The world’s largest navies by tonnage(2020):
United States (3,415,893)
Russia (845,730)
China (708,886)
Japan (413,800)
United Kingdom (367,850)
France (319,195)
India (317,725)
South Korea (178,710)
Italy (173,549)
Taiwan (151,662)
They are along with Russia. But they can't challange the U.S. directly not now or as long as their soldiers can not think on their own.China will be a superpower with its vast wealth, population, manufacturing / exports, resources, stolen technologies from various advanced countries, necessary minerals from Afghanistan for advanced battery manufacturing, etc.... , etc.....
They are along with Russia. But they can't challange the U.S. directly not now or as long as their soldiers can not think on their own.
Our training is superior also. But again..I am not worried at the age of 75.
I have though said in the past and still maintain..the U.S Carrier is the WWII. Battleship. It has a big bullseye on it and they exist to get the Navy money to have more assets. Its partially competition with the other branches. We can do anything we need via land bases or Virginia class subs that can carry 65 Tomahawks, needs 2% of the sailers, needs no escort and is almost impossible to track.
Anyone that can't see this needs to take a couple of logic courses.
Floating targets.
The reason this matters is that it's a massive show of force. I fully expect China will take Taiwan in the near term. China has become very powerful economically and militarily, and influential. Japan is probably also in harms way, as China has not forgotten WWII.
I've read article after article about this and I just don't see it. They should have already done it before we began our pivot. While it would be embarrassing and humiliating for all involved, I truly hope that it's a bloodless event. If China buzzes the island constantly with aircraft, blockades them by sea, and launches cyber strikes there may not be room for an actual fight. Civilians may make the decision before it comes to that...or so I hope. If they (and possibly we on a very limited scale) go to war, there are again a few options that I'm sure smarter people than I are writing and modifying CAP's for weekly. Who knows how China will react if we show even a modicum of support for Taiwan and Taiwain plays the hard-line. How long would they need to survive before China slinks away with its (large) tail between its legs. Would they be willing to endure massive casualties should the Taiwanese dig in and fight them to the death, Japan WW2 style? I honestly don't want to find out. I'd rather just watch movies about it. I wonder why we haven't seen a movie about China vs Taiwan.... lol
What branch of the military were you in?I'd argue that you don't need soldiers to think for themselves if you've got enough of them. All you need them to be is well equipped and equally PATRIOTIC.
The US's ability to project force across many miles of open ocean, then appear out of nowhere, with no bases nearby, was next-level stuff during WW2. If you mean to say that the carrier is today as the battleship was during WW2, then I'd sort of agree with you. We still need a landing platform and the ability to dominate the skies. You cannot win a war with subs only.
What the next step-change in warfare will be is yet to be determined. As you point out, carriers are extremely vulnerable and extremely valuable. We're willing to sacrifice an entire strike group to save the carrier and let it limp home. Could the next step-change in naval warfare be hyper-sonic ship-to-ship missiles, drones, or some completely new platform?
Speaking of subs, while Japan and we did take a while to utilize them to their fullest capability in WW2, we did eventually come to understand how to effectively blockade Japan until its last day by sinking the vast majority of it merchant marine. Japan too turned to commerce raiding, but maybe too late. They initially wanted their main fleet-on-fleet battle that was supposed to decide the fate of the war. That didn't work out very well for them.
Going forward the submarine fleet will decide who owns the Pacific and areas around SE Asia. People can't SEE submarines, though. We need a large surface fleet to say, "here's WHAT you can see," with enough submarines so that any enemy thinks long and hard about what they cannot see that might pop right up and let hell loose in their back yard.
Unless they're specifically designed to sink...
I've read article after article about this and I just don't see it. They should have already done it before we began our pivot. While it would be embarrassing and humiliating for all involved, I truly hope that it's a bloodless event. If China buzzes the island constantly with aircraft, blockades them by sea, and launches cyber strikes there may not be room for an actual fight. Civilians may make the decision before it comes to that...or so I hope. If they (and possibly we on a very limited scale) go to war, there are again a few options that I'm sure smarter people than I are writing and modifying CAP's for weekly. Who knows how China will react if we show even a modicum of support for Taiwan and Taiwain plays the hard-line. How long would they need to survive before China slinks away with its (large) tail between its legs. Would they be willing to endure massive casualties should the Taiwanese dig in and fight them to the death, Japan WW2 style? I honestly don't want to find out. I'd rather just watch movies about it. I wonder why we haven't seen a movie about China vs Taiwan.... lol
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China has always been this mystery. Despite their size and population, they've had a history of being exploited and taken advantage of. Their size is almost literally the only reason no one has ever wanted to try to colonize the whole darned thing. Why do that when they basically let everyone in the modern age walk all over them until relatively recently. Will they be the gentle giant they've claimed they'll be or is there building of artificial islands and posturing toward everyone in the South China Sea and farther into SE Asia showing their true intentions. Are they going to use their power for economic gain only or do they desire to overwhelm the world with a large and capable enough military to suit?
