US Navy leaders say they want to go on the offensive against China with new weapons

[Eugene]

Source: Business Insider

US Navy leaders say they want to go on the offensive against China with new weapons

Ryan Pickrell 1h

• To better confront near-peer threats, the US Navy needs to go on the offensive, service leaders have stressed, according to Breaking Defense.
• China is rapidly expanding its fleet and deploying standoff weapons to defend its interests and challenge US operations in the Pacific.
• US Navy leaders want to hit first and fast, adopting an aggressive offensive posture to put challengers on defense.

The US Navy wants to go on the offensive against near-peer threats, focusing on the ability to strike first and fast with new weapons.

Facing a rising China that is expanding what is already one of the largest naval fleets in the world and fielding powerful standoff weaponry, the US Navy must change its strategic thinking, service leaders said Wednesday, Breaking Defense reported.

The Navy has come face-to-face with some of these threats.

In September, a Chinese warship challenged the US destroyer USS Decatur in the South China Sea during a routine freedom-of-navigation operation.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-leaders-want-to-go-on-the-offense-against-china-2019-2

[Sherman A1]

1. Is it budget time?

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Good luck with THAT, MacArthur . . . . . . .

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. Follow the money...

it will lead to the military-industrial lobby.

Rant mode on so ignore if you wish. Why the fuck do we need battleships? Aren't they just the EASIEST targets ever created since the advent of aircraft? Or long range missiles? I do not get it, other than they keep coastal workers employed and lobby personnel rich.

[marble falls]

4. The US fleet is so much larger than the Chinese fleet in tonnage, its a joke.

Its such a joke: that not only is China at #3 and a quarter the size of the US, the US is larger than the next five largest Naval powers put together.

https://www.therichest.com/rich-list/rich-countries/lets-sea-the-10-biggest-navies-in-the-world/

The USN by itself the 3rd largest air force. The USN has three or four the number of aircraft carriers as the rest of the world put together. If not more.

[secondwind]

5. The TPP was enacted for a reason:

To keep China in check. That was Obama’s view.

[soryang]

6. Encouraging the arms race in East Asia is a bad idea

Combined with Trump's merchantilism it's bound to have a bad outcome. The old gunboat diplomacy does nothing but spur China to create new weapon systems to counter surface warships. The same holds true for Russia but they cannot project power in East Asia the way the Chinese potentially can.

Freedom of navigation operations may appear routine but they aren't and present a threat of accidental confrontation and war.

Admirals shouldn't make foreign policy statements.

The notion that Taiwan is some kind of bulwark against Chinese "expansionism" is defective, just as reliance on Chiang Kai Shek during the 20th Century was delusional.

I'm surprised the Chinese still allow US ships to visit Hong Kong.