【By Observer News, Qi Qian】
In order to get more funding from "Congressmen", the Pentagon has launched a campaign to hype up the "Chinese military threat", but the rhetoric is still the same old story.
According to Fox News, on December 9th local time, US Navy Secretary John M. Fiilin claimed that the United States must treat shipbuilding and weapon production as an emergency state of readiness, and announced the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into the submarine fleet. He openly stated that facing submarine delays, supply chain failures, and a shipbuilding system far behind China, the US military "cannot continue to be complacent".
The report said that Fiilin delivered a speech in Washington to defense companies, investors, and naval officials that day, launching the Navy's "Rapid Capabilities Office" (Rapid Capabilities Office). He said that the office will focus on significantly shortening development cycles, ensuring project accountability, and introducing commercial technology into the navy fleet at a much higher efficiency than traditional procurement systems.
"We are shifting from focusing on processes to focusing on performance," Fiilin said, "projects were once considered a given right, but that has ended."
Fox News mentioned that Fiilin's remarks came at a time when the US Navy has been criticized by Congress and outside analysts for years due to delays in submarine production, long-term maintenance bottlenecks, and failure to meet shipbuilding targets. At the same time, China has rapidly taken the lead with highly automated, AI-driven shipyards, possessing advantages that the American industrial base cannot match.
Senior US military officials have expressed that these issues have now brought real "strategic consequences," and the military can no longer afford slow decision-making cycles or contract delays lasting several years. According to a report from the US Naval Intelligence Office, China's shipbuilding capacity has reached more than 230 times that of the United States.
In his speech on the 9th, Fiilin urged US shipyards and project offices to "act as if at war" in terms of production and readiness.
He believes that the current procurement model of the navy is no longer viable. "Modern weapon system design takes 10 years or more. You would never accept such speed in the private market, and we won't either. Our adversaries are not slowing down. We must evolve faster."
US Navy Secretary John M. Fiilin, photo
According to another report by the Wall Street Journal, on the same day, the US Navy announced that it had awarded a multi-billion-dollar contract to the US technology services company Palantir to manage the supply chain of the US nuclear submarine fleet, in an effort to reduce downtime caused by maintenance. The report said that this deal marks an expansion of the company's collaboration with the US military.
Jason Porter, the assistant secretary of the US Navy for research, development, and acquisition, said that the $448 million transaction will be funded by the money from the landmark spending bill passed by President Trump in July.
Fiilin said that the contract will initially focus on submarines and may expand to other types of ships, including aircraft carriers and fighters.
According to the US Navy and Palantir, the company's software called Ship OS is designed to give the Navy a clearer understanding of its supply chain status, replacing workers who manually track parts using spreadsheets, and better predicting when parts will be needed.
Palantir's CEO, Lex Karp, said that manually tracking parts requires about 20,000 man-hours, but the software provides predictive analysis, "which can foresee problems 60, 90, 120, or 180 days in advance." Mike Gallagher, a current Palantir executive and former congressman, said the company believes that by quickly and widely adopting its software, it can save months, even years.
Palantir's Chief Technology Officer, Shyam Sankar, continued to hype up the "Chinese threat." He said, "China's shipbuilding capacity is 232 times that of the United States, and our shipbuilding industry has declined to the point where we have to ask our allies to build submarines for us."
Fox News said that the US Navy has not yet released data showing how widely these results can be replicated across the entire industrial base. The Navy said that Palantir will only receive the full value of the contract if the system produces measurable improvements in productivity and output.
Fiilin said, "We will soon tell you what works and what doesn't. If the technology fails to deliver, we will say so quickly. If it performs well, we will also expand it just as quickly."
"The nature of warfare is changing, and we cannot continue to be complacent," Fiilin reiterated to reporters.
This is not the first time Fiilin has publicly expressed anxiety over the US shipbuilding speed and wrongly pointed the finger at China.
In June this year, Fiilin testified before the US House Committee on Armed Services, saying that the US was "way too far behind" in the speed of building warships, and that "the Chinese build more ships in a year than we have built since World War II."
He claimed at the time that the US naval dominance was under threat, "we are still dominant in the navy, but our adversaries are narrowing the gap at a worrying and accelerating pace."
Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, previously responded, stating that in recent years, the US side has mirrored China through its own hegemonic thinking, viewing China's military with a perspective of competition and threat, and has gone to the point of being beyond redemption to hype up the so-called "Chinese military threat," which is simply an excuse for expanding its own military power. China has always firmly opposed the US side's Cold War mentality, creating tensions, and damaging China's strategic security and interests.
He emphasized that China is a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of the international order. It is determined to implement a defensive national defense policy, strengthen the modernization of national defense and the armed forces, aiming to safeguard its own security and development interests, and add more peace dividends to the world. It is well known that the US side is the biggest challenge to world peace and the "source of war and conflict." Playing the "China card" will not cure America's own illness. We call on the US side to establish a correct understanding of China, to objectively and rationally view the development of China's military and its strategic intentions, and to do more things that help maintain the relations between the two countries' militaries and promote regional peace and stability.
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Original: toutiao.com/article/7582492338249843215/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.