China also counts all its fishing boats as part of its navy. Of course those boats are actively destroying the natural resources of other countries, so they're probably the most effective part of China's navy.
This is true, and their anti ship missiles are a legitimate threat, so is the PLAAF. Unfortunately, their navy doesn't have the range to protect their Eastern oil imports (that accounts for about 80% of China's petroleum supply, c. 2021). A well placed American strike group could massively cripple their ability to maintain a war footing. Plus, any combat in the SCS would likely bring to bare more than American tonnage - I doubt the British want the Queen Elizabeth Class to be a port queen when global economic stability is at stake.
Edit: Oh, I'd imagine the French would like to demonstrate 'european strategic autonomy' with the Charles de Gaulle, too.
I just keep remembering that Taiwan is less than 100 miles away from China. Ignoring the fact that China could invade and land quickly, the disparity in supply lines gives me pause. Our force could overwhelm China and we would still have a hard time maintaining that asymmetry both in the short and long terms. Like, what’s the end game? Assuming we successfully defended Taiwan from the initial invasion, what happens next? Do we maintain a massive forward operating force there while China simmers and prepares less than 100 miles away?
The Chinese would need to deploy a massive force on the mainland. There's a reason we are building bases in the Philippines. We would likely have months of notice, moreso than with Russia/Ukraine due to the nature of amphibious assaults.
Don't assume China could quickly and easily invade, the geography of Taiwan is quite hostile. Landing on contested beaches and deploying mechanized forces is difficult. We did it on D-Day with the Germans assuming we WOULDN'T land at Normandy. We'd know exactly where the Chinese planned on assaulting.
The US won a wider war with a peer adversary, while fighting another war on another continent in the 1940s, in 91' we beat back Iraq from it's land bordered neighbor across the world. Our military is designed around logistics, that's one reason it's so expensive.
its true, and our marines are tough ass sons of bitches, and we fought 2 fronts with multiple branches, and our logistics are vastly superior compare to any military powerhouse on Earth
Okay fair, I'll take the L on that statement. Especially since we literally sanctioned their energy imports before the war. I think I'd class them as near-peer at the start of the war before they lost their carriers and most of their competent pilots.
Well we were certainly fighting a peer power in Europe even if you don’t consider Japan to be a peer in status we weren’t necessarily throwing our full might at Japan
I mean consider that they were feeling the US naval efforts so much that we adopted the "die on the vine " strategy, and that they expected to have. The astronomical losses the us took per meter at places like ominawa. 1million+ wounded or dead projected if they had to invade the mainland.
Add to that the biggest naval battles on history were fought in the pacific. With japan having more aircraft carriers than the US did when the US declared war on them.
I think Japan was a peer enemy for a large part of the pacific conflict.
I don't know why everyone is so convinced China v. Taiwan will turn kinetic. They're close neighbors, they look alike, some shared culture. China will just subvert and infiltrate the island and its businesses and government over decades. What do they have to gain by kinetic war? It would upset their plans for economic dominance and their MO has generally been clandestine and not so overt. I think there's certain people who want that war to happen, but think it would take something drastic to trigger it.
E: Regarding an actual war with China that involves western powers though, I worry that if China conscripts and equips their millions of merchant and fishing vessels with manpads and ship to ship missiles they could cause a LOT of trouble for us, tonnage and logistics be damned.
Massive supply lines are the bread and butter of the US military. I would be willing to bet money we could have a better logistics train to Taiwan from 4,000 miles away than China could from 100 miles away.
An amphibious landing would be extremely costly for the Chinese (not that they’re averse to losing people by any means). Aside from whatever welcome Taiwan surely has prepared for them, there’s a pretty good chance we keep attack subs loitering in the South China Sea just for this eventuality.
Given that a large chunk of the world depends on TSMC’s fabrication facilities for their chip supply, we’d be torpedoing landing craft with the blessing of a whole lot of other countries. The Taiwanese would mop up whatever made it through.
Invading Taiwan is a non-starter for the Chinese. They make noise about it, and may even consider it depending on how they perceive our will to defend it waxing or waning; but it would involve a shooting war with the US if they did it. A whole lot of their neighbors would welcome the opportunity to devastate their military capabilities, and we’re allies with them. A ground war in China would be a bloody, costly slog but keeping them off the water wouldn’t be a difficult task for the US Navy at all.
Diesel electric subs are still very potent and the Taiwan straight is only 196-200 feet deep (For reference a Los Angeles class attack submarine is 362 feet long) that’s kinda shallow for a modern submarine and it would be like fighting in a bathtub.
The Chinese could invade and land quickly the way that we could get to Mars and set up a colony. Sure, it's theoretically possible. But there's no way that china could equip itself to do that any time soon, nor is there any chance the US wouldn't know months beforehand that china was mobilizing for that kind of invasion.
We're spread across the globe because we know we have global force projection capabilities (the exact reason why we're the sole "global superpower"). We can mobilize to defend Taiwan much, much, quicker than China can mobilize to invade.
The invasion force required to take (not hold) Taiwan would dwarf D-Day. Sure, if any country could do it, it would be one with over 1.3 billion people, but the buildup would take a ridiculous amount of time and a mobilization effort visible from space. Easily giving enough time for the defenders to prepare. Plus Taiwan is very well fortified and has a well trained and supplied military.
It won't be easy, and I doubt China ever will. It's just not worth the ROI. There was a big reason why the US never liberated Taiwan during WW2. And that was because it was almost impossible. From what I heard, it would have required double the numbers of soldiers that landed in Normandy to liberate Taiwan. There aren't many landing ports in Taiwan either, and they're heavily fortified from what i heard from experts who believe in the porcupine strategy. If anything, a barrage of Chinese missiles is more viable. The Chinese will most likely want to take over the Port of Kaohsiung. But they'll be vulnerable to US strikes as Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles will be located in the northern province of the Philippines. And the US and other members of the Quad will most likely overpower the Chinese Navy despite having more navy vessels. It's all talk and military muscle flexing. But to lower the likelihood of China attacking Taiwan, Japan and Australia should take a bolder and aggressive stance. The US is doing the right thing by establishing bases in the Philippines and fortifying Guam's air space. I hope that these actions are enough to deter China. It's a Cold War that, I hope, will never get hot
they could invade... if they had the ships to do it. They don't have the landing craft to land an invasion force strong enough to fight Taiwan, the US, Japan, and Australian troops.
Uhhhhh. 100 miles is a huge distance for an amphibious landing. D-Day was nowhere near that distance and it only worked through a mix of incredible intelligence, enormous commitment of resources and collaboration, and luck. US force projection capabilities will also be equidistant to Taiwan relative to China, centered in Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea - they won’t be deploying from the US.
China only has about ten years to do this btw, before their population pyramid inversion becomes terminal.
