The U.S. Navy has always been the world's maritime hegemon, accustomed to "free navigation" at the gates of other countries to show its strength. The United States has built more than 500 military bases around the world, and it also uses a series of island chains to surround rivals, always threatening others in other people's waters. But recently, the United States found that it was visited by someone else at its doorstep, and it felt very unhappy.
The United States** reported on this incident with panic, using words such as "rare", "first-time" and "unprecedented". This month, US planes and ships have frequently appeared in our waters, and we only went to their waters once, and they called them "rare", what kind of logic is this?
The thing that made the Americans nervous was actually the third joint maritime patrol of the Chinese and Russian navies in the Pacific waters. This joint cruise, of course, is getting more and more proficient, and it is the third time, so I went to the international waters near Alaska in the United States to do some exercises and show my ability.
Last year, the Chinese and Russian navies also sent a joint formation of seven ** to patrol near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, but the United States only sent a coast guard patrol boat at that time and did not pay much attention to it. But this time the number of ships in the combined formation increased to 11, and the attitude of the United States changed
According to publicly available information, there are two reasons. First, this time, the joint formation of the Chinese and Russian navies did not set off from the Arctic region and then rendezvous there, as they did last time, but cruised together to Alaska in the United States in the form of a highly coordinated joint formation. This shows that the level of communication, command, coordination, and mutual trust between the two sides of the formation has reached a new height, and the US military has felt the pressure. Second, the number of ships in the formation has increased to 11, and the deterrent capability has also been greatly enhanced, and it has the ability to confront the aircraft carrier formation in the far sea, carry out area denial, and even carry out strategic offensives.
In addition, judging from the reaction of the US military, the formation may have moved very close to US territorial waters, otherwise the US military would not have not announced its specific location and time, and also dispatched four "Ali Burke"-class destroyers, the "McCain," the "Benfold," the "Zhongyun," and the "John Finn," as well as P-8 antisubmarine planes, to conduct three-dimensional tracking and alerting.
Why did the U.S. military take the initiative to hype up this matter?I think there are two reasons. On the one hand, the U.S. military has been fighting wars around the world for so many years, and this should be the first time that the U.S. military has faced military pressure on the mainland. Moreover, the efficient and coordinated arrival of the two major strategic competitors of China and Russia near the US mainland will inevitably make the US military nervous. Even in World War II, there was no direct military threat to the homeland of the United States.
On the other hand, because the United States continues to carry out high-frequency military activities around China and continues to make small moves on the Taiwan issue, Sino-US military exchanges have been completely suspended. The United States is in debt and cannot even maintain the situation in Afghanistan, and they are very worried about falling into an unknown high-intensity local conflict.
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan told Fox News that the scale and scope of Sino-Russian cooperation in the operation was "unprecedented." Brent Sadler, a senior fellow at the American Heritage Society, called the operation "the first in history" and considered the Chinese and Russian actions "highly provocative" given the current tense international situation. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the US military has started another annual campaign for military spending.
No matter how much fuss the US military makes, the rapid rise of the Chinese power is a fact that is obvious to the whole world. After nearly 20 years of comprehensive construction and strengthened investment, the equipment level and scale of the squadron have undergone qualitative changes. In East Asia and even in the Pacific Ocean, the so-called generational advantage of the US military in terms of equipment has basically disappeared.
In particular, the US Navy has made serious strategic mistakes in equipment construction in the past two decades, and the new generation of ocean-going ships DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class and the littoral combat ship LSC have all made design mistakes, which do not meet the actual combat needs of the United States, and have been reduced in order and used. And the old Burke-class destroyers of the previous generation were forced to extend their life to be decommissioned in 2031.
The construction scheme of the new generation cruiser DDG (X) launched by the United States on an emergency basis is not to say that it is very similar to the 055 of our country, it is simply a "cousin". The self-esteem of American netizens has also been greatly hurt, has the United States been reduced to the point of copying China's design?After being scolded on the hot search, US Secretary of the Navy Toro had to come out and respond, "The US Navy will not build the next generation of destroyers now."
In addition to extinguishing the fire, this response also implies another helplessness of the US military, that is, the cost-effectiveness ratio of the US ** spending. It is said that the ** cost of building a DDG (X) is as high as 3.1-3.4 billion US dollars, which is more than three times that of the 055 drive, and it is simply not tossed now.