The Global Times recently reported that at the annual meeting of the US Navy, US Navy Operations Secretary Michael Gilday proposed a crazy military expansion plan. Gilday said the U.S. Navy needs 513 capital ships, including 363 manned ships and 150 unmanned ships. You know, even the 355-ship naval expansion plan proposed during the Trump administration, and the U.S. Navy at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, with only 350 capital ships, suddenly proposed to build a huge fleet of 513 ships.
(The U.S. Navy has a slang term: ninety-thousand-ton diplomacy, which is actually the U.S. gunboat policy.)
According to Gilday, the fleet of 513 capital ships includes: 12 aircraft carriers, 9 amphibious assault ships, 60 destroyers, 50 frigates, 20 large dock landing ships, 30 small amphibious/dock landing ships, 13 littoral combat ships, 100 support ships, and 150 unmanned ships. In addition, there are 70 attack nuclear submarines and 12 strategic nuclear submarines. (Adding up is actually 526, it is estimated that 13 littoral combat ships forgot to add, it seems that the U.S. Navy's top admiral's math is not very good)
The main reason why the U.S. Navy has proposed such a huge shipbuilding plan is twofold:
First of all, most of the current main warships of the US Navy were built during the Cold War, and today they have reached the end of their lives and need to be replaced. For example, the main force of the US military,"Nimitz"-class nuclear-powered supercarrier, the first ship "Nimitz" was commissioned in May 1975, and it has been 47 years this year! The first Ticonderoga-class cruiser was delivered in January 1983 and has now retired 5 and 7 more are scheduled for retirement. The "Ohio" class strategic missile nuclear submarine, the first ship entered service in 1981, has been 41 years... It can be seen that the capital ships of the US Navy are indeed old and urgently need to be replaced by new warships.
(The U.S. fleet during the Cold War, but most of these warships are now old and need to be retired.)
Second, although the United States is still the world hegemon, but the world is moving towards multipolarization, the United States' control over the world is gradually weakening, especially China's rapid rise in recent years, and now observers in both the East and the West believe that China's GDP will surpass the United States to become the world's first around 2030. At the same time, the Chinese Navy is also developing rapidly, the Chinese Navy already has 2 aircraft carrier battle groups, the number of Aegis ships is second in the world after the US Navy, and even ahead of the US Navy in terms of technology level (the Chinese Navy's Aegis ship uses active phased array radar, and the US Navy is still using passive phased array radar at least for now). At the same time, China is also rapidly building a variety of new combat ships, and the number of new ships launched by the Chinese navy every year has ranked first in the world for many years.
(On April 25, 2021, the People's Liberation Army received three large ships with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons a day)
The rapid progress of the Chinese Navy has made the U.S. Navy deeply anxious, and the United States is worried that the rise of China will threaten the world hegemony of the United States, so the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations will propose a huge plan to "build 513 warships", and it is clear that the United States is trying to launch a "shipbuilding competition" with China and use this to safeguard its maritime hegemonic interests.
In fact, want to play with China shipbuilding competition is mainly derived from the successful experience of the Cold War, in the Cold War, the United States is the way of arms race to drag down the Soviet Union, won the victory of the Cold War, shipbuilding competition is also part of the Cold War arms race, it can be said that the Americans have long been playing light and familiar with the road, but can today's United States really drag Down China in the way of shipbuilding competition?
(Newport News Shipyard, the only major shipyard in the United States that can currently build an aircraft carrier)
First of all, the United States is no longer the United States it was then. During the Cold War, due to the needs of the arms race, the United States maintained a huge shipbuilding industry chain, and its ship development and construction level was indeed the world's leading, but after the end of the Cold War, the United States quickly gave up the once powerful shipbuilding industry, and now only a shipyard in Newport News in the United States can build a super aircraft carrier of more than 100,000 tons, only two shipyards can build "Allie Burke" class destroyers, and only two shipyards can build nuclear submarines... Such a weak shipbuilding capacity, to build 513 capital ships, do not know until the Year of the Monkey Horse Moon.
(The U.S. shipbuilding industry declined, and it was no longer able to undertake constellation-class frigates, and had to be transferred to the Italian Fincantini Shipyard))
To what extent has the U.S. shipbuilding industry declined? The contract for the construction of the "Constellation" class frigates confirmed last year was finally won by the Fincantini Shipyard in Italy, and there is no shipyard in the United States that can undertake such a 7,000-ton large warship! Don't say anything about mutual help within NATO, the goal of the capitalists is to make money, and the U.S. military-industrial complex will take the initiative to hand over shipbuilding contracts to the Italians? Apparently, the U.S. mainland really did not have the ability to build constellation-class frigates and had to let the Italians help.
This reflects from one side how much the U.S. shipbuilding industry is now, those who fantasize that once a war breaks out, the United States can immediately turn into a wartime state, and then build warships like dumplings, can wash and sleep, in peacetime the United States can not build enough warships, have to turn to Italy, the war is really fought, the United States shipbuilding industry is even more hopeless.
(What is the level of the U.S. Navy today?) Just look at the rusty battleships to guess something.)
Second, military exhaustion has always been a major taboo for the survival of the country, and the United States is walking on the old path of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War period, the comprehensive national strength of the Soviet Union was always inferior to that of the United States, but in order to engage in an arms race with the United States, it maintained excessive military expenditure for many years, which eventually dragged down the economy, lost the Cold War, and collapsed its own country. Today, although China's total GDP is not as good as that of the United States, China's total industrial output has exceeded twice that of the United States, especially in shipbuilding, China is undoubtedly the world's first.
(Type 075 amphibious assault ships built in batches)
If the United States forcibly competes with China in manufacturing, especially in the shipbuilding industry, then the Soviet Union is the model of the United States, China once started more than 16 Aegis ships (8 052D and 8 055) at the same time, the United States even at the peak of the Cold War, at most only 3 "Arleigh Burke" class destroyers at the same time; China can start to build 3 Type 075 amphibious assault ships at the same time, while the United States can only build "America" class amphibious assault ships in order; China has Dalian, Two shipyards in Jiangnan can build aircraft carriers at the same time, while only one shipyard in the United States can build aircraft carriers... This scene is indeed very similar to the Cold War period, only this time the United States is like the Soviet Union, and China is like the United States.
(China has a huge civilian shipbuilding capacity, which can be used to build warships when needed))
Overall, today's United States due to the serious hollowing out of the domestic industry, its shipbuilding industry supporting industrial chain has mostly collapsed, so the construction of warships is not only slow, but also low production, the most typical of which is that in order to ensure that the ford-class aircraft carrier first ship Ford can be deployed normally this year, the U.S. Navy even had to dismantle the parts of the second ship "Kennedy" first, giving priority to the use of the Ford! This is true of the supply chains supported by shipyards, which shows the efficiency of the U.S. shipbuilding industry.
(Nowadays, once the warships of the mainland are finalized, they are not built one by one, but one by one!) ）
Today's U.S. Navy is indeed a bit like the Soviet Navy of that year, in order to protect its hegemonic position, it is necessary to develop a fleet at all costs, but as everyone knows, the fleet that has lost the support of its economic base is like a castle on the beach, which looks majestic and magnificent, but it will disintegrate violently when the tide comes. Racing with China in shipbuilding is a "road of no return" for the United States.