From Will Wiley, Strategy Bridge: “On 15 October 2036, the USS ZUMWALT (DDG-1000) glides through the Philippines Sea on the twentieth anniversary of its commissioning. Nearby, the USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-80) launches both the F-35C and the unmanned F-47C to jointly conduct bombing raids on the Navy’s Western Pacific bombing range. Both ships, along with the entire ENTERPRISE Carrier Strike Group, are headed toward the South China Sea to participate in the annual US-India-Singapore naval exercise called DRAGON FURY. Below the surface, the USS MONTANA (SSN-794) deploys the unmanned underwater vehicle called SEA-EYE to assist in trailing a Russian Dolgorukiy class SSBN as it leaves port headed to its strategic patrol areas.”
From Nathan A. Jennings, AUSA: “Following more than a decade of counterinsurgency focus, the U.S. Army has found itself increasingly challenged by adversaries in Eastern Europe and East Asia who are modernizing their area denial capabilities. As argued by Gen. Mark A. Milley, the 39th chief of staff of the Army, “Land-based forces now are going to have to penetrate denied areas for the rest of the joint force” while having the capacity to “operate in all domains simultaneously.””
From Patrick Cronin, War on the Rocks: “Three decades ago, Gen. Liu Huaqing, the military commander who modernized China’s navy declared, “Without an aircraft carrier, I will die with my eyelids open.” When he passed away in 2011, China had finally started building an aircraft carrier and it took to the seas the next year. If recent trends were to hold, it is doubtful whether the U.S. Navy could preserve its longstanding supremacy for sea control — especially within Asia’s first island chain — even a decade or two into the future.”