Originally Posted by
rickair7777
USAF of course has their parochial interests. But they're also doctrinally responsible for providing the joint enterprise with support from the air domain, and CAS is one of those. Fair to say they've been striving for a Gentlemen's C- on that.
But counterair will reasonably be more important than CAS in the obvious PRC scenarios. Unless things go horribly wrong and really drag out...
Well, they are rebuilding the North Airfield at Tinian. Guam and Tinian are a lot more unsinkable than a CVN. And Tinian is experienced at launching nuclear strikes if it comes to that, albeit it's been 80 years.