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America has a lot of very expensive but not necessarily useful ships (see the Zumwalt-class clusterfudge). China has an inexpensive anti-ship ballistic missile

America has a lot of very expensive but not necessarily useful ships (see the Zumwalt-class clusterfudge). China has an inexpensive anti-ship ballistic missile system that can sink anything in the Pacific. America's Aegis system might stop some ASBMs some of the time with a favourable wind. The prediction that "of course America will win this war easily, look at all the kit we have" does not have a good track record. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/27/china-deploying-carrier-sinking-ballistic-missile/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/27/china-deplo...

cthalupa 6y ago
There's a few things here. First and foremost: Any argument we make is based on unclassified publicly known details related to the technological capabilities of both countries. This is an uninformed and untenable position to be making strong arguments from. Two: There's not a lot of evidence the ASBMs can actually hit moving targets. There are a lot of impressive claims on the ASBM and ASCM front, but we have seen impressive claims from Russia and China on prior weapons that have not panned out in reality. Everyone postures about having a better hand than they actually do. Tree: There's a lot of strategies we can employ besides Aegis. The US Navy has countered similar threats before, and can likely do so again. This Congressional Research Service report on Chinese naval modernization is an interesting read in general, but has an appendix specifically discussing ASBMs: https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20191220_RL33153_d765d52dedca23a23b578d2e8973663ea169eaff.html#_Ref18055675 https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20191220_RL33153_d765d5...