I am not remotely a military expert. However, I read with interest an article in the recent Foreign Affairs which argues a dangerous decline in American naval power. The article is written by a director of the American Enterprise Institute. In summary, it argues:
The US had a “near-religious” belief China would become more democratic and politically liberal as it grew more prosperous
This has largely not happened and so any struggle between Beijing and Washington will increasingly become a struggle for naval power
it is a running joke that Long Beach CA has so much Chinese seaborne commerce that in case of war attacking here would inflict more damage than the Chinese mainland
Covid showed how binding transnational webs of investment, communication and production are. Ninety percent of traded goods are transported by sea
Two recent books argue US security and prosperity depend on naval dominance
Author Bruce Jones charts the global web of fuel pipelines and transmissions cables and the role of oceans in climate change. He aims to show oceans are this the most important zone of confrontation between future military actors
Author Gregg Easterbrook makes a more liberal case that trade and naval power have reduced poverty and raised material standards everywhere, so Washington needs more bases
China has a larger navy than the US. The US merchant fleet is 27th in the world, with 393 ships, and so the US is more reliant on its navy
The US merchant fleet was bigger in 1950 than now; the US navy was bigger in 1930.
The US military is strained by NATO commitments, strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan, demands for forces by commanders that exceed supply, administrative challenges, and emphasizing improving military and political social issues (diversity, climate change, harassment) over strategic issues.
Thus, America should prioritize navy spending over other military branches as it will have the most important future role
So, my questions…
Is the article accurate?
Will oceans be the most important battleground in the near future?
Should the US prioritize guns or butter?
Does this article underplay the contributions from other branches? Are all branches overstretched? Which might be most important?
As a Canadian, how effective are icebreakers at providing defence? What are better options for defending the Arctic?
China couldn’t even attempt to invade Taiwan by sea (its most likely mission) without be smashed like a bug if the US Navy was directed to support the Taiwan. Our subs alone would have a field day since our carriers would control the air.
Should the US prioritize guns or butter?
Why does it have to be either or. They can and are doing both right now, each side always wants more.
The lack of merchant vessels in another issue. But this isn’t WWII and the fact we rely on ships from all over the world is not the danger it once was, unless of course we end up with a tyrant and turn the world against us.
Far better than sweating a ship imbalance, is to shore up the US democracy to prevent such from happening.
Oh, and I’ve seen articles like this from before I was in the Navy and I served in the 80s. We had a Cruiser imbalance in the 70s. It didn’t mean anything but some writers sold copy with it. The lack of US flagged merchant ships was decried in the 70s and probably earlier.
Our Navy, especially with our closest Navy allies, (UK & Japan) are so much stronger than any other Navy, once you look into it, it is actually silly to take these type of articles seriously.
Given 80% of the world is covered in water, I’m sure the oceans will continue to have strategic significance.
I don’t know that number of merchant ships is a good metric, as many ships fly flags of convenience outside the USA for legal or regulatory benefits.
“Number of ships” isn’t a great metric for measuring naval power either. That doesn’t tell me if they are submarines, patrol boats, supercarriers, or old Dreadnaughts pulled out of moth balls.
Not at all AFAIK. Icebreakers are effectively big tug boats with reinforced hulls designed to smash through surface ice to clear shipping lanes. They aren’t warships.
One thing to keep in mind is that the US, Japan and UK all have long-standing and robust naval traditions. By that I mean that all three nations have maintained and fought with navies for a long time, and in large part the “right” way to do things w.r.t. naval operations and naval warfare is part of the institutional culture. The officers and men are all professionals.
China doesn’t have that. The PLA navy is basically a post WWII organization that’s never fought an actual war. They’d likely underperform for a while until they could learn the right lessons and put them into practice. (incidentally, that’s what’s happening to the Russian Army right now).
Also, I suspect that US/British/Japanese ships are better ship-for-ship than their Chinese opposite numbers.
China’s surface fleet is of little value against the USN.
But their sub fleet is scary in their home waters. That would be the #1 priority for the US and its allies.
