According to a report by the U.S. publication NSJ on October 24, U.S. expert Rasmussen stated that the U.S. Navy should no longer try to be "everywhere."

The article argues that the U.S. Navy should abandon the Cold War-era mindset of being stationed everywhere and instead pursue a strategy it calls "restrained deterrence"—focusing resources on key sea areas, using distributed, manned-unmanned mixed formations, relying on networked sensing and long-range strikes to accomplish denial tasks, rather than blindly pursuing tonnage and the number of ships.

Rasmussen frames this adjustment as a rational strategic transformation: fewer but better, focusing on survivability and ammunition density, rather than showcasing massive carriers and destroyers to the world.

But this is actually a placebo-like self-consistency, trying to present the reality of the U.S. Navy's capability marginalization as an active choice, and portraying resource depletion as resource optimization.

The reason for this is that the article mentions that competing with China in the number of warships would be self-destruction, making the intention of this argument clear: if the U.S. cannot match China in shipbuilding, it needs to adjust its direction. How to adjust? Learn from the strategy of the Chinese Navy when it was not yet developed.

U.S. Shipyard

The article states that competing with China in the number of warships will lead to self-destruction, which is a well-known reality.

China's shipbuilding industry has integrated the shipbuilding, steel, offshore engineering, engine, radar, and electronic industry chain into a closed loop; port and shipbuilding capabilities are close to combat sea areas, making supply and maintenance naturally convenient.

In contrast, the U.S. has the opposite situation: shipbuilding capacity is scattered, critical parts are heavily outsourced, and shipbuilding talent and repair yards have been absorbed by the military-industrial complex.

Therefore, placing the two countries on the same scale of competition, the U.S. needs more than just shipbuilding orders to catch up—it needs a whole set of long-term investments and industrial policies, which are unrealistic in the short term, and can even be said to be impossible under the current system.

From a strategic perspective, the Chinese Navy emphasizes near-sea denial, with ships centered around dense anti-ship firepower and land-based missiles.

The U.S. Navy, however, has long taken on global deployment missions, with more complex ship design and logistics requirements.

Therefore, if the U.S. tries to compete in numbers, the cost would be rebuilding the entire industrial chain, extending maintenance cycles, and bearing a geometrically increasing burden of personnel and training, which the U.S. cannot afford.

Thus, blindly chasing numbers would only drag the U.S. into an unsolvable competition, ultimately crippling itself.

Chinese Shipyard

If the U.S. cannot learn China's shipbuilding system, the article does not say it directly, but the meaning is clear: learn China's denial strategy.

Invest limited resources in nodes that can create maximum effect, including concentrated missile deployments, coordination between land-based and sea-based systems, low-cost unmanned systems saturation, and interconnectivity of regional perception networks.

Recognizing the need to learn from China's strategic thinking indicates that it has already acknowledged that forming a short-term decisive denial in key maritime areas is more realistic for the U.S. military under limited resources.

The article points out that to achieve this, the first step is to establish a constant production capacity for ammunition and unmanned platforms, and restore the industrial channels for rapid mass production.

Secondly, adjust the alliance architecture to joint sharing, incorporating allies' capabilities into the joint operation network.

Additionally, enhance resilience and dispersed deployment to reduce the strategic risk of single-point destruction of large ships.

However, the problem is that treating denial tactics as a shortcut to replace industrial strength turns something learnable into an excuse, because tactics cannot replace the reconstruction of industry and logistics—this is pure self-deception.

Chinese Aircraft Carrier

How did a U.S. Navy that once roamed the world and showed off its might end up in this situation?

The issues are complex. After the Cold War, political and industrial choices moved a lot of shipbuilding and defense capabilities to the private sector and outsourcing, which seemed to lower costs in the short term but planted the seeds of fragility in the long run.

At the same time, Congress and the public's tolerance for long-term high defense spending has declined, and electoral politics have pushed for short-term visible results over long-term capability investment.

As a result, aircraft carriers remain the main subject of media coverage, while the ammunition, maintenance, training, and supply chains behind them have been compressed.

There is also a deeper cultural factor: the U.S. has become accustomed to using show of force to resolve diplomatic issues, which has politically required the navy to roam everywhere, further consuming its limited combat capabilities.

After decades of mismanagement, it is obviously impossible to recover in a few years. Considering inertia, it is more likely that it will never be recovered again.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7565011416596365878/

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