Interesting graphic on global Cvs

There's been a lot of attention recently about the strength of the Navy, most recently in the third presidential debate as the Republican candidate has made increasing the size of the Navy one of his key campaigning points. Similarly there's been a thread on BoardgameGeek about the USN vs. The Rest of the World., as well, which is where this graphic was lifted from.. I don't know the original source, but it does display rather starkly the differences in capability that we are talking about.

Especially noteworthy is the inclusion of the US navy's amphibious assault ships in the list. Often commenters compare the 11 CVNs to the 11 carriers owned by the ROTW, but this is misleading because many of those 11 other carriers are really much more like the amphibious ships than they're like US carriers. Indeed, NO ONE has a carrier that's truly comparable to an American CVN. The seven British, Thai, Spanish and Italian vessels are basically the same as the nine amphibious ships, although generally smaller.

This leaves just five ships that could possibly be called some sort of "fleet" carrier, one each for Brazil, Russia, China, India and France. Again, all of them are notably smaller than an American CVN.

Hyuga, right, with a US Nimitz-class CVN

Of the 11 foreign carriers of all flavors, seven belong to NATO allies and the US has friendly relations with most of the rest. Only the Russian and Chinese carriers might plausibly be considered in opposition to the USN.

One might give the ROTW a little more than 11 "carriers," though because I think you could fairly consider the Japanese "destroyers Hyuga and Ise as really being light aircraft carriers or amphibious assault ships at least comparable to the smaller Spanish and Italian ships shown in the graphic. They're only called "destroyers" for political reasons having to do with the Japanese constitution and relations with neighboring countries.

Still, even adding those two doesn't change the odds in any meaningful way.

Red Dragon Rising musings

This game seems to have legs, especially for a magazine game. There will be a major 70+ counter variant in S&T 258, reportedly.

It's also seeming quite topical these days. Note this recent article: http://uk.reuters.com/article/usPoliticsNews/idUKTRE54363X20090504?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

It's no surprise that China would gear their naval buildup towards countering our Navy. And Adm. Mullen seems to be doing his best to tamp down the hype in the article.

If Japan and Taiwan were not strong US allies then China might be expected to gear its (deliciously named) People's Liberation Army Navy to dealing with those two local and regional powers. But it's hard to imagine any scenario involving conflict with either that would not instantly involve the USN, so the PLAN is obligated to deal with the threat as matter of basic military prudence.

That said, I don't think a conflict is inevitable. In the short and medium term the main cause for concern would be some sudden flareup over Taiwan. This is always a possibility because of the political and emotional stakes involved, which can be volatile. On the other hand, time may very well solve this problem.

There is, however, a long-term threat caused by grand strategic factors. Simply stated, the USA is the Top Dog in the world power structure. China is a former Top Dog that believes it is long overdue to return to Top Dog stature and it has the booming economy to support that. It's busy building up some military capability to back that up, but military hardware is just a small part of China's ambitions as it improves domestic infrastructure, reforms domestic affairs and invests in science and technology. This is a multi-generational affair that will play out over the rest of the 21st Century. It may result in some major war or wars just as the rivalry between the British Empire and Germany did in the first half of the 2oth Century. Or it may be resolved relatively peacefully like the Cold War. Can't say yet.

There may be "interesting times"" ahead.

*Interesting in the sense implied by the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."