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Toldja I might do it.
This is a bit more limited in scope though; purely an analysis of where I think China is going with their currently revealed programs.
And the answer to that is... nowhere in particular.
Which isn't the same thing as saying that they don't have a goal, just that the goal they have doesn't require them to project force, in particular. While there are persistent rumors of a Chinese aircraft carrier program, most of those rumors agree that the scale of such a program is modest at best, more a token "Hey look, we've got one too!" sort of deal rather than a serious attempt to challenge US naval dominance. Which is probably wise, all things considered, since the US has 11 supercarriers in service, and building up a fleet to match the US Navy would be a literally ruinous expense if attempted on a short-term time scale.
But I digress.
If I were China, and I were looking to protect my regional interests... I'd focus on a few specific things. I'd work on an anti-satellite missile, so as to deny any US attack the use of satellite reconnaissance or GPS guidance. I'd work on an anti-carrier missile, the better to prevent the US Navy from parking a half-dozen floating airfields in easy strike range of any point along my coast that they choose. And I'd work on a stealth attack aircraft, not so much to engage US fighters in combat, but to sneak past them and destroy the vital AWACS and tanker aircraft (along with foreign airfields) that the Air Force relies upon for force projection.
Gee, what are the odds that all of those are links to pages detailing the programs I just discussed?
Taken all together, they raise the possibility that, within 10 years or so, China will be able to deny the US the ability to dominate regional airspace in a potential future conflict, not by a head-to-head clash of arms, but rather by circumventing such a clash by making it too costly a venture for US politicians to consider. China won't be able to project this ability very far; they won't have the carriers or regional allies necessary, in all likelihood. But then again, they don't really need to; most of their primary interests are well within the defensive umbrella such systems would provide. And if the average politician is faced with a situation where intervention could easily result in the destruction of, say, a Nimitz-class carrier... they'd probably pull a Clinton and back down, rather quickly. Over six billion dollars and almost six thousand crew represent the potential for a world-class disaster at the polls, after all.
In part this plays into, and reinforces, my belief that military hardware and tactics will evolve in two distinct directions over the coming few decades. On the one hand, you'll have the direction currently being pursued (albeit in the usual somewhat desultory and sporadic fashion thanks to the vagaries of annual budgets) by countries like the United States: A military machine built primarily around the rapid projection of force abroad, with systems designed to that end. Hardware that is light, easily transportable, and relies more on speed, firepower, and superior intelligence to defeat the enemy rather than weight of armor or overwhelming numbers. Tactics that rely upon air dominance and precision strikes to cripple an enemy's ability to respond effectively. Doctrine that embraces the eventuality of urban warfare and plans heavily around it.
On the other side of this equation, however, you'll see the direction being pursued by countries who are primarily interested in controlling their own territory, a more defensive approach, if you will. The primary difference here is that the hardware in question will not have the sort of weight and space constraints that the more rapidly deployable forces that they are likely to face.
And that, frankly, worries me somewhat.
There's an old expression, one often thrown (somewhat unfairly) in the face of France. "Fighting the last war"; that is to say, building your military to meet a threat that has already passed, and not being sensitive to the conflicts you are likely to face in the future. And it's a good expression; it remains valid to this day.
But.
There is almost as much danger, to me, in building your forces to fight the current war, assuming that what you see today will be what you see tomorrow. Budgetary constraints, as I mentioned, are always a concern for any military force, and the US is famous for our policy of investing billions of dollars into programs that we cancel one step shy of completion, or cut back procurement in such a draconian fashion that the handful of platforms we do wind up getting have an apparent cost that is utterly ridiculous. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle and the Seawolf_class_submarines serve as respective examples for the former and latter, but I can dredge up quite a few more from the last 20 years without any particular effort. If we focus all our efforts on making this sort of "net-centric" "rapid response" "insert flashy jargon here" military machine, we may well find ourselves at a significant disadvantage when we run up against someone who's been planning on fighting the next war against us.