This is the sort of facile and silly statement a person with an agenda would write. “Larger” in what sense? Ships? Okay, that may be true, but is a littoral missile boat - a very small warship that makes upo a large fraction of the Chinese navy - equal in naval power to a destroyer? China’s navy is far more comprised of small coastal defense ships than the USN, which is more comprised of large ocean-going warships of unparalled power. The US Navy is arguably the second most powerful air force on earth, after the USAF. What’s Chinese military aviation like?
What allies does China have? The USA has a lot of them. The UK, France, etc. all have modern and reasonably impressive navies, and those countries all have aligned interests and so their naval power is often a factor and aligned with American interests.
I wouldn’t want to count on France, but the UK & US clearly have a special relationship and Japan is going to be onboard for anything in their neck of the woods concerning an aggressive Naval action by China. Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force is very modern and pretty strong.
US Navy is also now experimenting with turning the LHA* type ships into CVLs, what use to be called Light Carrier, now Lightning Carriers. They’ll support a 10 jet squad of Marine F35s along with their normal copter compliment. The CVLs will be almost as big as most nations’ carriers.
I did a little quick digging as I don’t trust my memory. Japan has 2 light carriers and 2 helicopter carriers. Some of their destroyers are basically cruisers. Either 4 or 8 depending on how you look at it. Then 29 Destroyers (or 33). They also have 22 Submarines. A few quieter than our nuclear powered fast attack subs.
Just a note: The Diesel-Electric subs can run quieter than our Nuclear subs. Ours still have to run cooling pumps for the nuke plants. Though I understand the US Navy’s Seawolf Class is the quietist at over 20 knots. This can be a dramatic advantage in battle if I understand correctly.
By pretty much any measure, the US Navy is the most powerful navy on earth, and the nearest competitor is not close. The USN has capabilities that other peer nations can only dream of achieving sometime in the next quarter-century.
The USN has a more difficult mission than any other nation’s navy on the face of the planet. The navies of most countries are content with operating in their immediate littoral, but the USN may be called upon to project power to anywhere on the earth covered in or close to salt water. There are maybe ten other navies in the world that want to be able to influence events more than 100 miles from their shores. None can do so on the scale of the USN.
It’s that possible mismatch between capabilities and mission that might create some difficulties for the USN in a theoretical future confrontation (e.g. Taiwan Strait) with a peer power (read: China). For the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to operate against Taiwan, they will need to be able to project power out a few hundred miles, to encompass the island and exclude other navies from the Strait to allow transport of soldiers, equipment and supplies. The US will need to be able to operate at the end of a multi-thousand mile logistical tether, in waters near the hostile air, naval and missile bases, and keep lines of supply to the island open in those contested waters. The better navy has a much harder job.
There is also the issue that some of the Navy’s strengths (carrier operations) may in fact be weaknesses (vulnerability to modern weapons systems). China has had an anti-ship ballistic missile system operational; I’m sure the US Navy has worked on countermeasures but we won’t know how well they will work until the battle is joined. Modern warships are also vulnerable to the effects of remarkably small weapon systems; peer and non-peer navies alike may be able to do some real damage to US warships using small missile-armed craft. It may well be a suicide mission for many of those on the opposing side, but the effect of depriving a carrier battle group of half its destroyer screen at the outset of a battle should not be underestimated.
Given these realities, we should take a lot of what the OP article says about American naval decline with many grains of salt. I agree with what Si_Amigo and What_Exit say above; you often get articles like this written around the time that the DoD budget process is moving through Congress.
Somewhere in the next 10 years, the US Navy might be 100% defended from missiles. The Laser defense system that CVN-78 The Gerald Ford is due to get will probably leave it only vulnerable to torpedoes. Torpedoes are already the primary worry of the Navy. Our anti-missiles systems were already amazing by 1995. They were pretty damn good in 1988 as long as they were online and Aegis was operating.
Again, the systems only work though if turned on and controlled via an Aegis system.
