As the Navy looks at shaking up its deployment patterns to become more responsive to world events and more unpredictable to adversaries, one key benefit may be more time available for high-end training closer to home.
I am totally in favor of that. During the post-Cold War world when sea control was assured and power projection was the norm, single carriers forward deployed were safe and useful.
Now we need our carriers on their A game for sea control. Massed carrier operations may be necessary. Keeping carriers closer to home to train together will also make surge deployments for a crisis or war more possible.
And, as I've noted in different circumstances, the article notes that training forward risks letting enemies learn too much about our training and capabilities.
Further, I'd add that forward deploying the carriers singly make them more vulnerable to an enemy's first strike while the carrier is forward and in range of the potential enemy that has the ability to challenge America for sea control. Which immediately shifts naval power in favor of the enemy which already had the capability to challenge us for sea control.
So there are two reasons not to rotate carriers forward: force protection and multiple carrier operations.
Perhaps we can move on to the issue of whether sea control should rely on aircraft carriers at all.
