Australia to Get Nuclear Submarines

[Stuart Galbraith]

I dont have a an Iphone. Surprisingly I can still make a go of life with my wax tablet.

 

[Doug]

Pah! What do you do when Vesuvius erupts? The wax melts! That's why I only rely on my trusty chalk and slate. 

[Nobu]

3 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Mahan?  Nobu, about three USAF B-2's with conventional loads could shut down the major ports of China in one night.   It's got nothing to do with navies, or sea control, or any such nonsense.  Sea logistics these days rely on very specific port facilities that can be easily destroyed by precision conventional missile attack.  And if destroyed, the import/export capacity of that country will collapse instantly to a fraction of its previous level.  For China, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that its navy can do about that.

Less than half a dozen B-2's.  One night.  Game over.

I don't disagree with this assessment of Washington's Capability. I disagree with you about the Irrelevance of Sea Power upon History.

25 years ago, you didn't need B-2s or to be a superpower to challenge Beijing's navy and threaten its maritime trade. There was no Chinese navy.

Mahan, redux.

[sunday]

There was no airpower in Mahan's time. Airpower eroded the Mahanian concept of insularity, and ICBMs made the Mahanian Heartland almost as vulnerable as the rest of the planet.

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 minutes ago, Doug said:

Pah! What do you do when Vesuvius erupts? The wax melts! That's why I only rely on my trusty chalk and slate. 

Well so doI, but for some reason they wont allow me to remove it from the pub....

[Simon Tan]

Pining for Nanjing again. 25 years ago the USN was defending the trade with the PRC. 

[shep854]

5 hours ago, Doug said:

Pah! What do you do when Vesuvius erupts? The wax melts! That's why I only rely on my trusty chalk and slate. 

Meh.  Chisel and stone.  Worked for Moses when he downloaded Hebrew OS 1.0 from the Cloud, and look how long that's lasted...

Edited September 25, 2021 by shep854

[Coldsteel]

4 hours ago, shep854 said:

Meh.  Chisel and stone.  Worked for Moses when he downloaded Hebrew OS 1.0 from the Cloud, and look how long that's lasted...

Oh no you don't, I'm not falling for that one again, last time everything went all melty.

[glenn239]

On 9/25/2021 at 12:12 PM, Nobu said:

25 years ago, you didn't need B-2s or to be a superpower to challenge Beijing's navy and threaten its maritime trade. There was no Chinese navy.

Mahan, redux.

You write, "to challenge Beijing's navy and threaten it's maritime trade", which is to say that Chinese navy has any meaningful say in the termination of Chinese maritime trade.  It doesn't; the the Chinese navy has no capacity to prevent the interdiction of Chinese maritime trade. 

In Mahan's time navies were the arbitrators of sea control.  Now, naval power is almost entirely decoupled from the capacity to defend sea trade.  They are now spectators. 

Edited September 27, 2021 by glenn239

[Stuart Galbraith]

Not sure I agree with that. Indeed if it were true, there is no reason spending money on the big ticket items, when you could do pretty much all you wanted to do with offshore patrol vessels.

Yes, its clear airpower has modified naval powers abilityt control the sea, but there are few airforces capable of reaching out into the middle of the North or South Atlantic, or for that matter the Pacific. There is even fewer navies capable of taking an air wing out there and enforcing dominance over a navy. For example, look at Argentina. A major regional air power, completely trounced by a regional navy armed with what some saw as a toy aeroplane. And not even any airborne radar cover?

 

[glenn239]

Sea trade cannot go out into the middle of the Pacific and hide there.  It is the movement of goods between ports, ports which utilize vulnerable infastructure in order to move large volumes of material quickly.  In Mahan's time the port infastructure was not a factor.  Today, it's everything; the container ships are next to useless without the ports to process them.  One B-2 can eliminate the infastructure of a major port.  Protecting sea trade has therefore been completely decoupled from naval strength.

For a country these days, Mahan has next to nothing to say about maritime security.  The doctrine now has to be mutually assured destruction of facilities and autarky as the means to deter attacks or any such thoughts from a rival power.  China can have all the missile cruisers and aircraft carriers it wants; none of it will save Shanghai's port facilities from a B-2 strike.

[Stuart Galbraith]

And once again the Labour party take the proud legacy of Clement Attlee's engaged foreign policy and piss it down the drain.

 

[Nobu]

11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

...the Chinese navy has no capacity to prevent the interdiction of Chinese maritime trade.

Against the USN, sure. Against smaller navies in the region that might have been able to interdict their maritime trade 25 years ago, I would disagree. 

