This is true and I actually read that report so I obviously forgot about all that. The one thing that is not covered well there is the type of ships in the Chi

This is true and I actually read that report so I obviously forgot about all that. The one thing that is not covered well there is the type of ships in the Chinese versus US Navy. Even with fewer ships we have more tonnage. A large part of the Chinese Navy consists of coastal defense assets which are smaller vessels. With that said they do have excellent anti-ship defenses and are gaming to be able to manage a conflict where we bring our carriers and air assets to bear. https://www.defenceprocurementinternational.com/features/maritime/china-now-boats-the-largest-navy-in-the-world https://www.defenceprocurementinternational.com/features/mar... This is the reason that we have inked defense agreements in the region. Spreading the costs of defending the free passage of goods through the South China Sea with other nations allows us an opportunity to build a larger, more modern navy and buys time. We should be investing in naval assets too since some of the most recent programs ended up with us buying fewer vessels than originally contracted and with those vessels being ill suited for the original task they were designed to handle. As the VOA article mentions, we will likely run into problems mobilizing for a ship-building effort since it already is hard enough to find skilled workers (welders, etc) for industries that employ most of them today like the pipeline and oil and gas industry. A return to teaching trades in high school would be a great start that would pay dividends nearly immediately as the first class graduates into the work force. Feel free to double check everything I posted. I could be totally wrong about any or all of it. Thanks.