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Size matters Big ships are latest sign of global power

The Guardian

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November 08, 2025

In port, the 80,000 tonne 300-metre-long Fujian aircraft carrier would be impossible to miss.

- Dan Sabbagh

Size matters Big ships are latest sign of global power

Yet for all the great power projection of the new £5.4bn super vessel, nearly 5,000 miles away from its home port another conflict appears to suggest size may not matter. In the Black Sea, Ukraine's extraordinary military achievement has been to inflict a "functional defeat" on Russia's naval fleet using swarms of skilfully targeted sea drones.

Yet in a new era of state competition, and in particular the growing rivalry between China and the US, aircraft carriers remain an attractive resource for projecting power and conducting harderedged diplomacy. This is why the US president, Donald Trump, ordered the USS Gerald R Ford - the world's largest and most expensive warship at $12.8bn (£9.7bn) - to sail to Venezuela to intimidate the country's regime.

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