The best way to create cost overruns in any military acquisition is to change course midstream. That is exactly what Donald Trump wants to do here.

We are not getting rid of carriers any time soon. This is both because of their utility and also because of their role in Navy culture and in the defense-industrial complex. It is an academic debate.

I do think we are seeing the definition of what is a carrier changing. You can turn America-class amphibious assault ships into smaller, less expensive versions of carriers. You can equip surface ships like destroyers as well as submarines with not just missiles and torpedoes but drones than can do roles traditionally performed by carrier aircraft, like surveillance or even strike, such as finding and taking out opponents' missile batteries.

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.

When a robot dies, you don't have to write a letter to its mother.

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.

The best way to create cost overruns in any military acquisition is to change course midstream. That is exactly what Donald Trump wants to do here.