Alarm bells are being run over the Biden Administration’s proposed defense budget, in significant part due to its failure to allow the Navy to maintain an adequate deterrent against China.
The problem is not new. Last year, Biden’s budget released last week called for a net loss of 15 ships. According to a Wall Street Journal review, to coverup the shrinking force, “The Navy is essentially double-counting a ship Congress already authorized, so at eight new ships the Navy adds one for every three it would scrap.”
The move comes at an exceptionally perilous time. Already, the U.S. Navy has lagged behind China in the number of ships, with Beijing floating 355 to Washington’s 298. China is continuing to rapidly grow its force to over 460, while America’s continues to shrink.
According to the Chairman of the House Armed Services Mike Rogers (R-AL) in a 2022 National Review interview
The Biden administration’s 30-year ship-building plan also reduces the Navy’s ability to protect its aircraft-carrier strike groups and eliminate enemy minefields, reduces the Marine Corps’ ability to conduct forcible-entry missions, and reduces by almost 10 percent our Navy’s capacity to launch missiles. Public estimates indicate that China will eventually develop a global force of submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles, posing an obvious risk to the U.S. And China’s surface-combatant forces already greatly exceed ours. It is unsettling, to say the least, that the Biden administration is shrinking our naval force under these circumstances…
What’s worse is that China knows we are set in our ways. Former and current American Pacific commanders have indicated that maritime conflict with China could occur within the next five years — yet our Navy appears inclined to pursue a strategy that wouldn’t make it capable of meeting the Chinese threat for another 20 years. China’s regional ambitions pose one of the toughest national-security challenges America has faced in decades.”
Beijing’s aggression is not theoretical, and is not restricted to its armed designs on in invading Taiwan.
In March, reports Radio Free Asia, “The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Saturday spotted more than 40 Chinese vessels near Pag-asa, one of the islands occupied by Manila in the South China Sea. Coast Guard personnel stationed on the island – also known as Thitu – reported a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy vessel, a China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel, and 42 suspected maritime militia vessels, anchored within 4.5 to 8 nautical miles of the shore. The PCG said this was ‘clearly in’side the land feature’s 12-nautical mile territorial sea.”
Beijing’s challenges didn’t end there, Radio Free Asia continues. Beijing’s maritime forces then “swarmed” into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, a move reminiscent of China’s invasion of a similar zone in the Philippines during President Obama’s tenure, an aggression all but ignored by that former White House.
As the Heritage Foundation has pointed out, “the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress stipulated to have “…as soon as practicable, not fewer than 355 battle force ships….” However, Biden’s budgets actually shrink the Navy’s size. Unsurprisingly, Congressional reaction to the proposed budget has been swift. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) called out the potential violation of the law. Navy vet and Rep. Elaine Luria (R-Va.) struggled to refrain from salty “sailor” language in expressing her disappointment.
In remarks to a conference on November 3, 2022, Admiral Charles A. Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, stated “As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are. As those curves keep going, it isn’t going to matter how good our [operating plan] is or how good our commanders are, or how good our forces are—we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem….”
Photo: Following the consensus reached by the militaries of China, Iran and Russia, the navies of the three countries held the Security Belt-2023 joint maritime exercise in the Gulf of Oman from March 15 to 19. (China Defence Ministry)