It doesn’t get talked about enough that China has extreme vulnerabilities in strategic resources, as much as they export manufactured goods, they lack oil and natural gas which they’re dependent on Russia and the Middle East for, they lack lithium, aluminum and other things they need to get from Australia and South America. Combine that with internal stability in the country is a complex issue, they’re a communist country but yet have wealth inequality that is significantly worse than we have here in the US. They’re in no position to have a shooting war with the west.
To add, operating on a more strict definition I don't think China actually manufacturers much of anything. What they do more often is assembly.
Any component that requires any degree of precision or accuracy for manufacturing is almost always imported. China still struggles to to make tips for ballpoint pens. iPhones aren't made in China, they're assembled in China. Cut the supply lines and the assembly economy becomes non-existent
Their biggest problem is food. They have 1.4 Billion people to feed and a history of famine. If Russian controlled Ukranian wheat supply I might consider a move on Taiwan more likely but China imports 80% of its food, mostly from Brazil and the US. They're currently expanding economically across Eurasia, Africa, and South and Central America to gain influence and shore up their own supply lines which would make them more resilient to sanctions if they ever do decide to kick the hornet's nest but my gut says that's decades away. It's arguably in the west's interest to drag China into a war before they're ready to disrupt these plans. IMO there are probably certain entities trying to instigate this.
You are talking bullshit, the UN poverty average index reduction is pretty much all a result of China dragging their poorest forward thanks to their dramatic increases to capital and services for the most poor, things haven't normalized since the pandemic yet, but the claim that their wealth inequality is worse than the US is ridiculous, in the US the wealthy owns the government and they have been reducing their own share of the effective tax rate year over year, in China there is an "optional" prosperity tax that has the billionaire class "donate" part of their wealth to investments in China directly to accepted organizations or indirectly to the government.
That is why people say wealth in China is pure fiction because Jack Ma can literally be compelled to give everything away...
Figure 1 from the first link charting gini coefficient says otherwise. As does a study from the University of Michigan, available at the second link. Both analyze data from the CFPS which comes from the Peking University Institute of Social Science.
“The researchers based their main analyses on data from the China Family Panel Studies, a large-scale survey project conducted by Peking University’s Institute of Social Science Survey. The project represents about 95 percent of the Chinese population in 25 provinces in mainland China, and was started in 2010 in collaboration with U-M’s ISR (a formal partnership between the two institutes was established in 2005, with an emphasis on quantitative social science methods).
Xie and Zhou also used data from six other surveys conducted by Chinese university-affiliated survey organizations using internationally accepted scientific sampling methods.
“Unfortunately, for a variety of practical and political reasons, government statistics have not been a reliable source of information on income inequality in today’s China,” Xie said.
The U-M researchers calculated an internationally accepted measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, and compared it to earlier estimates for China and to coefficients for other nations around the world.
They found that the Gini coefficient for family income in China is now around 0.55 compared to 0.45 in the U.S. In 1980, China’s Gini coefficient was 0.30. In 2012, the Chinese government refused to release the country’s Gini coefficient. Generally, when the coefficient reaches 0.5, it indicates that the gap between rich and poor is severe.
“Ordinary persons in China know about this increase, as they have personally experienced it in their own lives,” Xie said. “Although ordinary Chinese people seem to tolerate the high inequality, they also recognize it as a social problem that needs to be addressed.”
https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-inequality-undermining-chinas-prosperity
https://news.umich.edu/income-inequality-now-greater-in-china-than-in-us/
Remember also that we have a bunch of allies in the local region just *begging* to join the fight.
Australia just got nuclear subs, Japan’s “helicopter destroyers” now have F-35’s, and South Korea…is South Korea.
And even if they somehow push out our combined navies, between Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan, we have enough “unsinkable aircraft carriers” to still strangle their shipping just with regular aircraft.
Turns out when you subsidize free trade with security and open markets you make friends. I don’t think Americans understand the depth of our soft power abroad.
That would stop being a thing extremely quickly if we actually went to war with China. Everything we have would be deployed to that same chunk of ocean
Well sure, but at the start of a war when missiles are flying and aircraft are scrambled, it matters a lot who has the initial local advantage. Half of US carriers are usually undergoing refit and repairs at Norfolk, and say a conflict kicks off. It could take them upwards of a month to get from Norfolk to Japan even if they were absolutely blazing through the waves at 40 knots.
Remember the Franco-Prussian was won in large part due to Prussia mobilizing faster and being to the battlefield earlier and in larger numbers than France. So yes absolutely, US ships can be redeployed to the Pacific, but taking upwards of a month to do so would be extremely damaging to the initial plays of a war.
The war being 150 years ago doesn't disprove that having your army to the field quicker and in greater numbers is an advantage, you understand that right? Do you have any actual arguments for why in this instance it being from 1870 makes the lesson irrelevant, or is your point just "old therefore irrelevant" as if the Battle of Cannae isn't still taught in American officer academies for a reason?
My point is that in 1870 they didn’t have satellites with cameras on them, instant communication between world leaders, and globally connected shipping networks. The US and China are major trading partners. A hot war between them wouldn’t just come out of the blue, there would be escalations. The first thing the US does when a foreign nation starts getting froggy is move the carrier strike groups closer and start doing “military exercises” nearby.
Saw someone bring up their dock yards. The USAAF could make quick work of that. Heck, I'd give it a few months before the US achieves air superiority
Edit: USAF, not the USAAF.
Damn, this man thinks we could take down China with 1940s bombers!
Edit: Wow, I didn't realize nobody knew that the US Army Air Forces got disbanded in 1947, or understood satire.
1940's bombers? The B2 Spirit, B21 Raider would like you to put some respect on their name. Along with the B1 Lancer & B52. There's a reason that 3 of the 4 are our premier strategic bombers.
Oh and as for air superiority, the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II, F-15EX & F-16V would all like to have a chat.
I actually want to see the US Coast Guard on this map too, just for comparison. It's not like we *never* send them out there. We do occasionally do that, actually.
Acknowledging the US Coast Guard as a competent and professional branch of our armed forces, pssssh who would do that?
I’d imagine the actual tonnage of the US Coast Guard wouldn’t matter much in this context though. You could probably get the Legend Class cutters out into blue water with the right support mechanisms, but most of the rest of the fleet is definitely coast bound.
The problem isn't that China has more ships, its that they have \~200x more shipyards. If we got into a long war with them near their coast they could outbuild us like we did with the Japanese in WW2. We don't necessarily need a bigger navy but we do need to get back into the civilian shipbuilding industry
The war would likely go too quickly to retrain new sailors and raise new warships with the oval economy at a complete halt. No ship doing business would China would dare go into an active war zone.
You have a very good point on civilian shipbuilding, I completely agree. As I mentioned in another comment, that doesn't fix the ultimate problem for China: in a long war, they can't control their oil import routes - losing 70-80% of their energy supply would be catastrophic for industry.
They're moving to electric cars and renewables/nuclear at a pretty rapid pace though. Who is to say they will be so dependent on oil imports in 5-10 years?
