Ok, I think much of what you write are high likelihood possibilities, though I think it also depends on a lot of assumptions:

> ike I don't see existing fleets being overhulled for enough power generation for sustained DE use.

Ford class carriers have two A1B reactors, each capable of delivering 125MW of electricity. I believe that should be enough to power quite capable DE weapons (or railguns) when/if such reach maturity. A task force of 4 carriers would have 1GW+ between them.

> Only realistic answer to saturation missile strikes is advanced interceptors...

Any place where you can cut the kill chain will do:- Prevent them from seeing you

- Stay out of reach

- Shoot down incoming missiles

- Cause them to miss

- Survive being hit.

> IMO fighter design ...

I agree with most of what you write about fighters/aircraft.

> Space infra is heading starlink

Satellites are relatively easy to shoot down, though. In a war where carriers are sunk, I think satellites would be fair game too. And with eyes in space, spotting ships can be hard, especially if the ships are stealthy (vs radar).

> long range bombers like B21/H20 and prompt global strike

Even these rely on in-flight refueling. While better missiles may make them capable of self defence over oceans, they are vulnerable over land, where adversaries may hide using the terrain.

> going strait for strategic targets on adversaries home front

Here I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Chaina and the US will not be able to knock out each other's infra with conventional weapons with any kind of speed, especially across continents. Air defences are too effective for that, and the targets too many and too resilient.

Only after a very prolonged campaign of SEAD/DEAD followed by large scale systematic bombing could that be done. History shows that this is extremely difficult, though. (Before WW2, a lot of people were saying exactly what you say here, that strategic bombing would be MAD, but that was far from the case.)

I simply don't see such a war go on for that long without nukes.

As it looks now, the next great war may be over Taiwan. The first stage of such a war would be the invasion itself (possibly after some period of SEAD). During the invasion, the US (+UK/Australia) would use carriers, subs and land based air (Japanese islands) to try to help Taiwan. Most combat would occur over the oceans. I'm sure the US navy is quite busy wargaming this already, including how close to Taiwan they could risk placing their carriers.

If the invasion fails, naval warfare would be less relevant. Taiwan would turn into a long term unsinkable US carrier.

If Taiwan falls, and the war doesn't end, there would be a period of naval warfare. The US would seek to force China to it's knees by blocking all trade. China would have to break such a blockade to defend their superpower status (they're highly dependent on ocean-going trade for almost everything). The US might still have access to bases in Japan, the Philipines and/or some other friendly nations in the area.

In this case, it would be China (and Japan) that would depend on being able to have their surface ships survive. Eventually, i believe China would be able to retain Taiwan, but if there is a multi year blockade followed by multi decade sanctions, China might well go back to being a 3rd world country. And if China should be able to break US control over the open oceans, maybe they would become the new hegemon. Or, given their recent aggressive tendencies, maybe it would unite a large coalition against them.