Just as WWII was a war of air power projected through the use of carriers, the next war will be one conducted with a different type of AIr power--the kind that doesn't need to land afterwards.
Like the Kamikaze waves off Okinawa the damage will be done by one-way airborne assets (and perhaps some surface/undersea assets as well), only the pilots will not be on board the airframes.
The fleet off Okinawa endured the attacks, at times hundreds of planes in waves, because there were over 1,600 ships involved in the invasion--multiples of the number of ships in our entire navy. Three hundred and thirty four ships were hit, thirty five were sunk.
At that damage rate, the entire US fleet could be looking for repairs or drydock, but consider that the fewer ships means more concentrated incoming threats, and fewer vessels to respond with defensive gestures, and the odds are that with sufficient arsenals, the ability to defend against concentrated fire by the enemy would be reduced, simply by systems being overwhelmed.
Subs have the benefit of stealth, but that is gone the moment they launch, unless that ordnance platform has an ability to loiter, launch, update targeting information and strike after the sub is out of the area..
