By Ryan Martinson & Katsuya Yamamoto, The National Interest: “On June 28, the Chinese navy launched the first of a formidable new class of warship. At over twelve thousand tons and bristling with sensors and weapons, the Type 055 destroyer is among the most advanced surface combatants in the world. When completed, it will join the world’s fastest-growing fleet, a service that commissioned twenty-three new surface ships in 2016 alone, compared with just six for the U.S. Navy and zero for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Clearly some great fear or ambition hastens China’s investment in sea power.”
By Norman Friedman, Proceedings Magazine: “The new ship appears to be a modified version of the first Chinese carrier Liaoning, herself a much-modified half-sister of the Russian Kuznetsov. The most significant change is a considerably enlarged hangar.”
By Megan Eckstein, USNI News: “The Navy has confirmed that its submarine industrial base can continue building two Virginia-class attack submarines a year even while adding the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine to its workload, giving a key congressman confidence in the House’s plan to boost submarine procurement in the coming years.”
By James Holmes, The National Interest: “If Admiral Ma is playing it straight—rather than hyping promising but yet-to-be-proven gadgetry—then the PLA Navy is poised to overcome a technological and tactical defect that has plagued it since its founding. ”
By Zachary Keck, National Interest: “DARPA’s interest in ASW is also a reflection of emerging technologies that are making even the quietest submarines increasingly vulnerable to detection, something that Bryan Clark outlined in a 2015 report for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.”