By 2035 I expect ships like CVN-80 The USS Enterprise will have its air wings, lots of drones, laser defenses and some sort of torpedo counter measures that will at least help. CVN-80 is expected to launch in Late 2025. The Ford class carriers are 3x more powerful than the Nimitz class but will run with about 2/3rds the crew. Launch and recover quicker and will be able to support the energy needs for cutting edge stuff like defensive lasers.
To be fair, I did read the article keeping many grains of salt in mind. I do not doubt the importance of sea power. But the article was heavy on historical comparisons of dubious worth (the world and military alternatives differed in 1930) - thus comparisons to the world almost a century ago have limited meaning, and although merchants marine show the importance of trade it is still of limited relevance since ships may be registered elsewhere for reasons of cost, convenience and confidentiality.
The oceans are doubtless important for pipelines and cables. This may indeed need more funding and bases, but the case was not made very explicit in the article, and I doubt I will read the books reviewed. Not knowing much about it, I thought I would ask some smart people here who profess to know more. One imagined cyber capabilities also matter and presumably many branches are involved in this.
I am no submariner (it will take our resident experts like iiandyiiii or robby) but AIUI the United States doesn’t have to match anything China does; the US can just go asymmetric. For instance, in a Taiwan conflict - or really, any other Pacific-water conflict the two superpowers could possibly clash in - the U.S. has a huge submarine advantage, in terms of quality and capability. There would be little to no need for surface combatants. If the U.S. needs to defend allies like Japan or Taiwan from Chinese action, those allies would already be pulling most of the weight needed, maritime-wise, to defeat the Chinese action, they just need to US Navy to chip in with a bit more and SSNs and SSGNs are what would step in nicely to fill the gap needed.
Does anyone remember the 2012 Presidential Debate? Romney tried to get a dig in that the US navy had fewer ships than in the First World War which was countered by Obama sarcastically pointing out that there were also fewer horses and bayonets.
It’s been a talking point of the right for decades, as @What_Exit points out.
Shhhh!! They are helicopter carriers! They aren’t light carriers! That would be bad!
Actually, Japan has started to take a lot more interest in Chinese aggression, hence the conversion of the helicopter carriers as well as increasing the defenses in the islands off Okinawa.
The problem is that the US doesn’t have bases on Taiwan and that’s something which the US hasn’t wanted to commit to. That’s really beyond the scope of this thread.
I’m pretty sure I recall Clark Airforce Base in the Philippines is open again. Reopen around 2015 I think. That is on Luzon the North Island and in reasonable range of Taiwan as far as I know.
It looks like the USAF returned in 2016 and the presence is small but the base can handle a lot more. Looks like we have A-10s there currently. From Clark to Taipei is 685 miles. That is the furthest from Clark. A google search indicates a range of 2578 miles for the A-10s. So we could also fly these from our bases in Japan. Probably around 750 miles to Taipei. I don’t know where we share air fields in Japan. So I used Sasebo.
Finally we Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. So there is the probably the most convenient unsinkable carrier. At only 400 miles away.
I should have thought of that first. But I never made it to Okinawa. Just S. Korea, PI & Sasebo, Japan.
It is possible I have an unhealthy obsession with trying to keep up on the World Navies.
The Falkland Islands War is an interesting illustration of how surprising technical balance can be when the battle finally happens. The effectiveness of the Exocet ASM in damaging or destroying British ships and their inability to counter it was a genuine shock, and the Royal Navy were very, very fortunate that Argentina had very few missiles. Conversely, one nuclear attack submarine essentially forced the entire Argentinian navy to abandon the war and remain in port. Stunning technical advantages.
Who knows what a China/USA war would reveal?
Just to be picky, USS Gerald R. Ford, which happens to be ship number CVN-78. Don’t use definite articles with ship names. Sorry.
The laser defense system, my goodness. It’s the future.
Seeing as you’re Canadian, I’m not sure why this alleged decline in naval power concerns you, unless you think the Russians or Chinese have designs on Vancouver or maybe Alberta.
If that’s the case you and other concerned citizens should lobby your government for major increases in naval spending.
