Kinda like the British used to be regarding challengers to the Royal Navy? I’m thinking say 20 years or so down the road. If the Chinese or someone else, started an ambitious expansion of their Navy, would we go to war to stop it? I realise they probably have some sort of program now, but I’m imagining a scenario where they start producing Supercarriers, Destroyers, Subs etc. giving them the ability to project power globally. How important is U.S naval dominance strategically? The U.S navy pretty much owns the oceans now, and I find it hard to believe they would stand for any challengers. Is my thinking out of date?
The US has naval superiority?
Unless something changed in the past 24 hrs.
I hope this is a joke.
You’re right in that China is working its way toward a blue-water navy. But I doubt we’d preemptively take out a navy like theirs (or what they’ll have a decade or two from now) just because we may feel threatened. We didn’t do it for Russia. Deterrence was a factor then, but my guess is that in a decade or two, China will have ICBMs which can get to the U.S. mainland.
And please keep in mind it’s not the Navy that’d ever decide something like this. It’s the President.
Right. What got me thinking about this was that I have been reading some WWI histories. It can be argued that Britain got involved to prevent german Naval Expansion. British control of the seas was very important to them strategically and economically. The fact that the U.S can park an aircraft carrier off the coast of any country on earth unoposed gives us a tremendoes advantage. Even during the Cold War,aside from submarines, the USSR’s Navy was never really a match for the U.S. I can’t think of any other branch of the military where U.S dominance is so complete. You’ve heard the saying that after WW2, the Pacific Ocean is ‘America’s Lake’. I can’t think of any other time in history where a nation would give up an advantage like that without a fight.
There’s not any other time in history where a nation has to worry about nuclear retaliation, either. The long and the short of it is that if China were to catch up to us navally, the US would just pour more money into the Navy. And I don’t think China has much of a chance to completely catch up, either.
How the US would react to a Chinese naval buildup? Probably proposing naval arms control treaties, with generous trade terms as carrot and old-fashioned arms-racing as stick; political-economic maneouvering to get the likes of Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, S-pore, Phillipines to let the US increase its presence and activities there and build up theirnavies; discreet but large assistance to the Taiwanese Navy; backroom deals with Vietnam to get themselves a decent Navy, too. Carpet the seas off east Asia with monitoring devices (as was done to the N. Atlantic). Listening posts wherever we can get them. etc.
Preemptive war? Unlikely. More likely the “cold” kind.
There is also the question as to whether China would have any interest in “ruling the waves” anywhere but the Pacific and then only out to the Date Line – unless they decide to adopt the USSR model and seek to actually control satellite regimes outside their own back yard.
I propose this thread gets sent to Great Debates.
Of course, it’s not in my place to judge. But it is One Man’s Opinion. I would never, ever, put myself in the place of a Moderator or Administrator. ::ducks and runs from the lightning::
We’d react like we did when the Soviet Union went to create a bluewater combat fleet (if we react at all): Build a better, or bigger, or both, fleet of our own. Has everyone forgotten Unca’ Ronnie’s 600-ship Navy?
Start a war over who has the biggest fleet…? Not bloody likely.
The Brits did not go to war to protect their naval advantage, and the US never has either.
Superiority conveys advantage. Supremacy means so far ahead as to be practically unchallengable in the immediate future. We have supremacy in that all the navies in the world could not take us on all at once with any hope but to be sunk.
I agree with IamSpartacus, Brittian went to war against Nazi Germany because Hitler’s actions left them no choice at all. They could have either unconditionally surrendered, or go to war. Anyone who knows even a little of the British charactor would realize that they could not have surrendered , and so, pushed into a corner, they fought.
I suggest you read “The Price of Admiralty, the Evolution of Naval Warfare” by John Keegan. This is a dang fine read by one of the better war historians. Mr. Keegan gets to the core of his subject without alienating the average reader. Sorry I don’t know how to put in a link for book purchasing sites.
BMalion they are talking about WWI, not II. British policy going into WWI was that their Navy would be stronger than the next two combined. After WWI the treaties places severe limitations on Germany’s navy, which is why they built the Bismark. IIRC they were only allowed two battleships so they tried to make them as powerful as possible.
I think it is highly improbable that the US would go to war to stop China from developing a Navy, and it is far more likely that we would simply enter an arms race. I also believe that in 20 years China will be a much more open society, and that the current tensions with the US will be long forgotten.
Hitler didn’t start World War 1??? I’m shocked!:o