[Sandreckoner]

“Clearly the trend shows that the PLAN is rapidly closing the gap between itself and the US Navy”

“The gap” is closing? So when they reach the same number of ships, they’ll be the U.S. Navy’s equal? And they’re just “a few years” behind us now?

If that’s true, we suck, and have for a long time. So do the Russians, and pretty well everyone else. It’s amazing that the Chinese will have managed to develop a peer navy within a few short years, whether it be in terms numerical, technological or operational. Truly, truly amazing.

[Jeff Head]

We have, in the Clinton years, and since, allowed the technology to be bought, traded, and stolen, that is allowing them to do this from a technology standpoint...we are providing them the economic imbalance and thus the hard currency to do it from a manufacturing standpoint.

It does not have to be this way...and they still have a significant ways to go in terms of both technology and numbers. But the trends are in place to allow them to continue to close the gap in both areas. In the next ten to fifteen years, unless we make significnt adjustments, we could be at risk in the WESTPAC...maybe sooner.