global strike that opens CONUS vulnerability is the MOST tectonic and LIKELY strategic development. PRC doesn't need to build military to match US like for like, which would take decades, it needs to credibly threaten US homeland to deter fight in first place. When the US can't unilaterally threaten PRC existentially without being threatened existentially back, they lose a lot of leverage and deterrence. Large factor in the US being able to intervene abroad is homeland impunity. Conventional global strike removes that. Something the US didn't have to contend with for any of her adversaries since the revolutionary war, and even then the threat wasn't existential.

As for the PRC reverting to 3rd world country or coalition uniting against them. Not really possible, PRC export to the west bloc likely to sanction is like 10%... it's not nothing, but survivable. The fundamental reality is that PRC is not that trade dependent on the west anymore. Sanctioning PRC will hurt most sanctioners as much, it’s not nothing, but survivable. And as the RU/UKR war demonstrated, energy producers aren't siding with the west, they'll continue flowing oil and gas into the PRC, and PRC has enough domestic merchant shipping to be sanction proof. Meanwhile PRC calorie secure (including fertilizer that can be made by domestic coal gasification) with lots of other neutral ag producers for PRC to shift to - part of reason PRC imports stupid amounts of US is trade deal after all - while western ag will end up getting transhipped with a premium.