Modern Significance
Today's aircraft carriers are so expensive that many nations risk significant political, economic, and military ramifications if one were lost, or even used in conflict. Observers have opined that modern anti-ship weapons systems, such as torpedoes and missiles, have made aircraft carriers obsolete as too vulnerable for modern combat. Nuclear weapons would threaten whole naval carrier groups in open generalised combat. On the other hand, the proven or threatening role of aircraft carriers has an undeniably modern place in asymmetric warfare, like the gunboat diplomacy of the past. Furthermore, aircraft carriers facilitate quick and precise projections of overwhelming military power into such local and regional conflicts.
Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, head of the Royal Navy, has said that "To put it simply, countries that aspire to strategic international influence have aircraft carriers".
Read more about this topic: Aircraft Carrier
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or significance:
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)
“It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)