Two years ago, in All your West Pacific Belong China, I sketched China’s growing military advantage over the United States. Since then, things have developed not necessarily to America’s advantage..
At the end of the day, you only have so many bullets and using them during peace time to “project power” means you have fewer bullets when a real conflict happens. Being world’s policeman has consequences. The global war on terror is a gift that keeps giving to China. It was budgetary concerns and wear & tear from GWOT that forced US military to stop production of the F-22 early and be stuck with F-35s across the entire fleet. It was wear & tear on F-18s from GWOT that forced the US Navy to make major investment in Super hornet, which means the future USN fleet will have more Rhinos from the 80’s than F-35Cs from the 21st century. It also forced US military to replace Prowlers with Growlers. All of which means US military will be flying smaller aircraft than their Chinese counterparts (J-20 vs F-35A, J-35 vs F-35C, J-15 vs Super Hornet, J-16D vs Growlers). In the future battlefield, payload and interior space are more important than ever. The F-35 project’s Block 4 project is now delayed until around 2030 because of the work required to provide kW of power and cooling. Aircraft not only need interior space for payload and fuel, but for electronics, wiring and cooling. It should not be surprising that J-20B and J-35 both added a hump behind cockpit to provided additional interior space. TP Huang.
Shortly after losing in Afghanistan, the US is fighting two unpopular, expensive wars.
The US needs five years to restock after depleting its arsenal in Ukraine.
Chinese observers in Ukraine know the vulnerabilities1 of American weapons while the US knows little about Chinese weapons, an asymmetry that could render America’s arsenal ineffectual.
China operates a chain of fully automated, 24x7 factories, each producing 1,000 missiles a day – more than America’s production of basic artillery rounds2.
China has excellent relationships with ASEAN, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the four nuclear powers in the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, BRICS and mBridge. America does not.
Overmatch
Next year, Xi will commission five new Burke class destroyers simultaneously, giving China 402 warships to America’s 294. The PLAN has the most modern, newest, best armed3 fleet afloat, manned by the world’s youngest, best educated, most motivated sailors.
The mass-produced J-20 Mighty Dragon’s range, speed2 and payload are unequalled. The copilot in the 2-seater controls three drones that fly ahead to draw fire or attack targets3.
Symmetrical Warfare
Any attack on Chinese territory would draw an equally powerful counterstrike on the US West Coast4. China’s ICBMs are longer ranged than America’s and carry more powerful payloads faster, says Fred Reed,
Defense is impossible. Missile defenses are meaningless except as money funnels to the arms industry. This is not the place to go into decoys, hypersonics, Poseidon, maneuvering glide vehicles, bastion stationing, MIRV, just plain boring old cruise missiles, and so on. Coastal cities are particularly easy targets, being vulnerable to submarine-launched sea-skimming missiles. Washington, New York, Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle for starters. All gone.
New developments
Since 2022, China has demonstrated the world’s first FOB, a Fractional Orbital Bombardment weapon, which has been a Pentagon wet dream since the 1960s. It’s a drone that releases and recovers payloads in space and returns to Earth upon command. And while the first American hypersonic weapon is years away, Chinese college science clubs have launched several, and two of their math professors corrected NASA hypersonic plugin software that caused repeated failures.
China used the USS Gerald Ford as the benchmark for the Fujian:
Fujian’s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System launches 5,000 planes between failures while the Ford’s EMALS manages 400.
Control tower is smaller, slimmer, neater and reduces radar signature while freeing flight deck space.
Larger Flight Deck for more aircraft, more complex operations.
Integrated Power System combines all power sources to drive propulsion, EMALS and other systems. The three EMALS, with independent power, can be operated or shut down independently for M&R.
Advanced Arrestor Gear’s 4 arrestor cables (vs Ford’s 3) arrest more aircraft.
Integrated Catapult and Arrestor Gear saves space and improves flight deck efficiency.
Bigger Elevator handles 2 fighters.
Playing defense
An attack on Chinese (or North Korean) territory would draw an equally powerful counterstrike on America’s West Coast. China’s ICBMs are longer ranged and carry more powerful payloads faster, as Fred Reed reminds us,
Osipov - Lanchester
There is a mathematical model, proposed by Russia’s Mikhail Osipov in 1915 and English engineer Fredrick Lanchester in 1916 that yields unexpected insights: the probability of winning a war depends on three factors: (1) how many soldiers are recruited in each army; (2) how much materiel (weapons, ammunition) each side can supply to their army; and (3) morale/determination to win.
Knowing that China will fight as long and as hard as necessary to win, we know the USA is doomed, for the disparity in their military capacities is too great:
China’s population outnumbers America’s 4:1.
The imbalance in their capacity to produce arms and munitions is even more lop-sided: for every missile produced in the US, Chinese factories churn out 30.
China’s 4:1 advantage in population and army size translates into 16:1 warfare advantage5, while the 30:1 manufacturing edge suggests that the PRC, like Russia, can afford to arm all of America’s enemies if necessary.
Bang or whimper?
Washington’s exercise of long-arm jurisdiction over dollar-denominated transactions and its confiscation of foreign reserves in its custody have toxified the currency, but that’s the least of its problems.
Next year, Washington will spend more on loan interest payments than on defense: $1.3 vs $1.1 trillion, and borrow another $4 trillion to grow the economy by $0.3 trillion. This forces the Treasury to sell $4 trillion of new bonds into a global market that, thanks to mBridge, uses the dollar for just 30% of its trading and reserves. Central banks will be selling dollars just when the US needs them to buy. Could plain old inflation end the American century?
Could the Empire end with a whimper?
Russia and China already share their military IP. The Triumf S400 system is one example.
The US pays as much for a dumb artillery round, $4,000 as China pays for its smaller missiles.
Chinese missiles all outrange their US counterparts.
China and Russia have excellent missile defenses while the US, with none, is provoking nuclear war with them, knowing that both can strike any US location at strategic and operational depth, at any time.
Ultrasociety, p. 157.