One final thought: war is an extension of diplomacy; it's a tool used as a last resort when words fail. I think we sometimes forget that, especially if it doesn't involve our own blood and treasure being spent. It's easy for us to sit back with our popcorn and watch others go at it with some sort of perverse glee. I'm sure others have taken pleasure in the letting of our blood in places like Afghanistan. Except for dire need, I really wish our politicians would receive a crash course and military history (focusing mainly on our losses - people, not just things) before deciding to sent our troops in harm's way. Make it gruesome like the driver's ed videos of yore. Furthermore, make it so that these same people can be held accountable if it's found that they intentionally misled us. I'll get off my soap box now.
I haven't proof-read the above (I've got to get some dinner) so hopefully some of it was at least a little coherent. Great conversation!
I've read article after article about this and I just don't see it. They should have already done it before we began our pivot. While it would be embarrassing and humiliating for all involved, I truly hope that it's a bloodless event. If China buzzes the island constantly with aircraft, blockades them by sea, and launches cyber strikes there may not be room for an actual fight. Civilians may make the decision before it comes to that...or so I hope. If they (and possibly we on a very limited scale) go to war, there are again a few options that I'm sure smarter people than I are writing and modifying CAP's for weekly. Who knows how China will react if we show even a modicum of support for Taiwan and Taiwain plays the hard-line. How long would they need to survive before China slinks away with its (large) tail between its legs. Would they be willing to endure massive casualties should the Taiwanese dig in and fight them to the death, Japan WW2 style? I honestly don't want to find out. I'd rather just watch movies about it. I wonder why we haven't seen a movie about China vs Taiwan.... lol
/
China has always been this mystery. Despite their size and population, they've had a history of being exploited and taken advantage of. Their size is almost literally the only reason no one has ever wanted to try to colonize the whole darned thing. Why do that when they basically let everyone in the modern age walk all over them until relatively recently. Will they be the gentle giant they've claimed they'll be or is there building of artificial islands and posturing toward everyone in the South China Sea and farther into SE Asia showing their true intentions. Are they going to use their power for economic gain only or do they desire to overwhelm the world with a large and capable enough military to suit?
One final thought: war is an extension of diplomacy; it's a tool used as a last resort when words fail. I think we sometimes forget that, especially if it doesn't involve our own blood and treasure being spent. It's easy for us to sit back with our popcorn and watch others go at it with some sort of perverse glee. I'm sure others have taken pleasure in the letting of our blood in places like Afghanistan. Except for dire need, I really wish our politicians would receive a crash course and military history (focusing mainly on our losses - people, not just things) before deciding to sent our troops in harm's way. Make it gruesome like the driver's ed videos of yore. Furthermore, make it so that these same people can be held accountable if it's found that they intentionally misled us. I'll get off my soap box now.
I haven't proof-read the above (I've got to get some dinner) so hopefully some of it was at least a little coherent. Great conversation!
Displays of force, military giant parades etc, are only for promotion of nationalism to the citizens. No one is doing that to say look at what we have, we are going to invade a country. If you are going to invade or prepare to fight an invader, you keep your secrets to yourself until it time to use them. In sports it is the same, you don’t announce your plays until during the game. Sort of obvious. It looks to me more chance PRC falls just like the Soviet Union. It seems impossible, just like it did for the Soviet Union, but it happened. People have the power. My turn to get off soap box.
They are along with Russia. But they can't challange the U.S. directly not now or as long as their soldiers can not think on their own.
Our training is superior also. But again..I am not worried at the age of 75.
I have though said in the past and still maintain..the U.S Carrier is the WWII. Battleship. It has a big bullseye on it and they exist to get the Navy money to have more assets. Its partially competition with the other branches. We can do anything we need via land bases or Virginia class subs that can carry 65 Tomahawks, needs 2% of the sailers, needs no escort and is almost impossible to track.
Anyone that can't see this needs to take a couple of logic courses.
What branch of the military were you in?
Saber rattling is the way to spark patriotism without actually the cost of a war (how Japanese and CCP China both leverage that conflict into patriotism). Small military conflicts is also a way to test the military's power to get rid of useless fat, or as a way to get rid of generals who were empire building (reassign their forces to someone else, force him to use his forces to fight the front line, etc, basically that's what the Chinese Vietnamese war was for)Part of the game is signals intelligence. The US does it to China all the time to try and gauge their electronic response. I'm pretty sure China is doing that to Taiwan every time they come near.
But in the end I don't really see the PRC doing anything rash. They'd be international pariahs. Saber rattling over islands in the South China Sea is one thing, but invading Taiwan would set back China because they sell stuff around the world, and Taiwan is extremely important to the world economy.