Strange because I would imagine having amphibs in the fleet would be as (if not more) important to our current geopolitical situation than having the large and expensive CVNs. You can land quick response forces and have air support for small-scale operations with the amphibs, while having the CVNs requires a much more cumbersome operation, including the lack of a direct landing capability. It seems like we'd have more use for amphibs than we currently do for the larger carriers.
Has anyone ever tried to come up with a way for assessing the necessity and/or long-term historical effectiveness of deterrence we achieve by retaining CVN-size assets in the large numbers we do across all of the services?