US Navy: power without a foundation

The US Navy ran into similar problems. The development of its fleet from the 1940s to the present day has also been cyclical. In the first stage – from the Korean War to the early 1970s – it was oriented towards fighting an enemy on the coast since it did not have any major rivals at sea. As the United States prepared for a possible confrontation with the USSR’s Navy, it mainly focused on anti-submarine defense, and – closer to Soviet waters – on repulsing attacks by naval missile-carrying aviation.

In the early 1970s, after a series of incidents in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the United States realized that the USSR had a modern, substantial fleet with both surface-launched and submarine-launched missiles. This armada could pose a serious threat to carrier strike groups which at the time did not have adequate protection from salvo launches of anti-ship missiles. The situation required a change in naval development concepts, and for the next 20 years, the US Navy focused on defending its supremacy at sea, which was challenged by the Soviet Navy.

After the USSR collapsed, the US Navy resumed “fighting on the coast” and considerably cut its fleet – from almost 600 ships in the second half of the 1980s to less than 300 by the end of the 2000s. The ability of the US to conduct naval combat against a strong enemy fleet also decreased – the navy did not receive a new generation of anti-ship missiles and after RGM/UGM-109B Tomahawk TASM missiles were removed from service – it only developed the lightweight Harpoon anti-ship missile defense system. The escort forces of the US Navy, intended to fight enemy submarines, were also significantly reduced.

This strategy was understandable, since there was no rival in sight – globally speaking, the Soviet Navy had ceased to exist, while China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy was more of a coastal self-defense force until the 2010s. However, by the early 2020s, it turned out that Beijng had a rapidly growing surface fleet capable of challenging Washington in its effort to hold dominance in the Indo-Pacific, and the US found this challenge difficult to respond to. The Chinese fleet is greater in number than the American equivalent, and although it has fewer large ships – like aircraft carriers, cruisers, and nuclear submarines – this gap could be compensated for by other means. A key region for China, where the PLA intends to challenge the dominance of the US Navy, is the western Pacific Ocean. These are its home waters, and Beijing can concentrate its entire fleet there while Washington, due to its global commitments, may accumulate only part of its forces. Meanwhile, close to its own coast, China’s shortage of large ships can be compensated by a superior fleet of smaller vessels, as well as coastal missiles and aviation.

In 1941, the British Empire’s inability to defend itself in the Far East while simultaneously fighting for maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic forced Winston Churchill to sign the Atlantic Charter, asking the US for assistance on conditions that eventually led to the end of the British Empire. But London, at least, had the opportunity to turn to Washington for support. The US economy was more powerful than those of Germany and Japan, and, combined with the USSR and UK, it formed an alliance of three of the four largest economies in the world.

The industrial capabilities of the present-day United States, however, are inferior to those of China, and its standing in the financial and technological spheres is also being challenged. Therefore, Beijing, is a much more substantial strategic rival than Germany was in the 1940s.