This is a bit more limited in scope though; purely an analysis of where I think China is going with their currently revealed programs.
And the answer to that is... nowhere in particular.
Which isn't the same thing as saying that they don't have a goal, just that the goal they have doesn't require them to project force, in particular. While there are persistent rumors of a Chinese aircraft carrier program, most of those rumors agree that the scale of such a program is modest at best, more a token "Hey look, we've got one too!" sort of deal rather than a serious attempt to challenge US naval dominance. Which is probably wise, all things considered, since the US has 11 supercarriers in service, and building up a fleet to match the US Navy would be a literally ruinous expense if attempted on a short-term time scale.
But I digress.
If I were China, and I were looking to protect my regional interests... I'd focus on a few specific things. I'd work on an anti-satellite missile, so as to deny any US attack the use of satellite reconnaissance or GPS guidance. I'd work on an anti-carrier missile, the better to prevent the US Navy from parking a half-dozen floating airfields in easy strike range of any point along my coast that they choose. And I'd work on a stealth attack aircraft, not so much to engage US fighters in combat, but to sneak past them and destroy the vital AWACS and tanker aircraft (along with foreign airfields) that the Air Force relies upon for force projection.
Gee, what are the odds that all of those are links to pages detailing the programs I just discussed?
Taken all together, they raise the possibility that, within 10 years or so, China will be able to deny the US the ability to dominate regional airspace in a potential future conflict, not by a head-to-head clash of arms, but rather by circumventing such a clash by making it too costly a venture for US politicians to consider. China won't be able to project this ability very far; they won't have the carriers or regional allies necessary, in all likelihood. But then again, they don't really need to; most of their primary interests are well within the defensive umbrella such systems would provide. And if the average politician is faced with a situation where intervention could easily result in the destruction of, say, a Nimitz-class carrier... they'd probably pull a Clinton and back down, rather quickly. Over six billion dollars and almost six thousand crew represent the potential for a world-class disaster at the polls, after all.
In part this plays into, and reinforces, my belief that military hardware and tactics will evolve in two distinct directions over the coming few decades. On the one hand, you'll have the direction currently being pursued (albeit in the usual somewhat desultory and sporadic fashion thanks to the vagaries of annual budgets) by countries like the United States: A military machine built primarily around the rapid projection of force abroad, with systems designed to that end. Hardware that is light, easily transportable, and relies more on speed, firepower, and superior intelligence to defeat the enemy rather than weight of armor or overwhelming numbers. Tactics that rely upon air dominance and precision strikes to cripple an enemy's ability to respond effectively. Doctrine that embraces the eventuality of urban warfare and plans heavily around it.
On the other side of this equation, however, you'll see the direction being pursued by countries who are primarily interested in controlling their own territory, a more defensive approach, if you will. The primary difference here is that the hardware in question will not have the sort of weight and space constraints that the more rapidly deployable forces that they are likely to face.
And that, frankly, worries me somewhat.
There's an old expression, one often thrown (somewhat unfairly) in the face of France. "Fighting the last war"; that is to say, building your military to meet a threat that has already passed, and not being sensitive to the conflicts you are likely to face in the future. And it's a good expression; it remains valid to this day.
But.
There is almost as much danger, to me, in building your forces to fight the current war, assuming that what you see today will be what you see tomorrow. Budgetary constraints, as I mentioned, are always a concern for any military force, and the US is famous for our policy of investing billions of dollars into programs that we cancel one step shy of completion, or cut back procurement in such a draconian fashion that the handful of platforms we do wind up getting have an apparent cost that is utterly ridiculous. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle and the Seawolf_class_submarines serve as respective examples for the former and latter, but I can dredge up quite a few more from the last 20 years without any particular effort. If we focus all our efforts on making this sort of "net-centric" "rapid response" "insert flashy jargon here" military machine, we may well find ourselves at a significant disadvantage when we run up against someone who's been planning on fighting the next war against us.