Bah, I'm of the opinion that if the intelligence agencies were asleep at the wheel, that might well be an improvement.
But I do think that you're right in that the time of the frigate and aircraft carrier is over, and we'll all more likely to die either from a nuclear missile or from a 50 gram autonomous drone. I agree: the national security argument is hollow.
There are other reasons to build ships though, and some degree of self-sufficiency is always sensible.
Attack drones aren't that useful if the two countries are far apart. Consider the 12 Day War between Israel-Iran. Iran's Shahed drones weren't useful, because the slow travel speeds and the long distance meant that Israel could shoot them down at a leisurely pace while they closed the gap. So even their purpose as a saturation attack was not met.
But in the Ukraine-Russia war, Iran's Shahed drones, which are being manufactured by Russia with small adjustments, are proving useful, because they're close, so saturation attacks can actually work.
For the US's power projection into the Pacific, due to modern SIGINT capabilities, aircraft carriers with stealth bombers are even stronger than 20 years ago due to being able to put those JDAMs onto an actually valuable target. It's basically the power of Zeus, to kill whatever you want whenever you want, unlike in the Vietnam era where you have to carpet bomb everything.
Granted that my comment was an over-simplification. Israel did get use from reconnaissance Hermes drones in the 12 Day War, possibly launched from Azerbaijan, for another example to add to the list. But as a broad gesture I believe the sentiment is correct. Strategic depth shifts the utility from saturation with attack drones and SRBMs, like what Russia is doing to Ukraine, and what Iran couldn't replicate with MRBMs due to the distance ... to the classic F16 missile trucks to deliver JDAMs with F35s for SEAD.
But I do think that you're right in that the time of the frigate and aircraft carrier is over, and we'll all more likely to die either from a nuclear missile or from a 50 gram autonomous drone. I agree: the national security argument is hollow.
There are other reasons to build ships though, and some degree of self-sufficiency is always sensible.