- China missiles filled with water, not fuel: US intelligence
- Xi seeking to root out corruption, prepare military for combat
US intelligence indicates that President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military purge came after it emerged that widespread corruption undermined his efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war, according to people familiar with the assessments.
The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is so extensive that US officials now believe Xi is less likely to contemplate major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing intelligence.
I mean…the US Navy is roughly 40 times more capable than the Chinese navy just looking at aircraft carriers compared, nevermind the carrier group components or the planes. A US super carrier is so much more capable than the 2 Chinese carriers combined.
China’s ship building capacity is greater than the US. They may be able to overwhelm the US Navy in an extended conflict.
That said, China is looking at a demographic cliff from the One Child Policy. Too many old people and not enough young ones to take care of them. If they’re going to start a war, it has to be in the next few years or not at all. It’s possible the window is already closed.
Imagine what their demographics would look like if they also started a war and killed their young people though.
Not saying they won’t do it, and they do currently have an excess of young men specifically, but a country with a population problem isn’t in a great place to start a war imo.
That’s like saying if we produce enough preschoolers fast enough we might be able to overwhelm that SWAT team.
The US Navy could likely sink their entire fleet without losing anything of significance outside of ammunition and fuel, it doesn’t matter how fast they can build such inferior ships.
When it comes to engaging with developed nations the US doesn’t do extended conflicts, that’s a luxury of third world occupations. We’d take out their Navy and then invade or force a surrender based on extended range weapons.
A war can also solve another problem China has: too many men and too few women. War deaths will not only reduce the man to female ratio, but as in past Chinese wars soldiers will bring home war “brides”.
China would need to build ships faster then the US can build antiship missiles. The US has thousands of stealthy Long Range Anti Ship Missiles. The only thing that quantity of ships would do is make a bunch of reefs.
And there’s what, 7 to 10 of em?
Of which? Last I looked at Wiki the US has 11 aircraft carriers in service.
China with two ramped smaller ones. Apparently one was formerly a casino and the other is a clone.
Tonnage is another decent metric. US has 4.6 million tons to Chinas 2.
The capability of the tonnage is a whole other twist. Force multipliers like mid air refueling, AWACs, stealth etc
Aircraft carriers, so 11. Aren’t they working on 1 or 2 more as well?
The plan is to phase in Ford-class carriers to replace the Nimitz-class. There is supposed to be 10 total in the end.
That said, the US DoD is doing its usual sandbagging thing where it says China could totally overwhelm the US Navy in an extended conflict and that means we need to make an even bigger navy. Commenters elsewhere in the thread comparing preschoolers to SWAT teams are off base; China’s ships and planes aren’t on the same level as the US, but quantity in a conflict near China’s borders would still be a problem. Still, pretending the US military is behind is a budget tactic that worked all throughout the Cold War, and it’s working again. It’s why the military-industrial complex is such a problem.
So are they going to try and get funding to keep the old ones running or are they legit going to be decommissioned and just make more Fords?
I don’t think they’ll try to keep the Nimitz class going. Part of the reason for a whole new class is that the Nimitzes didn’t have enough power for some of the upgrades the Navy wants. If there are even more total carrier groups to be made, it’ll probably be all new ones.
Who knows, though. The non-nuclear Kitty Hawk lasted into the 21st century.
Yep. It’s a big navy.
Much as I love to toot Murica’s horn US’s fleet figures become less daunting when you consider the areas of interest and responsibility they cover. China has one long coast line and offshore interests, (and yes some rather optimistic claims and attempts to create islands to expand their influence) compared to US fleet having 2 major coastlines, Alaska and Hawaii, to say nothing of areas of interest and defense commitments to allies.
Under ideal circumstances US can only ever afford to have a third of it’s fleet in any single theatre, where China can theoretically put almost all of their fleet into a single theatre, granted that theatre basically needs to be the Pacific Ocean.
US still has the clear advantage the moment you step away from coastal waters but its not nearly as big as first glance.