Vasily Kashin
While speaking in front of the members of the Surface Navy Association, Admiral Samuel Locklear, Commander US Pacific Command, pointed out that America’s “historic dominance” has weakened. Locklear named the growth of the Chinese military power as the key threat. The admission on such a high level of the fact of the US’ gradual loss of military superiority in the Asia-pacific Region, which the US administration considers a priority, is an important signal, points out Vasiliy Kashin, an expert at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
In fact the essence of this admission comes down to the fact that the US’ technological superiority is still indisputable, but is no longer sufficient over the Chinese forces that are superior in the number of personnel. Admiral Locklear called for looking for new approaches in order to break the negative tendencies in the change of balance in the region, also calling for resuming the development of a number of promising weapons’ systems, specifically a new generation of ballistic missiles. The Chinese military power is reaching such a level that it can no longer be contained by one of the regional groups of American troops, which can be gradually strengthened in the course of a conflict.
Given the continuing strict limitations imposed on the US military budget and general shrinking of the resources available, the Americans will sooner or later face a situation when an increasingly significant part of their forces will be dedicated to the Pacific Ocean, the same way it was dedicated to the North Atlantics during the Cold War against the USSR. A build-up in the region of permanently stationed units of the US Air Force, Navy, marines, and perhaps ground forces seems inevitable. In the present economic situation such a buildup can be fulfilled only at the expense of significant cuts of American presence in other parts of the world.
The US will have more difficulties is protecting its allies and in conducting military interventions to overthrow the regimes it opposes. One must point out that practically all the US allies in Europe, which are able to support American military operations in other parts of the world, are facing similar problems.
That means that Americans will have to review the current system of alignment and sharply increase its military and technical cooperation with its key political partners. At some point in the future the supply of modern weapons might remain the only instrument at the disposal of the US leadership to influence the international situation in other regions of the world.
In the future the appearance of new breakthrough technologies, for example, hypersonic cruise missiles that are able to reliably hit large aircraft carriers, will force all large Naval powers to revise their Naval fleets and will to some extent will make equal the old sea superpower (the US) and the new one (China), thus demanding an even higher concentration of the American forces in East Asia.
This story first appeared on Voice of Russia & is reposted here with permission.