Last week, the U.S. Navy released its annually-updated 30-year shipbuilding plan. The document confirms what analysts have expected since the January publication of the Pentagon's new Strategic Defense Guidance: the world's leading naval power is no longer planning a major expansion from today's 285 warships to 313 or more, as was expected as recently as last year. Instead, the U.S. combat fleet will slightly shrink to a low of 276 vessels in 2015 before modestly expanding, peaking at a planned 307 ships in the late 2030s.
Lower shipbuilding rates account for the smaller projected fleet. The Navy anticipates buying between seven and nine warships during most years, while retaining most vessels for around 40 years of service.
The cuts are inconsistent with the Obama administration's much-touted "Pacific pivot," says Mackenzie Eaglen, an analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "This is a pivot in name only," Eaglen wrote at AOL Defense.
But the Navy is shifting a greater proportion of its forces to the Pacific while reducing its Atlantic presence. By 2016, seven of 11 aircraft carriers will Pacific-based, up from six today. The Navy has signed an agreement with Singapore for forward-basing of a portion of its new fleet of small Littoral Combat Ships.
The smaller size of the future U.S. fleet belies its potential combat power and superiority compared to rival navies. The deepest cuts are to smaller amphibious ships and unarmed support vessels such as catamaran transports and logistics vessels. The Navy plans to sustain a force of 10 to 12 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, nine or 10 large-deck assault ships and around 48 nuclear attack submarines. Under the new plan, the number of destroyers actually increases.
"It is important to remember that, as much as the U.S. battle fleet has shrunk since the end of the Cold War, the rest of the world’s navies have shrunk even more," then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in a 2010 speech. "So, in relative terms, the U.S. Navy is as strong as it has ever been."
The Russian navy has suffered the most. From its Cold War peak, the Russian fleet has been reduced to a mostly coastal force with only a token ocean-going capability.
The Chinese navy — America's biggest Pacific military rival — isn't significantly expanding. After a period of rapid growth in the middle part of the last decade, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has slowed production of submarines and destroyers and is now focused on replacing older vessels with equal or smaller numbers of newer, more efficient models, while also adding niche amphibious and aviation capabilities. The overall Chinese fleet is projected to remain at around 150 large warships over the medium term, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.
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Odtuhan
Made is china is made in china it cannot be used as good at it must be.
CJK
So its ok for a nation to suppress its own people but not ok for a nation to support anti-suppression measures. This whole line of thinking is China=good and the US=evil. If the US was as evil as you all think the Middle East would already be an American oil perserve (split with the Russians), North Korea would be an ashpit, and China would be a few people trying to survive the radiactive lake they would be living in.
All nations try and “advance” their interests first…….Roman, Mongols, Great Britian, US, and in the future China. Do you think China will be any better than the US is in pushing their needs over the world’s? Spare me the bulls*&t.
MYK
Well, after hearing Grandpa Wen say the Chinese GDP has been downgraded to 7.5% recently, I would think that the PLAN will also have to consider downsizing as well!
Besides, China spends more money for internal security forces annually, than what the CCP spends on national defence every year!
That’s the price the CCP government must spend to try and keep the people of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia from declaring independence from mainland China!
John Chan
@MYK,
China needs to spend more money on internal security forces to deal the ever increasing sabotage activities funded by the imperialist Westpac, like they fund the free Syrian force to destabilize Syria. This is another proof the predatory nature of the imperialist Westpac, they rather engage in lose-lose activities instead of spending time to help the unemployed back home.
Helo
@JC
So a police state is what is best for China? Try living in Nazi Germany and let us know how it went.
victor
Excuses excuses excuses.
Pax america imperial ambition has been stifled by near bankruptcy.
It is best to borrow more money from China for armed forces expansion.
As America believes that it need not have a payback due to mutual assured destruction (military and financial)
Maybe it Bretton Woods II again if it ever works one more time and quantitative easing again.
Duke
“…It is best to borrow more money from China for armed forces expansion”!!!
It sounds weird & funny to me. China bought the US T-bonds just for the sake of its safe investment & buying down the Yuan for its own export advantage. That’s it! BTW what do you call ‘monetary easing’ in Chinese? Is it a kind of quantitative easing?
victor
Excuses excuses excuses.
Pax america imperial ambition has been stifled by near bankruptcy.
It is best to borrow more money from China for armed forces expansion.
As America believes that it need not have a payback due to mutual assured destruction (military and financial)
Maybe it Bretton Woods II again if it ever works one more time and quantitative easing again.
