As China builds up its navy in the Pacific, the U.S. risks falling behind.
As China builds up its navy in the Pacific, the U.S. risks falling behind.
T wo weeks ago, China launched the Type 003, 80,000-ton, “super” carrier Fujian, its first carrier capable of launching planes with catapults and catching them with arresting gear upon landing. While it has been operating two other aircraft carriers, the former Soviet Union–built 60,000-ton Liaoning and the indigenously built 70,000-ton Shandong, since 2012 and 2019 respectively, these two ships represent older, less technically challenging short takeoff but arrested recovery (STOBAR) designs. The Fujian is a thoroughly modern “CATOBAR” carrier design (Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery), truly a “supercarrier” equivalent in displacement to the now retired Forrestal-class U.S. Navy aircraft carriers that first entered service in the 1950s, but also incorporating advanced electromagnetic catapults that have only just entered service in the American fleet. Such a rapid design evolution and construction program suggests a substantial technological achievement that bridges the gap between the commissioning of the USS Langley a century ago and the commissioning of the electromagnetic-capable USS Ford in 2017. China has made a very significant strategic leap in the span of a decade.
This news should be taken with a note of caution. While it is true that the Fujian is in the water and beginning her sea-trial period, there is nothing to suggest that she is fully capable. As the ship was launched, large structures could be seen on her flight decks covering each of her three electromagnetic catapults. Just as it is true that the U.S. Navy’s newest carrier, the Ford, has not been operationally deployed yet due to technical difficulties with its catapults, arresting gear, and internal aircraft and weapons elevators, it is likely that it will be some time yet, perhaps even years, before the highly complex systems onboard China’s new carrier are properly tested and made operational.
Additionally, the People’s Liberation Army-Navy has a fair distance to travel before it can conduct flight operations at sea on a scale commensurate with its American counterparts. It took the Navy decades to perfect the complex choreography that characterizes supercarrier flight operations in which flight-deck crews launch 30 aircraft off the front of the ship and then instantly flex over to recovering a similar number of planes onto the ship’s angled landing deck. Add to this the intricacy of rearming and refueling aircraft constantly throughout the day during flight operations and then extend that to multiple days and then weeks in which these actions are repeated without fail. Lastly, the final test of carrier proficiency will occur when China moves its carrier out of range of land into the deep-blue water of the open ocean to conduct carrier qualifications for the planes and their pilots without the additional safety of a divert field ashore where they can land when things go wrong or confidence is low.
Up to now, China has conducted, with low intensity, flight operations, and has had difficulty with those. Its carriers have put to sea with few aircraft onboard, tested them extensively to find a comfortable battle rhythm, and lost more than a few aircraft in the process. This is normal. The United States, Great Britain, France, and Brazil, each of which have operated CATOBAR carriers, experienced growing pains as they gained experience.
China will also have to invest significantly in its carrier air wing. The aircraft that it has employed thus far on its STOBAR carriers are not designed to be launched from catapults or to land using arresting gear. Such aircraft will necessarily have more robust landing gear and fuselage designs to bear the additional strains. China’s current air wing is also not optimized to take full advantage of the capabilities that catapults offer, such as extended range. We should expect to see China rapidly develop an entirely new air wing based around the potential of its new carrier. I would not be surprised to find that China will be incorporating an unmanned combat aerial vehicle capable of striking targets at long distances, something that the United States Navy could have done, but has passed on so far. China, however, has demonstrated a real skill in stealing intellectual property and copying industrial processes from the West as a means of catching up technologically and economically, and we have already seen indications of the country testing unmanned aircraft on its older carriers.
China is willing to suffer pain to surpass the West and revenge its “century of humiliation.” We can expect that China’s new supercarrier will go to sea often to test its new capabilities and then begin putting its new aircraft and pilots to their paces. China already has two more Type 003 supercarriers under construction and is on pace to produce one every 18 months for the foreseeable future. We struggle to build a new carrier every four years. With its construction capacity, China will soon have the upper hand in sea control and power projection in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The Chinese now have one supercarrier with two more on the way. We have eleven and can expect to keep the lead regarding the number of carriers for the next seven to ten years. By that time, we should have another plan, as we don’t have the capability to keep up with China’s building schedule. It simply has too much shipbuilding capacity, and we have let our industrial base atrophy. We can try to expand that base, but we won’t be able to do that quickly enough. What we can do is shift gears, strategically.
Prior to World War II, the battleship was the capital ship of the U.S. Navy, but there were already voices within the fleet who advocated for the newly emergent aircraft carriers. The attack on Pearl Harbor rapidly ended all debate and the carrier emerged as the principal platform of the fleet. Today, many voices, including that of the author, have raised questions about the relevance of the carriers, with their limited, short-ranged, carrier air wings, in a future war with China. Submarines, however, especially boats filled with subsonic cruise missiles and boost-glide hypersonic missiles, are seen as increasingly crucial in future campaigns.
Unfortunately, our submarine shipbuilding industry is facing the challenge of continuing to build Virginia-class, fast-attack submarines even as it is tasked with beginning construction of the new Columbia-class strategic-deterrence, nuclear ballistic-missile submarines that are urgently needed to replace the retiring Ohio-class boats that were built during the 1970s and ’80s. If the shipbuilding industrial base were to place more emphasis on submarine construction, shifting workers and resources away from supercarriers and large amphibious-assault ships toward these submarines, we might be able to gain an asymmetric advantage at sea over the Chinese. If we don’t, the U.S. Navy could soon be facing the hard question of how it lost control of the seas. Under the present circumstances, its answer will mirror the words of a Hemingway novel, recognizing that it lost its leading position “slowly at first, then suddenly” unless it dramatically changes course.