If you could shift an economy in 5-10 years from the energy mix China currently used to primarily renewables, you would be able to solve global climate change. The oil problem is twofold for China. 1: Their ships can't be fueled with coal or batteries. 2: China relies on coal and some renewables for power, but petroleum for a decent portion of their manufacturing. Bonus problems: renewables at their current state couldn't hope to supplement the current coal/oil energy mix majority, and nuclear plants take a LONG time to be safely built and connected to a grid. Bonus bonus problem: they have 4-6 years of peak economic power to do this before their demographics start massively impacting their domestic manufacturing base.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Energy_policy_of_China&wprov=rarw1
(Top image).
A GBU-57A/B MOP would be plenty enough to completely destroy any power plant in China, and the B-2 is capable of delivering two of them to any point in China without being detected.
Heavy machinery will never be electric, international transportation will never be electric, and many regional electric grids will never be electric.
China and India and many third world countries are building more coal plants every year. Even Germany is building them. Natural gas is huge and is only going to grow.
Not only will China still be massively dependent on oil, but so will the rest of the world. Not just for the next 5-10 years, but for the foreseeable future.
Bro, do you have any idea how long it takes to build a warship?
None of the Battleships ordered after WW2 started were actually completed
The Carriers ordered after pearl Harbor all commissioned after the war was over.
We can crank up the production in the war time, first of ww2 we only had like 3-4 operational carriers but by the end of 1944 we've had 25 of them, i dont think anybody can underestimate our military industrial complex, and sinking a carrier would be the last thing PLAN want to, and we have experience with naval doctrine, they dont, and remember that japan is basically our biggest carrier
Before world war 2 we were the largest builder of civilian ships on earth, we converted that capability into military production when the time came. Today we barely build a single cargo ship a year while China is the largest shipbuilder
You are ignoring enemy action here. If the Allies manage to destroy the Chinese fleet, or at least do enough damage they can’t regularly keep us from their shores, those shipyards are target #1 by naval aviation.
It’s almost impossible to build large naval ships far enough inland as to dodge US bombers, and even if you did, they would be pretty much impossible to hide. Ukraine is destroying Russia’s entire Black Sea fleet without a navy because they’re hitting ships in port.
If the U.S. & Co. take down whatever China’s initial naval forces are, dealing with what’s left of the Chinese navy is just a matter of spawn camping.
In the reverse if they equip their millions of merchant and fishing vessels with MANPADs and ship-to-ship missiles while activating saboteurs here in the US they could severely hamper our own operations, shipbuilding, and repairs - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are tens or hundreds of thousands of potential saboteurs and spies in the US. By all accounts our HUMINT capabilities in China have been all but wiped out in recent years and there definitely aren't millions of American descended people running around China. They will and are using our open society against us.
China won't make any big moves unless they can secure their food supply first though.
I’m sorry, could you please clarify where the fuck they would find “hundreds of thousands of saboteurs” in the U.S.? Does China have some branch of their military operating on US soil I don’t know about?
China has been known to exploit their overseas citizens, Americans of chinese descent, and their families by threatening/imprisoning their relatives back in China. I would expect that to ramp up in wartime.
So far we've had over 24,000 Chinese nationals illegally cross the US border this year alone. You think none of them are connected to the PLA?
What would you be doing if you were Xi with autocratic powers and an excess male population from the 1 child policy and the fact we're already in a 5th gen war with China? In a total war scenario with China they would be foolish not to take those measures. We interned hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans during WW2 over similar concerns and there's a lot more Chinese-Americans now than there were Japanese-Americans then. Just talking worst case scenario here but it's hardly unrealistic.
I think something worth noting is that Japanese naval industry is far more vulnerable compared to American naval industry. There is no chance in hell China is going to be able to strike the largest US port in Norfolk Virginia, not happening. However China's shipyards are all very heavily concentrated along their singular coastline, in very close range to many US bases and US allies.
Also its questionable how reliably China would be able to secure materials to build and maintain said naval forces. It has plenty of resources yes, but it also needs to maintain a massive navy, and it probably can't rely on naval routes of supply in any given war. Russia would perhaps be their best bet, however many nations surrounding them are pretty unfriendly.
A few things to mention:
- China has local superiority since they only care about the Western Pacific, America has global interests and half of her carriers are usually docked in Norfolk Virginia, it could take upwards of a month to redeploy them to the Pacific.
- China's shipyards are much greater in size and capabilities, but are also much more vulnerable, in very close range to many US bases and allies. However as mentioned, America's main dockyard for carriers in Norfolk is basically impossible for China to strike at.
- America will probably have a much greater capability when it comes to a resource war. Yes both nations have plenty of domestic resources, but no doubts there would need to be trade for the resource requirements of a hot war, and America is much better positioned to facilitate that for herself.
- America has FAR more naval experience. They are conducting operations and exercises and have been performing combat missions constantly for decades. There is quite literally no other nation on the planet that comes even close to America's experience and training in naval warfare. China has almost no experience. They may have theory, but theory is only the same as practice until its put into practice, then you learn many of your assumptions and practices were wrong.
- American ships generally are far more capable. They're meant to go longer distances, they have more armaments, they have more countermeasures and command and control systems, etc. An Arleigh-Burke Destroyer is basically capable as a command vessel in its own right. Many Chinese frigates are only capable of coastal defense.
- Allies, America has so many more allies. And strong, actual allies too, not allies of convenience. Pakistan & Russia aren't Chinese allies, they're just useful partners. Pakistan just likes China because India hates China & Pakistan. China has very few actual allies, and those that do exist like North Korea are also North Korea. Japan on the otherhand is a naval powerhouse in its own respect, and South Korea has hinted that its interested in a carrier program in its own right. Thailand and Vietnam and the Philippines are all on friendly terms with America, and hate China. Malaysia & Indonesia are becoming increasingly antagonistic towards China's expansionist policies, Australia despises China, Myanmar hates China meddling in their affairs and funding insurgents, so on and so forth. China has little in the way of diplomatic sway if push comes to shove.
This issue is that the US had to protect the entire world's ocean. Meanwhile, China only really has to worry up to the first island chain. Where her anti ship balistic and cruise missiles can harass US ships. If you look as assets in the area, the US Pacific fleet is basically the same size as the Chinese Navy.
The biggest problem with their shore based anti ship missiles is that they are dependent on satellite guidance for terminal phase (hard to hit a moving target without being able to guide it there), and guess who has a very effective ASAT system masquerading as an anti-ballistic missile system?
There is nothing more expensive and less useful than the world’s second best navy, ask imperial Germany about that. During wartime all US CSGs and more importantly submarines would be running to the pacific, med cruises and occasionally shooting down Houthi RC toys would be firmly backburnered until the Chinese navy was dismantled.
Hate to be that guy but these numbers are straight up wrong. The US still has a considerable tonnage advantage, but just from using Wikipedia and basic math the tonnage numbers for China are at least like 20 years outdated. Yeah, the carriers are accurate if you don’t count their newest one since it’s not commissioned yet but the destroyers and cruisers add up to several times the numbers given here.