I’m old enough to remember
… the all-powerful Soviet Union. They are no more because their entire system was built on an unsustainable economic model. Such is also the case for the United States and Western Europe. Its just that our system is a bit more robust than theirs and thus have lasted a bit longer. Its still unsustainable. Non-mainstream news economic thinkers estimate that the US budget deficit will go parabolic in the latter part of this decade and the rest of the world will have to abandon the dollar or get sucked down together with USA as the “Federal” reserve “monetize” (that is, print and buy) all newly issued USGOV bonds as well as the old ones when they mature.
The USA has hitherto been able to purchase goods and services by merely printing dollars because of the dollars status as a “world currency”. Its kind of ironic that the value of the dollar is backed by Chinese sweatshops and Saudi oil to a much higher degree than by America herself.
Once this “seignorage privilege” is gone, the only thing sustaining the giant American military apparatus will be whatever is left of the real goods producing American economy – not to be confused with the fluff producing service economy. This “hardware” part of the economy is a mere shadow of what it was in the 70′s or 80′s. Most of it have been outsourced to the Far East. And there will be no come back, demographic trends in USA means that the future of USA is Brazilification and not a return to a first world status. You dont fund eleven carrier battle groups on an economy based on raw materials, services and a tiny value adding sector.
ACT
i would replace “brazilification” (the widening of the gap between the rich and poor to the point that the middle class ceases to exist) with “feudalization” (the return of society to a tiny, hereditary, hyper-rich elite that holds all power and government, dwarfed by a minimally educated material goods producing poor), for that is exactly what is happening in the united states. regardless, if the economy of the United States implodes, then so too will the economies rest of the world; the United States is a major trade partner with Europe China and India and with Europe’s economy already on the ropes, the implosion of the economy of the united states would see the demand for products from China sink through the metaphorical floor, resulting in millions of unemployed workers and economic destitution across the board. the only way to avoid this that i can see would basically be for China to revert back to a closed, internalized and state run economy, something that would cripple its capabilities anyway. Basically, economic collapse in either china or the united states, or a war between them (as John Chan, Liang1a, Klee and others so often fantasize of) would result in roughly the same situation as europe after WWII; a series of events that would bring most nations to the brink of collapse politically, unless someone could intervene monetarily.
with that chain of events in mind, i would advise that certain commentators on here should not be so eager to see the downfall of China or the United States.
Duke
Just think of over a billion Chinese currently living with just several dollars a day for their whole families’ subsistence, & 200 millions or so of ‘middle-class’ Chinese with very high income,with luxurious life-style, residences & cars then people will know what the Chinese ‘ harmonious society’is!! Greedy American multinationals are partly accountable for this economic mess by outsourcing almost everything to China, they now should clean it up to help recover the US’s economy ! Yet, the coming collapse of China’s economy is for sure ! Uncle Sam, fortunately is always the last man standing!!
ACT
@Duke
i honestly don’t see why you feel the need to use exclamation points all the time; it makes you seem more than a bit silly. that aside, you are right on some of your points.
@victor: Bretton Woods II?
John Chan
@ACT,
It is wrong to accuse others protesting USA’s blatant aggression as inciting war, it is akin to blaming the victim, and naked expression of American’s world order and hegemony “USA considers other nation’s resistance as aggression.”
USA is thousands miles away on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, and nobody has any capability to harm USA, why does USA need to post 7 carrier battle groups in Asia that is peaceful and working hard to improve the living standard of its people. American should go home and mend its own broken society, instead of pulling everyone down with it; racing to the bottom is not an option to advance humanity.
ACT
@ John Chan
not a race to the bottom, no. However, you should realize that–at least currently–all economies in the world are connected in some way. if one goes down, so too will the others. we’ve seen this with the Eurozone and the United States; even that minor dip caused china’s economy to suffer somewhat as well.
I’m old enough to remember
What I meant with Brazilification was not just what you meant, but also a demographic shift. A majority non-white USA will have very little interest in European affairs and with the big white evangelical voting group reduced to electoral impotence America will also have less and less interest in doing Israels business. USA will become an inward looking nation where social redistribution schemes will be more important than the number of carrier battle groups.
Why am I so certain about this? Well, for instance, USA is about 50% white or just a bit below that right now – the census does not count the number of whites, it counts the number of caucasians, and whites are only a subgroup of the much bigger caucasian group, which includes north africans, jews, arabs, afghanis and many more peoples.
By 2040 or so whites – or rather European-Americans – will be about 20 to 25% of the total American population, depending on future population growth. The vast majority of Americans will simply not belong to ethnic or racial groupings that traditionally have supported the American Imperial military machine. If the center cannot hold, then the periphery certainly will not, and since USA is 90% of NATO, there will be a lot of readjustment elsewhere in the world. The Russians knows this. The Chinese knows this. Thats why they are always playing for time.
