By air assault they meant sending in the 101 airborne in helicopters, for a rapid cordon and sweep operation backed up by Iraqi army troops.

Personal opinion,
The Tu-160, truly gorgeous but combined with pure power no fancy stealth stuff.

The B-2, the most capable, virtually impossible to find and you van argue with 80 JDAM’s

The B-52, The best record, I dread to think how many people its made dissapear.

If the Varyag is going to sea again I would suggest that it is at least a year probably 2 or more away, there are absolutely no sighns of any radar, weapons systems, or aircraft handling systems, it is still very likely this thing will become a tourist attraction.

The CdG can carry 40 aircraft including the E2C hawkeye, I remeber reading that the plan was for the CdG to be able to carry a max load of 36 Rafales and 3/4 AEW aircraft, whether the ship is capable of that now I dont know.
As a very general rule of thumb you can say that a carrier can often carry one aircraft for 1000tons of its displacement.
If you ask me the ability of the ADS to only carry 30 aircraft is telling of the relative inexperience that the designers have of producing such large carriers. I just hope that they have managed to fit in some Amphibious capbility and/or some heavy anti-air armament, remember the CdG carrys the Arabel radar and Aster-15.

Typhoon has already won, M1 unlikely to replaced or supplemented.

I assume that the US would cap the number of planes any one country could buy, you dont want another having more Raptors than you now do you.

A navalised Typhoon is possible, BAe says it can be done and it was one of the 3 original options studied for the CVF, it would just cost more than buying the Rafale M of the shelf.

errr Thatcher actually fought against the Keynseian model, it was that model of economics that virtually ruined the UK before the Thatcher reforms of the 1980’s. Elements are still in use in other parts of Europe and it is partly responsible holding the continent back.