When Sembo — a toy firm based in south China’s Guangdong province — launched a model of the aircraft carrier “Shandong” in 2020, the company’s annual sales reportedly jumped 30%. “Based on online ...

If the primary goal of the US military is deterrence, aircraft carriers still perform that job well. It is one thing to have the ability to take down an aircraft carrier and quite another to do it.

A traditional carrier — not counting its wing of 30 to 90 manned aircraft such as the F-35C fighter — is formidably expensive: around $11 billion each for a 100,000-ton US Ford-class nuclear ...