The National Interest, a U.S. diplomatic and security journal, published an article titled “Size is not everything: Is the Chinese Communist Navy overrated? questions the true strength of the Chinese Communist Navy. It profoundly points out that Communist China, like the former Soviet Union, does not have a tradition of operating fleets at sea for long periods of time under adverse combat or weather conditions.
According to the article, back in the 1980s, war with the Soviet Union seemed like it would be a naval nightmare.
Novelists like Tom Clancy and John Hackett painted a future scenario in which Western navies would face swarms of red bombers, cruise missiles, submarines and surface warships. Naturally, in these novels, the “good guys” win, but at a great cost.
In hindsight, some of this looks pretty silly. We now know (and some suspected at the time) that the Soviet Navy was weakened by major technical and training deficiencies. It was not a paper tiger, but neither was it some beast in the water that would devour the Western fleet.
Are we now making the same mistake with the CCP? Are we exaggerating the threat when we read reports of massive CCP naval expansion or supposed CCP superweapons such as carrier-killer ballistic missiles?
First, it is important to recognize that shock is not conducive to rational thought. From 1917 to the early 1960s, the Soviet Navy was not a serious threat to the West. It was a large but limited fleet, oriented primarily toward coastal defense, with many small missile boats, torpedo boats and diesel submarines. It was the large Red Army that provided a strong backbone for Moscow’s military power.
By the late 1960s, under Admiral Sergey Gorshkov, the Soviet Navy turned to vigorous development. Moscow began to build a blue-water navy that included major surface combatants such as heavily armed cruisers and destroyers, nuclear attack submarines, and even aircraft carriers, the ultimate symbol of naval power in the eyes of the West. Even if the Soviets could not defeat the U.S. and Allied navies in an absolute sense, perhaps they could sink the convoys carrying U.S. reinforcements across the Atlantic, thus allowing the Red Army to take over Europe, or destroy the oil tankers that kept the Western economies running.
However, the Soviet Navy proved to have serious problems. The ships were mechanically unreliable, if not unsafe. Morale was not particularly high, as demonstrated by the Soviet destroyer that tried to defect to the West in 1975.
If this sounds familiar, it is because until the early twenty-first century, Communist China was never considered a formidable naval power. Now, the CCP is considered to have advanced weaponry, a strategy to fight for control of the Western Pacific, and even an aircraft carrier. And we know that the CCP has a ways to go before it can build a first-class navy, such as learning to operate an aircraft carrier.
Russia’s naval power dates back to the 17th century and Peter the Great, while Chinese explorers sailed to Africa and Australia centuries before Columbus successfully reached the Americas. Nonetheless, neither the Soviet Union nor Communist China had a tradition of operating fleets at sea for long periods of time under adverse combat or weather conditions. Whatever the flaws of the U.S. and British navies, such as faulty and overpriced ship and aircraft designs, both have a great deal of experience and a strong tradition of winning. There is more to winning a war at sea than the number of ships or missiles.
The United States is building a $13 billion Ford-class aircraft carrier as well as other weapons . In fact, the Navy’s new plan to build a 355-ship navy means that the United States is poised to embark on the largest expansion since the end of the Cold War. If a U.S.-China conflict breaks out and the Chinese Communist Party’s naval power is as strong as some fear, this would be a worthwhile investment.
However, if it turns out that the CCP’s naval power is overstated and U.S. defense dollars would be better spent elsewhere – perhaps on aircraft, drones or cyber warfare – then victory over the CCP will have been won even before his navy fires the first shot.
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