Take the $23 billion dollars it takes to build the first Gerald R. Ford Carrier and invest that into various decentralized, independent, small technologies
A fleet of Sea Shadow type vessels and Air Independent Propulsion submarines combined with a good land-based air force would make life very difficult for carrier battle groups.
This isn't the scale I'm talking about. You don't need a fleet of $500 million USD submarines.
11 US aircraft carriers? 11 missiles. $100+Billion vs $15 Million. 30000 soldiers vs 0.
During the cold war this is the strategy that Russia took - let the US build expensive ships, they build [relatively] cheap missiles. The Chinese are doing the same with the Dong Feng missiles.
One missile won't get through. You don't encounter a carrier by itself--it has a combat air patrol, one or two Aegis cruisers, and two or three Aegis destroyers. Each Aegis system can track 100 targets at a time and launch countermeasures.
However, missiles do scale well. Even 1000 missiles will cost much less than the carrier and will almost certainly take it down.
Yes, but if China also built the fleet, then it would be in a position to project power farther from its shores. If all you wanted to do is keep the carrier group away from your own shore, then capable missiles would suffice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_ship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_212_submarine
A fleet of Sea Shadow type vessels and Air Independent Propulsion submarines combined with a good land-based air force would make life very difficult for carrier battle groups.