@Ninja Bear : While the scenario you posit is the USAF wet dream, it is simply not happening.
1. Land based air is limited even if (and it is a very big if) "alliance" airbases are completely free and open to you. A lot of the oceans have empty spaces a good distance from land, this means lots of refueling for tactical aircraft to get to some naval target and get back. When you motor an aircraft carrier to a hot spot it comes with its battle group and supply train, unless you have units stationed at a lot more land bases than the USA ever had a significant presence at, this means deploying not only the planes and aircrew but also mechanics, armorers, medical personnel etc. AND all their tools and spare parts, and don't forget the weapons that may not be there and more fuel. Sure you can stockpile stuff all overt the place (like POMCUS) but this gets expensive, it needs to be maintained, etc.
2. Your plan has just ceded sea control to the enemy. Our alliance partners simply do not have the naval forces to protect shipping, whether moving troops and military supplies or "ordinary" civilian traffic (like oil tankers for example). Of course if any conflict means full out nuclear war, or no response, this does not matter. Submarines re useful but can't provide convoy escort, and certainly have no use in dealing with air/ASM attacks. In most instances land based air cannot do this - patrol aircraft (like P-3, P-8) are great for hunting subs, and some use against surface targets, they cannot intercept missiles carrying bombers nor can they have any shot at hitting an ASM after launch.
3. The Marines would be very unhappy with the idea that any amphibious assault would need to rely on land based air coming from many hundreds of miles away. This model simply does not work for CAS, something like Harriers from small carriers would be a minimum - but you have said only helicopters.
I could go on, but the reality is that we had the USN we had primarily because of the missions it was tasked to perform. Sure, pork barrel politics, interservice fighting etc had effects on force structure etc, BUT the general force structure was shaped by the missions the USN was tasked to perform. Very few people believe that "air power" can win a war through strategic bombing (unless you use nukes and winning means the enemy homeland is glowing green glass) without boots on the ground. The same applies for warfare at sea.