We, OTHO, despite our quantatiative and qualitative advantage now, will have global duties and priorities which will keep us from massing on that front. If other conflicts conttinue to require our presence, and if the DNC or a true RINO gets in the opval office...I look for them (under those two conditions) some time after the olympics to potentially test us there over Taiwan, the Spratelys or some other issue.
At current build rates, four or five years from now they will have the numbers and the technology and the training with their newer surface combatants and submarines to make such an attempt. They may or may not have a carrier at that point...I believe the Varyag will be operational in that time frame...but in the littoral waters where their land based air is so close at hand, a carrier will not make a lot of difference (other than a potentially dangerous distraction for us...more of an issue to local nations) in that first gambit.
Just my opinion.