As for Americas importance to the worlds economy, it is steadily diminishing due to bilateral trade deals between foreign nations that bypass the dollar as the intermediate trading currency.
America is running a perpetual trade deficit and is actually consuming more than it produces, which means that if America were to decline into economic obscurity, living standards would rise in the rest of the world because it would not have to fund Americas excess consumption. There are other aspects as well – a gallon of oil consumed by America is a gallon of oil that cannot be consumed by someone else. If America would become too impoverished to buy that gallon, it would lead to cheaper oil prices in Germany, India or China, thus boosting *their* economies. In this sense the world economy is a zero-sum game where the lesser number of players the better for the participants.
guest
A single Seawolf could solo the entire Chinese+Vietnamese+Korean+Burmese navy. Only the English Astute SSN comes near US naval supremacy
John Chan
@guest,
English Astute SSN run aground in no time after in service. Seawolf is as good as Astute SSN, it implies US navy has been suppressing a lot of Seawolf running aground news.
applesauce
lols, because a sub is gonna combat hordes of naval air power
The_Observer
The USA has seven battle carrier groups and is also upgrading her nuclear submarine fleet and is adding littoral ships to her navy. I doubt if any other single nation can compete with American firepower. Currently the USA and NATO are giving their military all the live practice in breaking up countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya. Next up Syria and Iran. But before that there was military intervention by the USA in Grenada (1983) Panama (1989), Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan (2001), Yugoslavia, etc. For a fuller list of US military interventions in other countries since 1890 see:
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
Compared to the USA no other country in history has had such a diverse geographical spread when it comes to military action and conquest. The Mongolian Empire was the largest land empire at one time but their naval attempts failed.
Sam
War can not be won by weapons…its won by sheer political tactics…if war is only won by weapons then US didn’t return empty hands, Russia could not able to capture Berlin in WWII, Japan could win Russo-Jap war and Germany could get control over Europe…but not happened like that…the real mature brains in the war machine always hunt for the best opportunity in diplomacy of any situation and this is actually matters…and number 2, how can we be so sure what’s actually waiting in other’s arsenal unless they ever let us know. Its the US that beats its drum most, this could be a tactics but we should also consider nations that don’t beat it drum doesn’t mean they don’t have a drum, may be they have a bigger drum, who knows that? You and me, who depends upon few internet sites and on a great amount of perceptions…and well if History always repeat itself then we can able to Roman Empire today…the real game changers is not a Sea Woolf or an Akula class nuke submarine…but the men behind the State War Mechanisms who actually play the game…waepons and submarines and Carrier battle groups are parts of the same…
John Chan
Wow, what a destruction trail left behind by the USA wherever it has been. We can officially crown USA the most destructive tyranny in history ahead of barbaric Mongols.
ACT
@John Chan and The_Observer:
and your point is?
every empire, no matter their origin, acts to protect their own interests with actions that seem barbaric, deceitful or morally bankrupt to the rest of the world. such comments are made out of fear and lack of understanding. can you honestly claim, either of you, that a CPC hegemony would be ANY different?
Klee
Of course, US are warmonger country. They goals are to invade, & to occupy & to secure foreign bases and influence . These have been demonstrated in the last 12 years. Their wars were fought over years.
On the other hand, in the last 40 years, the 1962 China/India war ended in a couple of months. China/Vietnam war in late 1970s ends in weeks.
The world becomes a dangerous place with US possessing with most of the lethal weapons. That is the reason we have advocated for a long time that China must implement the three prone countermeasures. i.e. (1) facilitate the trump card of nuclear warhead arsenal of at least 6500 (counter US with notion of mutual destruction); (2) increase R&D to compete with US in space weapons; (3) drastically improve cyber-attack skill on US civilian & military systems.
In fact, China is not so-called “modernization of military”. China actually is doing “catch-up” in military strength to the rest of the world nations because of China had a century of neglecting military powers due to civil wars and foreign invasion. China is still weak relatively, so it must keep increasing the defense budget (ignoring the outcry and exaggeration of other nations) to make sure the century of humiliation will not repeat again, and this time the perpetrator will be US.
ACT
i would advise you and yours not to wish for or attempt to provoke warfare with the sole objective of ending the 172 year long cultural clash between east and west in China’s favor, but it would seem that such sentiments fall on deaf ears.
Khalid Arab
Looks and sounds like the U.S. is the one that needs to be contained and shaped, and its nuclear weapons taken away from it. It is a psycho-pathological state.
a_canadian_observer
@Khalid Arab: You may want to ask your brothers and sisters in Xinjiang for their opinion before uttering your nonsense.