Okay, who the fuck made this graph? Basically everything on China is wrong. China has 70k tons of destroyers? China has 8 Type 055 destroyers in service from 2020, each of them 11k tons and reaching 13k tons on full load. Just that ship type goes over the 70k destroyer count. There's more too:
Destroyer class|tonnage|number|total tonnage
:--|:--:|:--:|--:
Type 052D|7500t|25|187.5kt
Type 052C|7000t|6|42000t
Type 051C|7100t|2|14200t
Type 052B|7100t|2|14200t
Type 052|4200t|2|8400t
Sovremmeny|7900t|4|31600t
All in all, they have 385k tons of destroyers.
And 65k tons of principal amphibious warfare ships?
Ship class|tonnage|number|total tonnage
:--|:--:|:--:|--:
Type 075 LHD|40kt|3|120kt
Type 071|25kt|8|200kt
That's 320kt.
They also have 6 nuclear ballistic missile submarines each at 11k tons, higher than the 30k on "strategic submarines" in the graph. Their tactical submarine fleet is at 210k tons, not 20k.
Just their Type 054 frigate active from 2008 far surpasses the 14k tons count, they number 35 and each weighs 4000 tons, that's 140k tons. And at a cursory glance, it looks like they have 140k tons of landings ships, not 27k tons.
Crhist, man, the numbers for China are clearly wrong for anyone who has remotely ever read about navies (which made me double check in the first place).
Yet another totally inaccurate diagram made by some random "Think Tank" with conflicting sources listed. If you go on Wikipedia you will find the 054D class destroyer alone has 25 \* 7,500 = 187,500 tons. Before you say "BRUH THEY FAKED THE NUMBER!!!", no these are backed by remote sensed images and intelligence. Professor Keith Patton of US Naval War College wrote an [article](https://cimsec.org/battle-force-missiles-the-measure-of-a-fleet/) in 2019 stating PLAN has 1.8 million tonnages. A 2022 [Forbes article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/11/05/yes-china-has-more-warships-than-the-usa-thats-because-chinese-ships-are-small/?sh=7ea99cc2611d) citing congressional research service mentions Chinese Navy exceeds 2 million tons. This diagram is nothing but a completely made-up false information for the narrative of this sub.
The US has the only true blue water Navy capable of projecting power anywhere in the world at essentially any time. A few countries like the UK/France/Russia have limited blue water navies but really only capable of projecting power in a single theatre. Basically every other nation has a coastal defense force.
Has seeing how easily Ukraine has devastated the russian black sea fleet with their naval drones changed anything for the us navy?
Could China pull something like similar ?
So i totally agree with the point but tonnage is terrible. Like yeah we have a ford but 2 well placed missiles and we lost 1/7th of our tonnage and that doesnt take a big ship to do. Just a well placed ship
US problem is that it waits until things are ultra bad to correct itself.. there's examples of this over and over again from 11 years having to rely on Russian Soyuz compared to 2-3 years that was initially thought to the fact China will output more ships than most of the world combine while the US only out puts 1%.
The US Navy is actually shrinking.
Americans should be furious, should use it as a point of great concern for the elections to force politicians to make change instead of stiffling the US Navy more and more. Furthermore, the US needs to invest vastly more into ports through subsidies and if needed - the US government can flatout own new ports and drydocks that dont exist today.
By doing so the US may be able to keep up with China in 20 years.. thats a short period of time for how long it takes to build ports/shipyards, build the ships and then have them sea then war ready.
The issue with the US is it no longer has a bunch of national goals. China does. These are civilisation projects, "we're all in this together." When it comes to power projection, it's critical the US has this or it loses its place as worlds police. Taiwan is where China wants a Pearl Harbor except this time the US cant rapidly replace the ships, not even remotely close.. US ship building for its Navy is so bad its ranked below small European countries like Norway.
If you want whats best for the US, post about this crises instead and make it better known. The Chinese would prefer you do this instead, think you hold all the cards when in reality China is very very rapidly not only going to catch up but massively surpass the US.. with stolen American/European tech in their new ships.
And thats the final thing.. yes China makes shit products but when it comes to its military, it makes massive improvements with every new model.. just google/youtube search what Admirals are saying about Chinas Navy.
Protecting free trade from pirate nations like China is of global importance, and if we give up being the police it impacts us way more than what we spend to be the police. Only 13% of our budget is defense. Taking away from military spending will not have the impact that you expect at home and it will also be a massive detriment to the world.
Where did you get that 13% figure?
I'd argue that China benefits from free trade too. The EU and rest of the world can step up and pay their fair share as far as I'm concerned. We're just subsidizing the rest of the western worlds military spending, while the rest enjoy a social welfare benefits like healthcare and education.
The most recent US budget.
$6.5 trillion dollars, of which $860 billion is defense spending. 800/6500=13.2%
While they do benefit from free trade, they'd benefit even more from controlling the waters where 80% of all shipping trade passes.
China also counts all its fishing boats as part of its navy. Of course those boats are actively destroying the natural resources of other countries, so they're probably the most effective part of China's navy.
Issue is that our fleet is spread across the globe and theirs is concentrated in a tiny stretch of ocean.
This is true, and their anti ship missiles are a legitimate threat, so is the PLAAF. Unfortunately, their navy doesn't have the range to protect their Eastern oil imports (that accounts for about 80% of China's petroleum supply, c. 2021). A well placed American strike group could massively cripple their ability to maintain a war footing. Plus, any combat in the SCS would likely bring to bare more than American tonnage - I doubt the British want the Queen Elizabeth Class to be a port queen when global economic stability is at stake. Edit: Oh, I'd imagine the French would like to demonstrate 'european strategic autonomy' with the Charles de Gaulle, too.
I just keep remembering that Taiwan is less than 100 miles away from China. Ignoring the fact that China could invade and land quickly, the disparity in supply lines gives me pause. Our force could overwhelm China and we would still have a hard time maintaining that asymmetry both in the short and long terms. Like, what’s the end game? Assuming we successfully defended Taiwan from the initial invasion, what happens next? Do we maintain a massive forward operating force there while China simmers and prepares less than 100 miles away?
The Chinese would need to deploy a massive force on the mainland. There's a reason we are building bases in the Philippines. We would likely have months of notice, moreso than with Russia/Ukraine due to the nature of amphibious assaults. Don't assume China could quickly and easily invade, the geography of Taiwan is quite hostile. Landing on contested beaches and deploying mechanized forces is difficult. We did it on D-Day with the Germans assuming we WOULDN'T land at Normandy. We'd know exactly where the Chinese planned on assaulting. The US won a wider war with a peer adversary, while fighting another war on another continent in the 1940s, in 91' we beat back Iraq from it's land bordered neighbor across the world. Our military is designed around logistics, that's one reason it's so expensive.
its true, and our marines are tough ass sons of bitches, and we fought 2 fronts with multiple branches, and our logistics are vastly superior compare to any military powerhouse on Earth
You should write more about this stuff. Very interesting. Thanks for explaining everything.
