Who can explain to this noob why the Navy has fighter jets? Because they are stuck on a ship in an ocean? Then why don't they collaborate with the Air Force with joint operations? The military is just so complex to me.
Because the Navy doesn't want a bunch of Air Force big-base boys using their carriers.......JK
Realistically, the naval environment, operating from carriers and in cohesion with naval movements and tactics pretty much means the Navy needs it's own pilots and own combat aircraft adapted to the conditions. A USAF pilot trying to land on a rocking carrier in sea swells at night would choke.
Aircraft carriers = power projection. For the USAF to do the same thing, we need allies who allow us to operate from air bases in their territories. The Soviet Union never had this capability in any real shape. Currently China is developing theirs, while some other countries like India are seeking to improve their stakes. "Helicopter" and assault carriers are pretty common amongst first-world nations, but require VSTOL aircraft like the Harrier and F-35 in order to have a fixed wing element.
Interestingly enough, the French are the only ones with a remotely comparable-to-US supercarrier of the CATOBAR variety and even nuclear powered (Charles De Gaulle). Brazil's Sao Paulo is an extremely old French Clemenceau-class carrier that only operates heavily modernized A-4 Skyhawks and S-2 Trackers. Here's to hoping they get the navalized Gripen NG. Russian and India currently only have ski-jump equipped carriers with arrested recovery, which puts a huge dent on how much weight their planes can realistically take off with.
The USAF-USN rivalry has hit some very hot points in the past, especially when it came to deployment of America's nuclear arms. Before Submarine-launched ballistic missiles became a thing, the USN was pushing for medium-ish nuke-armed bombers, on a new generation of carriers designed to handle them in the 1950s. The USAF claimed that America's nuclear arms were their dominion, and a bunch of disputes took place that designated the USAF as majority holders of aircraft-based and ICBM nuclear weapons. But the Navy was made proprietor of submarine launched ICBMs, arguably the most important and reliable part of the US's MAD policy.
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