This evening, 60 Minutes ran a piece (taking up 2/3 of the entire program) about the state of the USN vis-a-vis the PLAN. From a Western (and, I reckon, Taiwanese) POV, it was rather worrying.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/us-nav...eo-2023-03-19/
Some highlights (or lowlights, depending on how one chooses to look at it):
The USA's shipbuilding industry- both military and commercial- is moribund, compared to China's. China has 3-4 times as many active shipyards as the USA. China's shipbuilding industry benefits from cheap materials, cheap labor, and sizeable government subsidies.
The PLAN has grown from 38 operational warships in 2000 to over 350 today. It's growing faster than the USN, which is retiring more ships than it is launching. By 2027, the PLAN fleet will have over 400 warships and the USN just over half that number.
The last 20 years have not been kind to the USN. Some have taken to calling them the "Lost Decades". The last two surface warfare vessel classes, the Zumwalt "stealth" destroyers, and the Littoral Combat Ship ("Little Crappy Ship") were both expensive boondoggles (mostly due to hull and engine defects- further evidence of the decline of US shipbuilding). The Ford Class CVNs are over budget and behind schedule.
Perhaps more concerning, the backlog for repairs to existing vessels is measured in
years. That means a sizeable percentage of the US fleet is unable to go to sea at any given point. This means crews on operational ships are overworked, with longer deployments and less time at home.
Finally, according the piece, the CIA believes that the Chinese government is preparing the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.
The good news is that the Congressional defense committee is well aware of all of these issues and the USN's requested budget this year asked for $12b above last year's.
It was a pretty sobering assessment and I urge anyone with an interest in these things to invest 27 minutes into watching the piece.
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