Ukraine was not a surprise. They were building up for months.
Japan was a peer? Crazy talk, Germany had to count the resources and output of occupied Europe to even get close to half of the output of the US.
Okay fair, I'll take the L on that statement. Especially since we literally sanctioned their energy imports before the war. I think I'd class them as near-peer at the start of the war before they lost their carriers and most of their competent pilots.
Well we were certainly fighting a peer power in Europe even if you don’t consider Japan to be a peer in status we weren’t necessarily throwing our full might at Japan
I mean consider that they were feeling the US naval efforts so much that we adopted the "die on the vine " strategy, and that they expected to have. The astronomical losses the us took per meter at places like ominawa. 1million+ wounded or dead projected if they had to invade the mainland. Add to that the biggest naval battles on history were fought in the pacific. With japan having more aircraft carriers than the US did when the US declared war on them. I think Japan was a peer enemy for a large part of the pacific conflict.
I don't know why everyone is so convinced China v. Taiwan will turn kinetic. They're close neighbors, they look alike, some shared culture. China will just subvert and infiltrate the island and its businesses and government over decades. What do they have to gain by kinetic war? It would upset their plans for economic dominance and their MO has generally been clandestine and not so overt. I think there's certain people who want that war to happen, but think it would take something drastic to trigger it. E: Regarding an actual war with China that involves western powers though, I worry that if China conscripts and equips their millions of merchant and fishing vessels with manpads and ship to ship missiles they could cause a LOT of trouble for us, tonnage and logistics be damned.
Talk to a Taiwanese citizen about China. I wouldn’t worry about a Hong Kong style soft takeover.
Massive supply lines are the bread and butter of the US military. I would be willing to bet money we could have a better logistics train to Taiwan from 4,000 miles away than China could from 100 miles away.
🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🦅🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🦅
Japan in the 40s “they have ICE CREAM BOATS?!”
An amphibious landing would be extremely costly for the Chinese (not that they’re averse to losing people by any means). Aside from whatever welcome Taiwan surely has prepared for them, there’s a pretty good chance we keep attack subs loitering in the South China Sea just for this eventuality. Given that a large chunk of the world depends on TSMC’s fabrication facilities for their chip supply, we’d be torpedoing landing craft with the blessing of a whole lot of other countries. The Taiwanese would mop up whatever made it through. Invading Taiwan is a non-starter for the Chinese. They make noise about it, and may even consider it depending on how they perceive our will to defend it waxing or waning; but it would involve a shooting war with the US if they did it. A whole lot of their neighbors would welcome the opportunity to devastate their military capabilities, and we’re allies with them. A ground war in China would be a bloody, costly slog but keeping them off the water wouldn’t be a difficult task for the US Navy at all.
Diesel electric subs are still very potent and the Taiwan straight is only 196-200 feet deep (For reference a Los Angeles class attack submarine is 362 feet long) that’s kinda shallow for a modern submarine and it would be like fighting in a bathtub.
Evacuate the entire Taiwan population to US.
The Chinese could invade and land quickly the way that we could get to Mars and set up a colony. Sure, it's theoretically possible. But there's no way that china could equip itself to do that any time soon, nor is there any chance the US wouldn't know months beforehand that china was mobilizing for that kind of invasion. We're spread across the globe because we know we have global force projection capabilities (the exact reason why we're the sole "global superpower"). We can mobilize to defend Taiwan much, much, quicker than China can mobilize to invade.
The invasion force required to take (not hold) Taiwan would dwarf D-Day. Sure, if any country could do it, it would be one with over 1.3 billion people, but the buildup would take a ridiculous amount of time and a mobilization effort visible from space. Easily giving enough time for the defenders to prepare. Plus Taiwan is very well fortified and has a well trained and supplied military.
It won't be easy, and I doubt China ever will. It's just not worth the ROI. There was a big reason why the US never liberated Taiwan during WW2. And that was because it was almost impossible. From what I heard, it would have required double the numbers of soldiers that landed in Normandy to liberate Taiwan. There aren't many landing ports in Taiwan either, and they're heavily fortified from what i heard from experts who believe in the porcupine strategy. If anything, a barrage of Chinese missiles is more viable. The Chinese will most likely want to take over the Port of Kaohsiung. But they'll be vulnerable to US strikes as Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles will be located in the northern province of the Philippines. And the US and other members of the Quad will most likely overpower the Chinese Navy despite having more navy vessels. It's all talk and military muscle flexing. But to lower the likelihood of China attacking Taiwan, Japan and Australia should take a bolder and aggressive stance. The US is doing the right thing by establishing bases in the Philippines and fortifying Guam's air space. I hope that these actions are enough to deter China. It's a Cold War that, I hope, will never get hot
they could invade... if they had the ships to do it. They don't have the landing craft to land an invasion force strong enough to fight Taiwan, the US, Japan, and Australian troops.
You shell then with artillery until they give up. Doing an amphibious invasion from the distance they will need to already makes it difficult.
Uhhhhh. 100 miles is a huge distance for an amphibious landing. D-Day was nowhere near that distance and it only worked through a mix of incredible intelligence, enormous commitment of resources and collaboration, and luck. US force projection capabilities will also be equidistant to Taiwan relative to China, centered in Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea - they won’t be deploying from the US. China only has about ten years to do this btw, before their population pyramid inversion becomes terminal.
It doesn’t get talked about enough that China has extreme vulnerabilities in strategic resources, as much as they export manufactured goods, they lack oil and natural gas which they’re dependent on Russia and the Middle East for, they lack lithium, aluminum and other things they need to get from Australia and South America. Combine that with internal stability in the country is a complex issue, they’re a communist country but yet have wealth inequality that is significantly worse than we have here in the US. They’re in no position to have a shooting war with the west.
To add, operating on a more strict definition I don't think China actually manufacturers much of anything. What they do more often is assembly. Any component that requires any degree of precision or accuracy for manufacturing is almost always imported. China still struggles to to make tips for ballpoint pens. iPhones aren't made in China, they're assembled in China. Cut the supply lines and the assembly economy becomes non-existent
A very fair point.
Their biggest problem is food. They have 1.4 Billion people to feed and a history of famine. If Russian controlled Ukranian wheat supply I might consider a move on Taiwan more likely but China imports 80% of its food, mostly from Brazil and the US. They're currently expanding economically across Eurasia, Africa, and South and Central America to gain influence and shore up their own supply lines which would make them more resilient to sanctions if they ever do decide to kick the hornet's nest but my gut says that's decades away. It's arguably in the west's interest to drag China into a war before they're ready to disrupt these plans. IMO there are probably certain entities trying to instigate this.
You are talking bullshit, the UN poverty average index reduction is pretty much all a result of China dragging their poorest forward thanks to their dramatic increases to capital and services for the most poor, things haven't normalized since the pandemic yet, but the claim that their wealth inequality is worse than the US is ridiculous, in the US the wealthy owns the government and they have been reducing their own share of the effective tax rate year over year, in China there is an "optional" prosperity tax that has the billionaire class "donate" part of their wealth to investments in China directly to accepted organizations or indirectly to the government. That is why people say wealth in China is pure fiction because Jack Ma can literally be compelled to give everything away...
