Island Chains and Aircraft Carriers: Indo-Pacific Power Projection

Since the Cold War, the Indo-Pacific has been framed by imagined "island chains" and the aircraft carriers that move between them, turning geography into a battlefield of power projection. This book unpacks the strategic logic of the first, second, and emerging third island chains—from Japan and Taiwan through the Philippines and Guam to Micronesia—showing how these arcs of islands anchor U.S., Chinese, Indian, and regional naval plans. It explains how aircraft carriers, from U.S. supercarriers to China's Liaoning and India's Vikrant-class, act as mobile airfields that can strike, deter, or suddenly reshape the balance of power far from any home port. Drawing on military-technology history, open-source operational data, and documentary-style narrative, it traces patrolling carriers through the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the wider Pacific, linking concrete deployments to the politics of basing deals, island-chain containment, and anti-access threats. The focus is not on predicting war, but on making the geometry of power—how fleets loop around island chains and how carriers turn distance into leverage—intelligible and historically grounded.