Designed to project power and maintain presence, LHA-Replacement (LHA-R, aka. LH-X and now the America Class) large deck amphibious assault ships will replace the LHA-1 Tarawa Class. They’re based on the more modern LHD Wasp Class design, but initial ships will remove the LHD’s landing craft and well deck. While its LHA/LHD predecessors were amphibious assault ships with a secondary aviation element, it’s fair to describe the LHA-Rs as escort carriers with a secondary amphibious assault role.
Good. I worry about the survivability of our big carriers in a world of persistent surveillance and widely deployed long-range, precision weapons. Although I still worry about whether even ships this size are too big and we'd be better off with smaller but more numerous ships.
The Marine Corps abandonment of the very expensive EFV, designed to carry Marines from ships over the horizon quickly through potential enemy missiles (and the ships are over the horizon because of bigger missiles that might target them) is the other part of this story. It's nice to have the capacity to land Marines against resistance, so enemy's will worry. And you never know when you might really need that capability. But it isn't that likely. So I'd guess the marines get refurbished AAVs for the primary amphibious landing role and Stryker-like wheeled vehicles that can swim to shore and move long distance on land to fight. I've long thought two vehicles are better than one super-expensive all-purpose vehicle. Strategypage discusses the EFV replacement issue here.
So Marines will be able fight inland and land from the sea--usually against no opposition; and the Navy will build ships that can land Marines--but will be better able to launch strike aircraft against enemy fleets or shore targets. That seems about right. China's rising air and naval power means that we are less likely to send Marines charging ashore against them and more likely to need more decks to launch fighters and strike aircraft (naval versions of the F-35).
UPDATE: Note that our participation in the Libya operations highlights the role our amphibious warfare ships will play. We have been launching Harriers to conduct air strikes against loyalist targets rather than landing Marines. The crisis never rose to the level of justifying the presence of one of our super carriers, apparently, but we still wanted naval air. So our stealth carriers reveal themselves in combat.