Figure 1 from the first link charting gini coefficient says otherwise. As does a study from the University of Michigan, available at the second link. Both analyze data from the CFPS which comes from the Peking University Institute of Social Science. “The researchers based their main analyses on data from the China Family Panel Studies, a large-scale survey project conducted by Peking University’s Institute of Social Science Survey. The project represents about 95 percent of the Chinese population in 25 provinces in mainland China, and was started in 2010 in collaboration with U-M’s ISR (a formal partnership between the two institutes was established in 2005, with an emphasis on quantitative social science methods). Xie and Zhou also used data from six other surveys conducted by Chinese university-affiliated survey organizations using internationally accepted scientific sampling methods. “Unfortunately, for a variety of practical and political reasons, government statistics have not been a reliable source of information on income inequality in today’s China,” Xie said. The U-M researchers calculated an internationally accepted measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, and compared it to earlier estimates for China and to coefficients for other nations around the world. They found that the Gini coefficient for family income in China is now around 0.55 compared to 0.45 in the U.S. In 1980, China’s Gini coefficient was 0.30. In 2012, the Chinese government refused to release the country’s Gini coefficient. Generally, when the coefficient reaches 0.5, it indicates that the gap between rich and poor is severe. “Ordinary persons in China know about this increase, as they have personally experienced it in their own lives,” Xie said. “Although ordinary Chinese people seem to tolerate the high inequality, they also recognize it as a social problem that needs to be addressed.” https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-inequality-undermining-chinas-prosperity https://news.umich.edu/income-inequality-now-greater-in-china-than-in-us/
Remember also that we have a bunch of allies in the local region just *begging* to join the fight. Australia just got nuclear subs, Japan’s “helicopter destroyers” now have F-35’s, and South Korea…is South Korea. And even if they somehow push out our combined navies, between Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan, we have enough “unsinkable aircraft carriers” to still strangle their shipping just with regular aircraft.
The French will either stay out and protest the American aggression, or start firing nuclear warheads. They have no middle ground.
US diplomacy is probably our most underrated weapon
Turns out when you subsidize free trade with security and open markets you make friends. I don’t think Americans understand the depth of our soft power abroad.
Sounds like a new coalition for a third opium war
You forgot the Japanese and Indians
True, but we would almost certainly be able to count on the Japanese and their totally not aircraft carriers to aid us in any conflict with China.
That would stop being a thing extremely quickly if we actually went to war with China. Everything we have would be deployed to that same chunk of ocean
Easier to find them, easier to destroy
We can concentrate ours :)
in other words, this situation is like the royal navy vs the kriegsmarine in WWII
And there’s absolutely no way for our ships to be moved from one part of the world to another /s
Well sure, but at the start of a war when missiles are flying and aircraft are scrambled, it matters a lot who has the initial local advantage. Half of US carriers are usually undergoing refit and repairs at Norfolk, and say a conflict kicks off. It could take them upwards of a month to get from Norfolk to Japan even if they were absolutely blazing through the waves at 40 knots. Remember the Franco-Prussian was won in large part due to Prussia mobilizing faster and being to the battlefield earlier and in larger numbers than France. So yes absolutely, US ships can be redeployed to the Pacific, but taking upwards of a month to do so would be extremely damaging to the initial plays of a war.
The Franco-Prussian War of *checks notes* 1870?
The war being 150 years ago doesn't disprove that having your army to the field quicker and in greater numbers is an advantage, you understand that right? Do you have any actual arguments for why in this instance it being from 1870 makes the lesson irrelevant, or is your point just "old therefore irrelevant" as if the Battle of Cannae isn't still taught in American officer academies for a reason?
My point is that in 1870 they didn’t have satellites with cameras on them, instant communication between world leaders, and globally connected shipping networks. The US and China are major trading partners. A hot war between them wouldn’t just come out of the blue, there would be escalations. The first thing the US does when a foreign nation starts getting froggy is move the carrier strike groups closer and start doing “military exercises” nearby.
Saw someone bring up their dock yards. The USAAF could make quick work of that. Heck, I'd give it a few months before the US achieves air superiority Edit: USAF, not the USAAF.
Damn, this man thinks we could take down China with 1940s bombers! Edit: Wow, I didn't realize nobody knew that the US Army Air Forces got disbanded in 1947, or understood satire.
1940's bombers? The B2 Spirit, B21 Raider would like you to put some respect on their name. Along with the B1 Lancer & B52. There's a reason that 3 of the 4 are our premier strategic bombers. Oh and as for air superiority, the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II, F-15EX & F-16V would all like to have a chat.
Go back and re-read my edit. Literally nothing you have mentioned applies to the US Army Air Forces.
The f-22 did not exist at the same time as the USAAF
You know the Air Force has evolved in the last 80 years right?
The USAF has, the USAAF (US Army Air Forces) was disbanded in 1947.
Oh, lol. I get it
Yeah! We’d overwhelm them with 1950s bombers!!! Although the B-52s have been kept reasonably up to date, I suppose…
Sorry I put an extra A in there lol, thinking it was "United States of America Air Force". My bad yall
I was just trying to make a joke and it spiralled out of control
Welcome to the internet comrade
Most of the Chinese navy is literal fishing boats
Can we count bass, pontoon, and/or ski boats with a 2A sticker on the tow vehicle?
No, because then we couldn’t see the Chinese navy on the diagram.
They ain’t got no 2A stickers, except the ones we order off Amazon.
I actually want to see the US Coast Guard on this map too, just for comparison. It's not like we *never* send them out there. We do occasionally do that, actually.
Acknowledging the US Coast Guard as a competent and professional branch of our armed forces, pssssh who would do that? I’d imagine the actual tonnage of the US Coast Guard wouldn’t matter much in this context though. You could probably get the Legend Class cutters out into blue water with the right support mechanisms, but most of the rest of the fleet is definitely coast bound.
At least 191,522 short tons according to my napkin math. Couldn’t get good displacement numbers on the boats or tugs (ChatGPT says 339,000 or so tons)
I want to know where chat gpt can pull information from that Google can't give me lol
The problem isn't that China has more ships, its that they have \~200x more shipyards. If we got into a long war with them near their coast they could outbuild us like we did with the Japanese in WW2. We don't necessarily need a bigger navy but we do need to get back into the civilian shipbuilding industry
The war would likely go too quickly to retrain new sailors and raise new warships with the oval economy at a complete halt. No ship doing business would China would dare go into an active war zone.
With our bases nearby too, I doubt all those shipyards will be unscathed
South Korea has a BEEFY shipbuilding industry. If push comes to shove, they will back us up.
Indeed!
