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You can buy satellite imaging.

Operationally, navies with carriers assume that opponents know where they are.

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Commercial image providers can delay their images. See for example https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260310-us-satellite-...: “American firm Planet Labs PBC on Tuesday said it now imposes a two-week delay for access to its satellite images of the Middle East because of the US-Israeli war against Iran.”
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Do you seriously think they were referring to commercial image providers when they mentioned nation-states being able to buy images/tracking?
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Yes. https://www.satellitetoday.com/imagery-and-sensing/2025/05/1...:

“BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole echoed “strong momentum” from international government customers, saying these governments want to move faster with commercial capabilities.

[…]

Motoyuki Arai, CEO of Japanese synthetic aperture radar (SAR) company Synspective said that he sees “huge demand” from the Japan Ministry of Defense

[…]

Speaking to commercial imagery’s role in Ukraine, Capella Space CEO Frank Backes said Ukraine showed the value of Earth Observation (EO) data from a military tactical perspective and not just an intelligence perspective — driven by speed of access.”

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Everyone who's a threat to the carrier can get that from an ally.

You can damage or sink an ordinary ship with a bombing, like what happened to the USS Cole, but a carrier will have a fleet escorting them.

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