[ExI] Poised for defeat?

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting John Grigg:


>  "Today, however, such a deployment would no longer elicit the same
> response in a potential adversary. In part, the change reflects the closing
> of the enormous technological advantage the U.S. Navy had enjoyed for
> decades over any realistic rival. New classes of quiet diesel submarines
> and new developments in mine and torpedo technology make operations close
> to tense coastlines far more dangerous today than in the past. As a result,
> U.S. aircraft carriers are no longer immune from risk when entering waters
> within range of enemy forces."

It's the nature of the Red Queen's Race that all advantage is  
necessarily fleeting. It's gonna take some running to maintain the  
status quo. Of course "One nation to rule them all" might not be a  
status quo worth maintaining. I think our foreign policy would benefit  
from a little "live and let live" right now. Especially for those  
conflicts to which neither party has invited our intercession.

We need to take a good long look at what the U.S. sees it's role in  
the world being in the 21st century. I mean why do we still want to be  
some kind of old world hegemon in a new connected global market? Or do  
we want to simply take our place amongst the powers of the world, be  
free, and make money shooting for the stars?

> ?In today?s Navy, the aircraft carrier has become ?too big to sink,?? wrote
> Navy Lt. Jeff Vandenengel, a submariner, in a provocative article
> <https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/may/too-big-sink> in the
> U.S. Naval Institute?s journal *Proceedings* two years ago. ?Yet the Navy
> remains blind to the reality that its carriers?by way of destruction,
> damage, or deterrence from completing their missions?are poised for defeat
> in battle.?

Well you know what they say about generals always fighting the last  
war. I suppose it applies to admirals too. Smart fleet commanders  
would deploy destroyers and cruisers with anti-missile weapons like  
lasers and our awesome new rail guns in a moving perimeter around the  
carrier. That would allow the carriers themselves closer inland within  
range of their strike craft. A million dollar Chinese missile taken  
out by a fifty dollar aluminum slug? I like those odds.

> As the technological edge the U.S. has with it's military, continues to
> slip, what should America do to maintain the advantage? If Iran, a second
> or third tier rival, is a problem for us, how do we prepare for a possible
> conflict with a resurgent China?

Firstly, in war there is no opponent so much weaker than oneself as to  
not be taken deadly seriously. Many a lion is fatally gored or kicked  
to death by what it presumes to be its lunch. War makes or breaks the  
destiny of nations and their fortunes can pivot on the most trivial of  
events in the heat of battle.

> Do we improve the range and stealth
> capacity of our anti-ship missiles? Build more advanced drones for
> destroying enemy aircraft, missiles, aquatic mines and subs? Create a new
> form of stealth tech, should China's "quantum radar" prove to be effective?
> Install laser weapons on all our larger vessels, to stop hordes of incoming
> planes and missiles? Build more destroyers, to lessen the urgent need to
> use our carriers? Deploy massive rail guns for very long range bombardments
> (which could be nice for leveling artificial islands in the South China
> Sea)? Have a 21st century return to the battleship, through this
> technology? Oh, and what about improving private corporate security
> measures, so our research and development efforts are not stolen by China's
> very effective espionage machine?

Lol. The first step to preventing China from stealing all of our  
high-technology is to stop having all of it manufactured in China.  
Espionage ought to be harder than calling the guys who run Foxconn the  
Chinese company that makes i-phones for Apple and asking for schematics.

Is it in either U.S. or China's interest to go to war? Why hurt your  
best customer?

> I have a Russian "frenemy" online, who would mock me by saying the problem
> with the American military industrial complex, is that it throws huge
> amounts of money at various weapons programs, but the private companies who
> take up the contracts, are not fully held accountable. And so after a vast
> budget is spent, they may not have any real solid results, to show for it.

Not having anything to show for it is the nature of R&D. If the  
government isn't willing to risk their money on it, who would? R&D is  
actually one of the most benign aspects of military-industrial-media  
complex. Most of the complex is a voracious monster that needs to kept  
caged and sedated only to be released in extremis.

> China's "president for life," wishes to see his country essentially be the
> world's foremost superpower, by 2049, which will be the 100th anniversary
> of the regime. I suspect by then China will have attempted an invasion of
> Taiwan, which within a decade or two, would be very difficult for the U.S.
> and her allies to resist, due to their arms build-up. The PRC is deploying
> a vast sensor array at the bottom of the ocean, around Taiwan, to detect
> enemy subs. And drone torpedoes would make those waters extremely hostile
> for American and alliance subs and surface ships... China has built bunkers
> on their coastline, armed with literally thousands of anti-ship missiles,
> to overcome the defenses of incoming American carrier task forces.
>
> The PRC understands that unless they have air and sea domination, that
> their vulnerable invasion force of naval transports, crammed with troops
> and tanks, will be slaughtered, causing a huge humiliation to the regime.
> But we would be fighting them in their own frontyard, which gives them a
> huge homefield advantage.
>
> And then their longterm plan (as explained in leaked war college documents)
> is to use a captured Taiwan as a chokehold over the ocean trade routes of
> Japan. Our greatest ally in the region at that point, could be brought to
> their knees by a PRC naval blockade.
>
> I think a takeover of Taiwan, by the PRC is inevitable, but it may be
> decades until it can be achieved. And China may wish to patiently bully
> them into submission, rather than risk so much, by an invasion. But then
> again, a successful invasion of Taiwan would shout to the world that China
> had finally arrived as an undisputed superpower, that even the United
> States, with her allies, could not stop.
>
> What are your thoughts?

If we are seriously thinking of a showdown with China over Taiwan,  
then we need to start playing our technological cards closer to our  
chest. As the sources you have cited have made clear, right now the  
technological edge lies with area denial instead of force projection.  
We would be fighting a defensive war on Taiwan, which means that we  
can play the area denial game to great effect. They are the ones who  
are going to have to put their troop carriers at risk to cross a  
hundred mile wide kill zone while we sit back and rain fire on on them.

In my opinion, it will come down to who has the better commanders, but  
if it were to happen today, we would have the advantage.

Stuart LaForge