Mick,
Easy - I took such exams before I was senile, and usually when sober.
Never post when drunk, especially when you're not used to it.
I meant Suez, of course, and then got mentally sidetracked.
With my arithmetic and your knowledge of defence we're a powerful combination.
Timex,
Don't make me go over Sierra Leone again, per-lease. (Carrier got there first because they held back the Jag squadron on the Azores, with basing permission for Dakar. And tell me again what weapons the Harrier brought to that fight? What was that again? Sudden aircraft noise?). As for Telic, it was quite possible without carriers, as Granby showed.
Bismarck,
You quote one example, I could quote plenty of others - the speed with which the Jags got on Granby, out to Italy for the Balkans stuff, and the lack of support required. Sierra Leone, if you like. And Typhoon could do it with an even leaner tail.
Whereas your CVS/CVF, SSN, AD destroyer, RFAs, oilers and the like take much longer, and cost far more.
Re the deterrent, in the post Cold War world, I'd have been happy seeing it as a secondary capability, split between some sub-launched Tomahawks and a nuclear-tipped Storm Shadow. Enough to deter, cheap enough to afford.
If the Navy want to provide the gold plated (and arguably less than nationally autonomous solution) than that's a Navy priority, and gold plated carriers as well seems a bit much.