The drone war takes place 24/7, 365 days a year. The war doesn't stop on Christmas. It's like being a fireman when there's a fire every single day, day after day after day. That's emotionally and physically taxing.

It's very clear that there are greater threats to these ships since, arguably, World War II. There are new technologies that can now reach them and make them harder to defend, such as anti-ship missiles, combined with space based tracking. The bigger issue, though, is who are gaining those capabilities. With what's going on with China and Russia, we are returning to geopolitical state-by-state competition. The Navy has not had to fight a peer for control of the sea since the Battle of Midway 75 years ago.

What one Predator drone pilot described of his experience fighting in the Iraq war while never leaving Nevada: 'You're going to war for 12 hours, shooting weapons at targets, directing kills on enemy combatants. Then you get in the car and you drive home, and within 20 minutes you're sitting at the dinner table talking to your kids about their homework.'

The problem is not just the cost of the ships, but that the swapping was supposed to be quick, but right now it can take days or weeks, which is more like traditional refitting. But the model of modularity and being able to take on different roles is a good one. This is where adding in unmanned systems in the future will be an aid. If they can carry them onboard, whether it be drones to mine or sub-hunting underwater systems, all ships should be able to do such multiple roles simultaneously.

Drons change the way politicians think about war. You already have society's barriers against war dropping, and now you have a technology that takes the barriers to the ground. We can carry it out without having to deal with some of the consequences of sending our sons and daughters into harm's way.

China is working on a similar system for its future carriers. Donald Trump may want to go back to 1920s-level technology, but the rest of the world isn't.

It is utterly inappropriate for the president Donald Trump to be weighing in the design and acquisitions process of carrier ships at this level. Had a Democratic president done this kind of micromanagement, all the more so in public, Republican defense wonks would have been apoplectic. Instead ... crickets.