Remove the Japanese, Indian, and American navies from the chessboard, and Beijing's instant coffee navy still has a Mahanian role to play.

 

[glenn239]

11 hours ago, Nobu said:

Against the USN, sure. Against smaller navies in the region that might have been able to interdict their maritime trade 25 years ago, I would disagree. 

Remove the Japanese, Indian, and American navies from the chessboard, and Beijing's instant coffee navy still has a Mahanian role to play.

 

You mean, like China versus Fiji?  

Mahan never wrote a chapter entitled, "If the Royal Navy didn't exist, boy would the French Navy have a role to play"

[Stuart Galbraith]

Distinct lack of outrage by British Government. Ambassadors not recalled.

[Nobu]

4 hours ago, glenn239 said:

You mean, like China versus Fiji?  

Mahan never wrote a chapter entitled, "If the Royal Navy didn't exist, boy would the French Navy have a role to play"

I do. Versus Australia as well, if recent events are any indication.

Beijing's navy won't exist for long in battle against the USN, but it does have others to challenge at sea.

25 years ago, it could not even do that against Fiji. It didn't exist.

 

[Daan]

55 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Distinct lack of outrage by British Government. Ambassadors not recalled.

Perhaps someone leaned heavily on the Greeks to give the French some compensation and / or they may have appreciated the French involvement during the recent flare-up with the Turks. Recently, Greece also decided to acquire 18 Rafale fighter jets.

The French frigate design is much more expensive than some of the alternatives and lacks any form of ECM.

[Stuart Galbraith]

There are a lot of naval commentators on twitter, the conclusion is its a political decision, not what the Greek Navy wanted. Getting Type 23s as a loan to sweeten the deal was a sweet offer.

Easy come, easy go. There is always the Ukranians.

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Nobu said:

I do. Versus Australia as well, if recent events are any indication.

Mahan wasn't talking in the 1800's about the Royal Navy going up against the Spanish Philippines tugboat squadron.  He was talking the direct clash of the strongest navies of the world as the determinant of global power.   The strongest navy in the world is the American, the second strongest is the Chinese.  Both will have problems in a war bigger than the other.  

ln terms of Australia, I can't think of a scenario where China would be at war with Australia and not also at war with the United States.  

 

Quote

Beijing's navy won't exist for long in battle against the USN, but it does have others to challenge at sea.

What states are you thinking that the Chinese could go to war with and not reckon with the intervention of the United States?

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by glenn239

[Nobu]

Vietnam, India, and Russia come to mind. Not sure of the time frame, but I recall anti-Chinese pogroms occurring in Indonesia as well.

For other nations with security guarantees from Washington, intervention on their behalf is not a given if Beijing is not the aggressor.

25 years ago, they gave the world Socialism with Chinese characteristics. They may be trying the same with Mahanism.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Chinese navy is the third strongest. Yes, in less than 10 years it will be at the number 2 spot. Right now there is a glaring hole in its demonstrated capabilities, and it's not easy to fill. 

[Nobu]

I would like for them to overextend themselves trying.

What concerns me is if they content themselves with being the biggest fish in their backyard pond, and stop there. 

Incidentally, 25 years ago, Xi was not reading Mahan. He was probably reading "How to Get By on a Per Capita GDP of $50 a Month."

[urbanoid]

China isn't likely to be at war with anyone without being at war with the US as well. I think that at this point the US may very well look for the opportunity to give them the bloody nose before it's too late, given that they're getting relatively weaker and China relatively stronger.

[glenn239]

49 minutes ago, Nobu said:

Vietnam, India, and Russia come to mind. Not sure of the time frame, but I recall anti-Chinese pogroms occurring in Indonesia as well.

In a war with Vietnam I think the Chinese navy would be about as consequential to the outcome as the Prussian navy was to beating France in 1870.  I don't think a war with Russia is a realistic scenario for China.

India?   The common border is rough terrain so a limited naval frontiers clash seems feasible.

  

Quote

For other nations with security guarantees from Washington, intervention on their behalf is not a given if Beijing is not the aggressor.

What country in their right mind would be the aggressor against a nation of 1.5 billion?  

Quote

25 years ago, they gave the world Socialism with Chinese characteristics. They may be trying the same with Mahanism.

I think the Chinese strategy is more organic than that.  I think they're just building up to be the #1 military in Asia (or the world), and 20 years later everything will shift in response to the new situation without a shot fired.   You write,

What concerns me is if they content themselves with being the biggest fish in their backyard pond, and stop there.

I think that concern is spot on.

 

 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by glenn239

[Stuart Galbraith]

No, I think Xi wants it to all happen in his watch. His own Generals say he is moving too fast, and they aren't wrong.