Can't possibly see any good to this given China's recent Naval build up. Not good, not good at all!
This is great news! We'll be able to save a bundle by buying warships on the cheap from the Chi-Coms. Maybe if we offer a bonus package, they'll deliver our new ships before the war breaks out.
There is no US ship building industry.
There was even a lame effort to build two US built cruise ships but that fell flat due to corruption and union thugs.
In the end US ship building has gone the way of the US merchant marine.
It just costs too much to flag a ship with a US flag. The navy deals were just a way to keep the knowledge if not the capacity alive.
It's just plain murder!!! Someone ping the Terri activists!
Why don't we just outsource our entire military overseas?
I'm sure the Chinese would be willing to provide us an Army to fight themselves.
Who needs a Navy anyway, certainly not the free traders that have destroyed US industries. Keep shooping at Wal-mart folks. Go Free Trade Go! And don't forget to keep voting GOP too.
Reminds of me of the Soviet Union's waining days. We're falling apart.
How soon before someone suggests nuking China...?
We only have 33 submarines?
I still don't understand why we're so afraid of China. So what if they build up their military ? So did the Soviet Union, and look what happened to them. Let them waste their money.
So long as China has a communist government, they will forever experience internal difficulties and never be able to focus totally on external issues. China will never attack us, because they could never sustain their supply lines. History tells us that.
Don't you think the threat of not being able to sell us stuff will shape their foreign policy ? We've lived a long time without Chinese goods. We can live without them in the future if we want. Without our trade they have major problems (as do we, but that's another discussion). Why should we build up our military to match them ? Does anyone here ever think we'd go to war with a nuclear China (thank you bill clinton) ?
I trust that Rumsfeld is just working to implement a sensible policy that uses off the shelf components where they can be used reliably and with a major cost reduction. I would bet that we're generally avoiding Chinese sources and buying overseas from suppliers in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc. (Obvious reason is that the Chinese would cut off supplies in the event of a military conflict with them.)
Somebody find Milton Friedman and have him explain why this is a good idea. He did so well with the volunteer army...
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MATSON:
Last American Flag Steamship Line
Purchases American Built Container Ships
http://www.Matson.com
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Perhaps ships and the shipbuilding industry are going the way of horse-drawn carts and buggy-whip manufacturers.
http://www.manufacturingnews.com/
This site hangs black crepe. Most articles are pessimistic, sky-is-falling stories.
Which may be true. But it's very depressing.
U.S. Attitude Shifts as China’s Military Improves
By WILLIAM MATTHEWS, Defense News, July 11th, 2005
In 1991, U.S. precision weapons, night vision, stealth and other technologies dazzled the world by obliterating the Iraqi Army in four days. Among those most profoundly impressed by the U.S. accomplishment was China.
Awed by the power of U.S. technology, the Chinese military launched a sustained effort to modernize and reorganize its military, said David Finkelstein, an Asia expert at the Center for Naval Analysis.
A decade and a half later, it’s Americans who are beginning to be awed by what China has achieved.
The Chinese military has acquired an assortment of new weapons: Russian submarines and jet fighters, destroyers with state-of-the-art phased-array radar, airborne early warning aircraft, cruise missiles and wake-homing torpedoes, among others.
Stressing quality over quantity, China has cut the size of its military, yet increased its capability, Finkelstein said. It has developed new command-and-control doctrines and new standards for training troops.
Chinese military leaders “know what’s broken and what has to be fixed to make themselves a more capable, professional institution,” Finkelstein said July 7 during a discussion on the Chinese military at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.
China’s Ultimate Goal?
The question for the U.S. military is: What does China plan to do with its improving military power?
For U.S. military planners, who are conducting the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), Finkelstein said,”it would be prudent to assume” that China will continue to improve its military.
But it would be a mistake to assume that China inevitably harbors hostile intent toward the United States, he said.
That seems to be the assumption President George W. Bush and his administration are making, another expert said.
As recently as December, former Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to the U.S. relationship with China as the best in 30 years. But since then, there has been a noticeable shift in the way top administration officials discuss China, said John Tkacik, a research fellow in China policy at the Heritage Foundation.
In June, for example, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld questioned continued increases in Chinese military spending.
“Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment?” Rumsfeld said.
Finkelstein contends that China perceives that it has legitimate defense needs. China fears Japan, wants to protect the access of its burgeoning industries to shipping lanes, and has reasons to worry about the aspirations of Asian neighbors such as India.
Tkacik offers this answer: China is preparing for a major war over Taiwan.
The U.S. military should pay attention to China’s military advances, said Daniel Gouré, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a defense research center in Arlington, Va. “There aren’t many uses for these advanced weapons except against an equally large and capable foe,” he said
Gouré cautioned against those who have advised that the QDR focus on the war against terrorism. China and its role as a rising world power are at least as important as the war on terrorism, he said.
The forces needed to check the military power that China may become are substantially different from those optimized for the global war on terrorism.
Among the U.S. capabilities that have a clear impression on China is the ability “to go downtown,” Gouré said. China is pursuing defenses against the capabilities that enabled the United States to strike with impunity in Belgrade and Baghdad, he said.
If the Chinese succeed, the United States will be unable to operate aircraft other than stealth planes anywhere near China, Gouré said.
For the U.S. military, that creates a clear role for planes like the F/A-22, the B-2 bomber and a B-2 follow-on, he said. It also could increase the requirement for electronic warfare capabilities and very high-speed or hypersonic strike aircraft, he said.
In response to the Chinese military buildup, Gouré said U.S. planners conducting the QDR should give consideration to:
• Maintaining a strong nuclear attack submarine fleet. Talk of reducing the fleet raises questions about how the Navy would maintain an adequate undersea presence in Asia.
• Equipping aircraft carriers with better early warning aircraft, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles and stealthy F-35 fighters.
• Keeping ship-based ballistic missile defenses in the region.
“And we need a ground force capable of taking the war to China if that becomes necessary,” he said. It may not be necessary — or possible — to march the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division into Beijing, Gouré said. But U.S. military planners should consider “putting U.S. troops on Chinese soil in ways that are persuasive.”
There’s another threat the United States has yet to address: cyber defense.
“There’s a lot of talk these days about the terrorist cyber threat. That pales in comparison” to the ability of countries like China “to put 10,000 or 20,000 trained people on the hacking circuit if they want to do so,” he said. That “is something you simply cannot ignore.”
If all that sounds daunting to the United States, it may be more daunting to the Chinese, according to Finkelstein.
China’s military modernization is occurring amid extraordinary economic growth, modernization and change in its society. In recent weeks, for example, riots have erupted among farmers over land disputes, students over rising university fees and peasants over the growing gap between rich and poor.
For Chinese government officials, “the biggest problems lie not beyond the water’s edge, but right at their doorstep,” Finkelstein said.
“The big story is about whether the Chinese Communist Party will succeed or fail in managing the rise of China at home,” he said. •