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To conceive a ship that is longer than the Empire State Building is tall.

You know, 5,200 people live on board and when you're charged with their defense,

you know, that number actually means something more than just the something the size of a small city.

The United States has more aircraft carriers than any other country.

You can add up all the flat tops applying the seas for Russia, China, India, France, the UK, and Italy, and you get to about

half as many as the United States has out on the ocean.

So why don't more countries have more aircraft carriers?

Well, they're incredibly expensive to build and maintain, but it's more than that.

Launching and landing warplanes quickly and safely is hard.

I mean really hard.

This week on War College, we look at whether modern naval defenses are making all this hard work and hard cash go to waste.

You're listening to War College, a weekly discussion of a world in conflict focusing on the stories behind the front lines.

Here's your host, Jason Fields.

Hello and welcome to War College.

I'm Jason Fields with Reuters.

And I'm Matthew Galt with with Wars Boring. Today we're talking about probably

the prestige weapon of the world's oceans, the aircraft carrier. There aren't a lot of navies in the world that actually can even

...