'...an island nation such as Britain goes to sea as a matter of course, a continental nation with long and contentious land borders -such as China- goes to sea as a luxury.' 600 Ship Navy
China hasn't gone to sea like this since the early 15th century, when the Ming Dynasty explorer Zheng sailed his
fleets as far as the Horn of Africa...
Chinese Navy
Robert Kaplan (WaPo):
China has the world's second-largest naval service, after only the United States.
Rather than purchase warships across the board, it is developing niche capacities in sub-surface warfare and missile technology designed to hit moving targets at sea.
At some point, the U.S. Navy is likely to be denied unimpeded access to the waters off East Asia...
China's 66 submarines constitute roughly twice as many warships as the entire British Royal Navy.
If China expands its submarine fleet to 78 by 2020 as planned, it would be on par with the U.S. Navy's undersea fleet in quantity, if not in quality.
If our economy remains wobbly while China's continues to rise
-China's defense budget is growing nearly 10 percent annually- this will have repercussions for each nation's sea power.
And with 90 percent of commercial goods worldwide still transported by ship, sea control is critical...
-China's defense budget is growing nearly 10 percent annually- this will have repercussions for each nation's sea power.
And with 90 percent of commercial goods worldwide still transported by ship, sea control is critical...
Note that the South China Sea the Chinese Navy initially seeks to dominate sees about a third of all the maritime traffic in the entire world, and is the route by which Japan receives half her imported petroleum/gas.
Ronald Reagan famously proposed -and went a long ways towards building- a '600 ship navy' to confront and defeat a declining Soviet power in the 1980s. Now -under Barack Obama's watch- the Navy has been stripped-down to a bare-minimum requirement of 313 ships while facing a rapidly emerging communist Chinese adversary (on top of everything else). In reality, the US Navy today has only 286 units currently fit for operation anyway- well below that stated necessity.
Defense analysts see China becoming not just a larger regional player by 2020, but able to project power overseas by landing amphibious forces 'far from China'... the same kind of capability we ourselves are losing through a shrinking US fleet.
In the wake of over $500B in defense cuts proposed by this administration, small wonder some see a president who's primary intent is to liquidate US military power as yet another element of an astonishingly radical, anti-American agenda.
Defense cuts as coveted by this dangerous fool would surely bring our fleet far below what's needed to defend the United States' overseas trade/interests, and particularly damaging the military's amphibious assault capability... you know, the one that won WWII and upon which the Marines depend heavily.
And it's not just the Chinese Navy we need to keep an eye on: along with aggressive Arctic claims made by the Putin regime, the Kremlin is building boats too- the Russian Navy is now placing into service the first of their all-new Graney class nuclear-powered attack submarines. These craft launch a variety of long-range cruise missiles (3,000+ miles) with conventional or nuclear warheads while capable of engaging enemy (that's us) submarines, surface ships and land-based targets with 24 cruise missiles and eight torpedo launchers, not to mention mines and anti-ship missiles. Graney Class
Of course these will be replacing -and are far superior to- Soviet-developed Akula class predecessors... the kind of Russian front-line attack submarines seen testing our defenses (and weak leadership) right off the US East Coast a couple years ago.
Yet the incoming Republican administration will have a unique opportunity: a clean slate upon to rebuild our forces for the new century, as there will be few weapons programs commitments inherited from Obungles, after all...
Defense analysts see China becoming not just a larger regional player by 2020, but able to project power overseas by landing amphibious forces 'far from China'... the same kind of capability we ourselves are losing through a shrinking US fleet.
In the wake of over $500B in defense cuts proposed by this administration, small wonder some see a president who's primary intent is to liquidate US military power as yet another element of an astonishingly radical, anti-American agenda.
And it's not just the Chinese Navy we need to keep an eye on: along with aggressive Arctic claims made by the Putin regime, the Kremlin is building boats too- the Russian Navy is now placing into service the first of their all-new Graney class nuclear-powered attack submarines. These craft launch a variety of long-range cruise missiles (3,000+ miles) with conventional or nuclear warheads while capable of engaging enemy (that's us) submarines, surface ships and land-based targets with 24 cruise missiles and eight torpedo launchers, not to mention mines and anti-ship missiles. Graney Class
Of course these will be replacing -and are far superior to- Soviet-developed Akula class predecessors... the kind of Russian front-line attack submarines seen testing our defenses (and weak leadership) right off the US East Coast a couple years ago.
Yet the incoming Republican administration will have a unique opportunity: a clean slate upon to rebuild our forces for the new century, as there will be few weapons programs commitments inherited from Obungles, after all...
Hello, GOP presidential hopefuls-
anybody going to talk about defense?
