They do not have 12 carriers available at any given point. Check out how many are in rotation - meaning minus those being maintained and other needed in e.g Middle-east and Mediterranean.
- In war and an emergency, there's always the option to surge op tempo, this is nothing new. Even if lets say they could only deploy half, that's more than enough.
- I don't see anyone messing with the US in the Med or the ME, other than maybe Iran which is at best an annoyance, or the Russian fleet in Tartous, Syria which is also an annoyance
- Article V is still valid
Taking China's considerable head-start presently in regards to hyper-sonic-missles (they have far more the just a dozen) I would be surprised if the USA could even get a single carrier with a 1000km range of China.
I have already explain multiple times why the hypersonic hype should not be taken out of proportion, the main issue is targetting. You can read my opinion here
Can US carriers survive an all-out attack from China? The PLA can now use DF-21Ds to “attack ships, including aircraft carriers,” more than nine hundred miles away By DAVE MAKICHUK NOVEMBER 5, 2021 Can high-tech lasers, improved missiles, better radar and improved networking better protect US...
defencehub.live
Carriers are just one tools, China would be facing an attack from multiple directions and platforms, we're talking carrier based aviation, US own hypersonic missile, strat bombers flying from CONUS, US frontline aviation in Japan/Korea, cruise missile strike from US SSGN lurking somewhere near China, cruise missile strike from US destroyers all in one go and in a cooperative manner.
Just so you know China's principle long range aviation bombers the H-6N are actually closer to the P-8, China has not yet produce heavy hitting bombers like the B-52 or B-1 nor it had produced stealth bombers like the B-2.
A single B-1 could carry as much as 24 JASSM cruise missile in its internal belly alone, a flight of 8 divided in two four ship flight would throw 192 cruise missile at you before R2B to Alaska to refuel, re-arm and fly again doing the same thing, I don't think people appreciate just how much and how fast the US could deliver those firepower on target and in time. There are 45 B-1s in total.
"This B-1 left from home base, got a great training mission, and showed its capability for a 29-hour round-trip into the super-busy airspace around Japan where Chinese and Russian fighters routinely buzz the borders."
breakingdefense.com
On the naval front. Have you seen the disparity on US v China overall firepower ?
Compiling Asia Pacific naval balance BIG 7 Fleet count (active/commissioned) Country/Type USA People's Republic of China Japan Taiwan Australia Republic of Korea Canada CVN 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 CV 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 LHA/LHD 9 3 2 0 2 2 0 LPD 11 8 3 2 1 0 0...
defencehub.live
overall situation in the Pacific really doesn't favor China to do a military adventure at all.
(not even to mention CN subs) And the US carrier based aircrafts have no effect from a 1000km range.
- What with CN subs ? Do they have anything close to a Seawolf or Virginia ?
- If the CN subs are not hunted by US submarines tailing them, they would fall prey to the Poseidons
- Standoff munitions like the JASSM meant that fighter jets wont have to be close to a particular object of interest .ie target.
Places like Guam or e.g. Falklands or France Fiji are not included in NATO alliance issues - and Germany even if they wanted to, couldn't even get 30 Euro-fighters to fly.
Article V stress that an attack on ONE is an attack on ALL. Doesn't even matter if a US ship were to be attacked in international waters, it will be seen as an act of aggression towards a member of the pact and activate article V.