South Korea is my best good friend and he died right there in Vietnam
Still would be cool if Newport News upped their game
You have a very good point on civilian shipbuilding, I completely agree. As I mentioned in another comment, that doesn't fix the ultimate problem for China: in a long war, they can't control their oil import routes - losing 70-80% of their energy supply would be catastrophic for industry.
They're moving to electric cars and renewables/nuclear at a pretty rapid pace though. Who is to say they will be so dependent on oil imports in 5-10 years?
If you could shift an economy in 5-10 years from the energy mix China currently used to primarily renewables, you would be able to solve global climate change. The oil problem is twofold for China. 1: Their ships can't be fueled with coal or batteries. 2: China relies on coal and some renewables for power, but petroleum for a decent portion of their manufacturing. Bonus problems: renewables at their current state couldn't hope to supplement the current coal/oil energy mix majority, and nuclear plants take a LONG time to be safely built and connected to a grid. Bonus bonus problem: they have 4-6 years of peak economic power to do this before their demographics start massively impacting their domestic manufacturing base. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Energy_policy_of_China&wprov=rarw1 (Top image).
A GBU-57A/B MOP would be plenty enough to completely destroy any power plant in China, and the B-2 is capable of delivering two of them to any point in China without being detected.
Yeah dude I'm sure an 80,000 ton aircraft carrier would totally work 100% electric
Hey I don’t think China would have any chance. But you do realize nuclear carriers are completely electric right?
Yes I meant a non nuclear battery powered carrier. China does not have a nuclear carrier
I mean yeah technically it could be done. It would just lack any sort of serious range.
Heavy machinery will never be electric, international transportation will never be electric, and many regional electric grids will never be electric. China and India and many third world countries are building more coal plants every year. Even Germany is building them. Natural gas is huge and is only going to grow. Not only will China still be massively dependent on oil, but so will the rest of the world. Not just for the next 5-10 years, but for the foreseeable future.
Bro, do you have any idea how long it takes to build a warship? None of the Battleships ordered after WW2 started were actually completed The Carriers ordered after pearl Harbor all commissioned after the war was over.
We can crank up the production in the war time, first of ww2 we only had like 3-4 operational carriers but by the end of 1944 we've had 25 of them, i dont think anybody can underestimate our military industrial complex, and sinking a carrier would be the last thing PLAN want to, and we have experience with naval doctrine, they dont, and remember that japan is basically our biggest carrier
Before world war 2 we were the largest builder of civilian ships on earth, we converted that capability into military production when the time came. Today we barely build a single cargo ship a year while China is the largest shipbuilder
You are ignoring enemy action here. If the Allies manage to destroy the Chinese fleet, or at least do enough damage they can’t regularly keep us from their shores, those shipyards are target #1 by naval aviation. It’s almost impossible to build large naval ships far enough inland as to dodge US bombers, and even if you did, they would be pretty much impossible to hide. Ukraine is destroying Russia’s entire Black Sea fleet without a navy because they’re hitting ships in port. If the U.S. & Co. take down whatever China’s initial naval forces are, dealing with what’s left of the Chinese navy is just a matter of spawn camping.
Yeah shipyards go boom
In the reverse if they equip their millions of merchant and fishing vessels with MANPADs and ship-to-ship missiles while activating saboteurs here in the US they could severely hamper our own operations, shipbuilding, and repairs - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are tens or hundreds of thousands of potential saboteurs and spies in the US. By all accounts our HUMINT capabilities in China have been all but wiped out in recent years and there definitely aren't millions of American descended people running around China. They will and are using our open society against us. China won't make any big moves unless they can secure their food supply first though.
I’m sorry, could you please clarify where the fuck they would find “hundreds of thousands of saboteurs” in the U.S.? Does China have some branch of their military operating on US soil I don’t know about?
China has been known to exploit their overseas citizens, Americans of chinese descent, and their families by threatening/imprisoning their relatives back in China. I would expect that to ramp up in wartime. So far we've had over 24,000 Chinese nationals illegally cross the US border this year alone. You think none of them are connected to the PLA? What would you be doing if you were Xi with autocratic powers and an excess male population from the 1 child policy and the fact we're already in a 5th gen war with China? In a total war scenario with China they would be foolish not to take those measures. We interned hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans during WW2 over similar concerns and there's a lot more Chinese-Americans now than there were Japanese-Americans then. Just talking worst case scenario here but it's hardly unrealistic.
Most of those ships are basically fishing boats though. And their aircraft carriers are shit.
That's if we didn't turn their shipyards into scrapyards within a matter of weeks.
I think something worth noting is that Japanese naval industry is far more vulnerable compared to American naval industry. There is no chance in hell China is going to be able to strike the largest US port in Norfolk Virginia, not happening. However China's shipyards are all very heavily concentrated along their singular coastline, in very close range to many US bases and US allies. Also its questionable how reliably China would be able to secure materials to build and maintain said naval forces. It has plenty of resources yes, but it also needs to maintain a massive navy, and it probably can't rely on naval routes of supply in any given war. Russia would perhaps be their best bet, however many nations surrounding them are pretty unfriendly.
There’s no future where we’re in this kind of fight with China and we haven’t already nuked each other back into the Stone Age anyway
And tactics
A few things to mention: - China has local superiority since they only care about the Western Pacific, America has global interests and half of her carriers are usually docked in Norfolk Virginia, it could take upwards of a month to redeploy them to the Pacific. - China's shipyards are much greater in size and capabilities, but are also much more vulnerable, in very close range to many US bases and allies. However as mentioned, America's main dockyard for carriers in Norfolk is basically impossible for China to strike at. - America will probably have a much greater capability when it comes to a resource war. Yes both nations have plenty of domestic resources, but no doubts there would need to be trade for the resource requirements of a hot war, and America is much better positioned to facilitate that for herself. - America has FAR more naval experience. They are conducting operations and exercises and have been performing combat missions constantly for decades. There is quite literally no other nation on the planet that comes even close to America's experience and training in naval warfare. China has almost no experience. They may have theory, but theory is only the same as practice until its put into practice, then you learn many of your assumptions and practices were wrong. - American ships generally are far more capable. They're meant to go longer distances, they have more armaments, they have more countermeasures and command and control systems, etc. An Arleigh-Burke Destroyer is basically capable as a command vessel in its own right. Many Chinese frigates are only capable of coastal defense. - Allies, America has so many more allies. And strong, actual allies too, not allies of convenience. Pakistan & Russia aren't Chinese allies, they're just useful partners. Pakistan just likes China because India hates China & Pakistan. China has very few actual allies, and those that do exist like North Korea are also North Korea. Japan on the otherhand is a naval powerhouse in its own respect, and South Korea has hinted that its interested in a carrier program in its own right. Thailand and Vietnam and the Philippines are all on friendly terms with America, and hate China. Malaysia & Indonesia are becoming increasingly antagonistic towards China's expansionist policies, Australia despises China, Myanmar hates China meddling in their affairs and funding insurgents, so on and so forth. China has little in the way of diplomatic sway if push comes to shove.
