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Here's what Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, has to say about this [1]: "As I assess our level of deterrence against China, t

by T-A 4y ago

Here's what Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, has to say about this [1]: "As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking," he said. "It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are. As those curves keep going, it isn't going to matter how good our [operating plan] is or how good our commanders are, or how good our forces are — we're not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem." One area where the U.S. still dominates is with its underseas capabilities — the U.S. submarine fleet, Richard said. "Undersea capabilities is still the one ... maybe the only true asymmetric advantage we still have against our opponents," Richard said. "But unless we pick up the pace, in terms of getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going ... if we can't figure that out ... we are not going to put ourselves in a good position to maintain strategic deterrence and national defense." [1] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3209416/stratcom-commander-says-us-should-look-to-1950s-to-regain-competitive-edge/ https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/32...

pixl97 4y ago
And we aren't going to win this battle by putting up symmetric forces against China either. At this point in their development curve they will gladly let a large number of ships and manpower sink because of their massive populations. Building more stuff that requires people simply isn't going to work. Most of our population isn't gung ho about going off to die somewhere and our replacement rate and excess population is low. America simply cannot field the world itself with 300 mil population, and instead must partner in alliances like NATO and grow allie militaries to share the burden that make any attack by China expensive on a worldwide scale.
- berdario 4y ago
  > Most of our population isn't gung ho about going off to die somewhere This is the media's job: if the US accepted 1M covid deaths, it can accept a similarly massive death toll in whichever military confrontation the US might want to embark on next. > instead must partner in alliances The numbers are different, but the same incentives apply to China. That's why they have also been putting a lot of effort into making friends (funding infrastructure efforts abroad, covid relief, belt and road, etc.)
jl2718 4y ago
“Asymmetric” has taken on a fuzzy definition in the military, kind of like “agile” or “disruptive” in more familiar domains. He states that submarines are the one true asymmetric advantage they have, but the nature of asymmetry implies that one need not match force in kind. Submarines exploit a characteristic weakness of surface ships and nuclear first-strike, but they have their own characteristic weakness, so the asymmetric label is apt, but direct comparison of force-in-kind is irrelevant. As a different way to think about it, consider that the history of warfare is entirely dominated by strategic failures leading to symmetric attrition warfare. Historians do not classify asymmetric success as war, unless it comes at the culmination of symmetric attrition. We have an industry and a profession based on the study and execution of war, which, I suggest to you, is tautologically strategic failure. The Chinese have traditionally seen the bigger picture in their strategy of “unrestricted warfare”, and they seem to recognize that their struggle is not against a specific military power or system, but perhaps the emergent unstoppable power inherent in the lack of a system or strategy. It certainly was this way for us in our recent engagements, as it will be for the aggressors of today. And yet, I don’t see the adaptation. We grow the war in scope but lose the objective. There is too much in the Chinese and US system that secures its own existence through a war of attrition against itself. All great powers end up competing in the same race.

by T-A 4y ago

pixl97 4y ago

And we aren't going to win this battle by putting up symmetric forces against China either. At this point in their development curve they will gladly let a large number of ships and manpower sink because of their massive populations. Building more stuff that requires people simply isn't going to work. Most of our population isn't gung ho about going off to die somewhere and our replacement rate and excess population is low. America simply cannot field the world itself with 300 mil population, and instead must partner in alliances like NATO and grow allie militaries to share the burden that make any attack by China expensive on a worldwide scale.

berdario 4y ago
> Most of our population isn't gung ho about going off to die somewhere This is the media's job: if the US accepted 1M covid deaths, it can accept a similarly massive death toll in whichever military confrontation the US might want to embark on next. > instead must partner in alliances The numbers are different, but the same incentives apply to China. That's why they have also been putting a lot of effort into making friends (funding infrastructure efforts abroad, covid relief, belt and road, etc.)

jl2718 4y ago

“Asymmetric” has taken on a fuzzy definition in the military, kind of like “agile” or “disruptive” in more familiar domains. He states that submarines are the one true asymmetric advantage they have, but the nature of asymmetry implies that one need not match force in kind. Submarines exploit a characteristic weakness of surface ships and nuclear first-strike, but they have their own characteristic weakness, so the asymmetric label is apt, but direct comparison of force-in-kind is irrelevant. As a different way to think about it, consider that the history of warfare is entirely dominated by strategic failures leading to symmetric attrition warfare. Historians do not classify asymmetric success as war, unless it comes at the culmination of symmetric attrition. We have an industry and a profession based on the study and execution of war, which, I suggest to you, is tautologically strategic failure. The Chinese have traditionally seen the bigger picture in their strategy of “unrestricted warfare”, and they seem to recognize that their struggle is not against a specific military power or system, but perhaps the emergent unstoppable power inherent in the lack of a system or strategy. It certainly was this way for us in our recent engagements, as it will be for the aggressors of today. And yet, I don’t see the adaptation. We grow the war in scope but lose the objective. There is too much in the Chinese and US system that secures its own existence through a war of attrition against itself. All great powers end up competing in the same race.