Robots are emotionless, so they don't get upset if their buddy is killed, they don't commit crimes of rage and revenge. But ... they see an 80-year-old grandmother in a wheelchair the same way they see a T80 tank; they're both just a series of zeros and ones.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.