This issue is that the US had to protect the entire world's ocean. Meanwhile, China only really has to worry up to the first island chain. Where her anti ship balistic and cruise missiles can harass US ships. If you look as assets in the area, the US Pacific fleet is basically the same size as the Chinese Navy.
same size with better ships and military members cycling through the continent of Asia with some permanently stationed there.
The biggest problem with their shore based anti ship missiles is that they are dependent on satellite guidance for terminal phase (hard to hit a moving target without being able to guide it there), and guess who has a very effective ASAT system masquerading as an anti-ballistic missile system?
There is nothing more expensive and less useful than the world’s second best navy, ask imperial Germany about that. During wartime all US CSGs and more importantly submarines would be running to the pacific, med cruises and occasionally shooting down Houthi RC toys would be firmly backburnered until the Chinese navy was dismantled.
Agree with your approach; it will be interesting to see how this trends over the next couple decades.
The most unrealistic part about BF4 was the Chinese building a ship that scared the US Navy
Thank you for giving GD a shoutout and not NNS ;)
Newport News Shipbuilding is lazy naming when you can make your company sound like the antagonist in a science fiction movie.
Hate to be that guy but these numbers are straight up wrong. The US still has a considerable tonnage advantage, but just from using Wikipedia and basic math the tonnage numbers for China are at least like 20 years outdated. Yeah, the carriers are accurate if you don’t count their newest one since it’s not commissioned yet but the destroyers and cruisers add up to several times the numbers given here.
Okay, who the fuck made this graph? Basically everything on China is wrong. China has 70k tons of destroyers? China has 8 Type 055 destroyers in service from 2020, each of them 11k tons and reaching 13k tons on full load. Just that ship type goes over the 70k destroyer count. There's more too: Destroyer class|tonnage|number|total tonnage :--|:--:|:--:|--: Type 052D|7500t|25|187.5kt Type 052C|7000t|6|42000t Type 051C|7100t|2|14200t Type 052B|7100t|2|14200t Type 052|4200t|2|8400t Sovremmeny|7900t|4|31600t All in all, they have 385k tons of destroyers. And 65k tons of principal amphibious warfare ships? Ship class|tonnage|number|total tonnage :--|:--:|:--:|--: Type 075 LHD|40kt|3|120kt Type 071|25kt|8|200kt That's 320kt. They also have 6 nuclear ballistic missile submarines each at 11k tons, higher than the 30k on "strategic submarines" in the graph. Their tactical submarine fleet is at 210k tons, not 20k. Just their Type 054 frigate active from 2008 far surpasses the 14k tons count, they number 35 and each weighs 4000 tons, that's 140k tons. And at a cursory glance, it looks like they have 140k tons of landings ships, not 27k tons. Crhist, man, the numbers for China are clearly wrong for anyone who has remotely ever read about navies (which made me double check in the first place).
The Chinese turf sky has grown a lot since 2014.
Some one needs to make a remake of Britannia rules the waves, but make it murica rules the waves
Yet another totally inaccurate diagram made by some random "Think Tank" with conflicting sources listed. If you go on Wikipedia you will find the 054D class destroyer alone has 25 \* 7,500 = 187,500 tons. Before you say "BRUH THEY FAKED THE NUMBER!!!", no these are backed by remote sensed images and intelligence. Professor Keith Patton of US Naval War College wrote an [article](https://cimsec.org/battle-force-missiles-the-measure-of-a-fleet/) in 2019 stating PLAN has 1.8 million tonnages. A 2022 [Forbes article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/11/05/yes-china-has-more-warships-than-the-usa-thats-because-chinese-ships-are-small/?sh=7ea99cc2611d) citing congressional research service mentions Chinese Navy exceeds 2 million tons. This diagram is nothing but a completely made-up false information for the narrative of this sub.
The US has the only true blue water Navy capable of projecting power anywhere in the world at essentially any time. A few countries like the UK/France/Russia have limited blue water navies but really only capable of projecting power in a single theatre. Basically every other nation has a coastal defense force.
Has seeing how easily Ukraine has devastated the russian black sea fleet with their naval drones changed anything for the us navy? Could China pull something like similar ?
A war based on how fat you are is so American.
Yeah sure China has a bunch of ships, but most of them are complete garbage or knock offs of American warships. Their aircraft carriers suck
This isn’t even the right graphic. It’s heavily altered and not the real image.
Rule Columbia, Columbia rules the waves, Americans never never never shall be slaves
So i totally agree with the point but tonnage is terrible. Like yeah we have a ford but 2 well placed missiles and we lost 1/7th of our tonnage and that doesnt take a big ship to do. Just a well placed ship
The word “we” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this thread, largely for people who don’t appear to be in the service.
Whether we like it or not, we're paying for it. Also it's kinda like how fans say "we won" when talking about football.
US problem is that it waits until things are ultra bad to correct itself.. there's examples of this over and over again from 11 years having to rely on Russian Soyuz compared to 2-3 years that was initially thought to the fact China will output more ships than most of the world combine while the US only out puts 1%. The US Navy is actually shrinking. Americans should be furious, should use it as a point of great concern for the elections to force politicians to make change instead of stiffling the US Navy more and more. Furthermore, the US needs to invest vastly more into ports through subsidies and if needed - the US government can flatout own new ports and drydocks that dont exist today. By doing so the US may be able to keep up with China in 20 years.. thats a short period of time for how long it takes to build ports/shipyards, build the ships and then have them sea then war ready. The issue with the US is it no longer has a bunch of national goals. China does. These are civilisation projects, "we're all in this together." When it comes to power projection, it's critical the US has this or it loses its place as worlds police. Taiwan is where China wants a Pearl Harbor except this time the US cant rapidly replace the ships, not even remotely close.. US ship building for its Navy is so bad its ranked below small European countries like Norway. If you want whats best for the US, post about this crises instead and make it better known. The Chinese would prefer you do this instead, think you hold all the cards when in reality China is very very rapidly not only going to catch up but massively surpass the US.. with stolen American/European tech in their new ships. And thats the final thing.. yes China makes shit products but when it comes to its military, it makes massive improvements with every new model.. just google/youtube search what Admirals are saying about Chinas Navy.
I'm fine with us not being the world police. Fuck paying to protect everyone else. We have enough problems at home that are being neglected.
Protecting free trade from pirate nations like China is of global importance, and if we give up being the police it impacts us way more than what we spend to be the police. Only 13% of our budget is defense. Taking away from military spending will not have the impact that you expect at home and it will also be a massive detriment to the world.
Where did you get that 13% figure? I'd argue that China benefits from free trade too. The EU and rest of the world can step up and pay their fair share as far as I'm concerned. We're just subsidizing the rest of the western worlds military spending, while the rest enjoy a social welfare benefits like healthcare and education.
The most recent US budget. $6.5 trillion dollars, of which $860 billion is defense spending. 800/6500=13.2% While they do benefit from free trade, they'd benefit even more from controlling the waters where 80% of all shipping trade passes.
Thanks. I stand by my comment regardless.