it is not that you can send an interceptor:

it is that your opposite dares to send its bombers to keep you company:

http://en.people.cn/n/2015/1030/c98649-8969377.html

The fact that additionally four F/A-18 fighter jets from the Carrier Air Wing Five were launched to escort the Russian bombers tells something.

It means that there could have been a situation in which ALL fighters had to be launched. If so, the carrier would have been NAKED, OPEN and DEFENSELESS.

This would not have needed to happen if the Ronald Reagan had another carrier to support it, such as the George Herbert Walker Bush.

However, it the Bush had to send all its fighter jets to escort its clutch of Russian bombers, this would mean that it too would then leave the Bush NAKED, OPEN and DEFENSELESS.

Which would mean . . . .