Oh yeah, they're here to stay, but how effective are they though? China for example has developed ballistic missiles they say are capable of hitting aircraft carriers from thousands of kilometers away. The biggest issue for such a system would be finding and hitting the intended target, but once these issues are solved I just don't see what good aircraft carriers would do against technologically advanced nations.
A long range ballistic missile would be easy to track and take down, if we can land a rocket on a fast flying rock in space in 3 dimensions calculating exactly where it will be in ten years to the minute (and with tech ten years old of course), and we can blow the door off a bunker from 3000 miles away, then targeting a carrier is not exactly going to be taxing - its hitting it that is.
Technological advances in attack and mitigated by the same in defense. Carriers in WW2 were at the mercy of Kamikaze pilots because they could out manoeuvrome and come in under the big guns, and were moving too fast and were too heavy for small arms fire to stop the impact. These days they would be blown from the sky before the pilot could even visually confirm they presence. Things change, new risk come and new ways to mitigate follow. Even more so these days, with DOD markets, companies are thinking ahead to possible inventions and mitigating against them too, rather than reacting. There is a lot of money involved, and the competition is fierce.
Long range missiles and drones have a role to play, but neither can mount ground offensives, captures or evacuations/extractions for this we need troops and support. Countries also have defense systems: long range attack works against countries like Iraq, but not so well against ultra modern countries who have developed defense system throughout and since the cold war for just such attacks.
