23 April 2010

“Navy Nears Tipping Point as New Threats Rise”

William R. Hawkins, Navy Nears Tipping Point as New Threats Rise,” Family Security Matters, 23 April 2010.

Last month, the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) published the disturbing study The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake? by Daniel Whiteneck, Michael Price, Neil Jenkins, and Peter Swartz. It warned that at its present size, the U.S. Navy cannot sustain its current level of global operations. …

The April issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine has China as its theme. In his essay “Scanning the Horizon for New Historical Missions” Nan Li, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, writes, “China has considered construction of aircraft carriers, and openly debated the establishment of overseas bases for maintaining a naval presence in the ‘far oceans.’” Retired Cmdr. Peter Dutton, a specialist in international law, looks at Beijing’s attempts to establish a jurisdiction akin to sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, an area that runs from Malaysia to Taiwan and from the Philippines to Vietnam. It is a major transit route for oil shipments and other trade. … The accuracy of Chinese ASBM and cruise missiles will be greatly enhanced by the satellite surveillance systems discussed by Andrew Erickson of the NWC’s China Maritime Studies Institute. Other innovative Chinese weapons are examined in other essays. …

China’s economic growth will continue to underwrite military/naval modernization and increases in capacity. China is behaving exactly as every growing nation has behaved since the dawn of the Maritime Age in the 1400s. Countries with growing economies and greater political power have translated this into larger and more modern navies as a sign of their power and intent to play a prominent role in global politics. …