China's chances of taking the role of world's policeman from the United States

On Saturday's TV24 program "Nacionālo interešu klubs", talking about changes in the world after the 9/11 terrorist attack, Professor Leons Taivans expressed the idea of the decline of US power.

In this context, the question arose as to who could play the role of the world's policeman in the future. I expressed the view that, although the United States is still the strongest power in the world from a military point of view, it is increasingly showing a reluctance to perform this function. Aivis Ceriņš, the host of the program, asked: Aren't the Chinese armed forces comparable to the US forces? As the program did not go into more detail on this issue, also given its debatable nature, I think it is useful to look at it in more detail.

First of all, I would like to emphasize that, despite the considerable US military superiority, this does not mean that the United States could easily defeat other countries in an open conflict. If the United States suddenly wanted to invade China for some reason, then the road to Beijing would hardly be like a stroll on Broadway. Even more. If China decided to restore its sovereignty over Taiwan, the United States would be faced with a very difficult choice. The US's ability to protect its ally is already in serious doubt.

To simplify the matter, let's ignore nuclear weapons, in which two countries, the United States and Russia, have a huge advantage (92% of the world's nuclear arsenal) over all other nuclear countries, including China. For this reason, a US intelligence report submitted to the US Congress each year notes that Russia is an existential threat from a military perspective, while China is only a "serious security challenge and a long-term competitor." In the 2021 report, Russia is also considered a more serious threat to the world (primarily its neighbors, including Latvia) from the point of view of the use of conventional weapons than China, which, although not stingy with aggressive statements against its neighbors, is more pragmatic and predictable.

For a country to fully play its role as a world's policeman on a global scale, it must have a well-developed navy - first and foremost, aircraft carriers, air forces and the transport structures that serve them. Plus, communications and operational management capabilities. It must be acknowledged that it is in these directions that the Chinese armed forces are developing at an accelerated pace, with the strategic idea of ​​making its armed forces the most powerful in the world by 2049, when the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic of China will be celebrated.

However, much can change until 2049, so let's look at total military spending now. They are not really comparable. In the 2021 fiscal year, the United States spent 740 billion dollars on the military, while China spent only 178 billion dollars and Russia 42 billion dollars.

The US military's 2020 report to Congress states that the US is lagging behind China in three respects: warship construction, the number of land-based cruise and ballistic (non-nuclear) missiles, and air defense, but the report must be read with some reservations because it is worded in a warning tone - if you don't give us more money now or, even crazier, if you think of cutting our defense budget, China will overtake us in the near future. It could indeed happen if the left-wing Marxist anti-capitalists prevail in Congress, whose subconscious mind is overwhelmed by a self-destructive desire to weaken the United States as the cause of all disasters and start saving at the expense of defense. This is not yet the case, and the United States is spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined.

Global firepower website, while recognizing the United States as the world's strongest military power, points out that the US Navy is only fourth in terms of strength compiled by that source. This is indeed the case if the number of naval units is taken as the main criterion. According to this criterion, the USA lags behind China, Russia and North Korea. However, the assessment changes significantly if we look not at the number of ships (mostly coastal patrol vessels) but at their strength. In the ocean, six fully operational US fleets are in constant combat readiness, consisting of 11 aircraft carriers, 10 helicopter carriers, 22 cruisers, 70 destroyer minesweepers, including the fourth-generation missile destroyer USS Jack H. Lucas launched on July 7 this year.

What can China or Russia put against these US navies? The smoking aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which is now docked in Murmansk and it is unknown when it'll return to the fleet (scheduled for 2023), is the clearest example of the real strength of the Russian navy. For Russia, this cruiser is the flagship of the fleet. There is nothing more powerful. No full-fledged aircraft carrier that could resemble the US Nimitz class aircraft carriers (let alone the latest aircraft carrier-class Gerald R. Ford), had been built in the times of the USSR or now.

The Chinese navy has one Admiral Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier (formerly Varyag) and one self-built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, which is comparable in military comparisons to the US-built Kitty Hawk in the 1950s, which was removed from US armaments in 2009. In almost all respects, the Shandong lags far behind the latest US Gerald R. Ford model. The Chinese model has a four diesel engine, while the US analog has a two nuclear reactor engine. Capacity respectively - 52,000 tons (cubic meters of water) versus 97,000 tons. Air group - 40 aircraft against 90 aircraft and helicopters, including fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets. Two more aircraft carriers of this class are currently being built in the United States, the USS John F. Kennedy and the USS Enterprise, which will be available to the US Navy in 2023 and 2027. However, China is also building two new aircraft carriers, which is also a concern for Pentagon experts.

While the US dominance can be questioned in terms of the total number of ships in the navy, the dominance of the United States in terms of the power of the air force is not disputed in any comparative review. Both in terms of number and technological parameters. In absolute terms, the United States ranks first in terms of the number of all types of aviation (destroyers, bombers, transport planes, helicopters, etc.). The total number of warplanes is over 13,000, while for Russia it is just over 4,000, but for China it is 3,200 planes and helicopters.

If we return to the functions of a world's policeman, we can now see the United States' purposeful resignation from these functions. Moreover, this is not because the US military power is weakening, but because the mood of isolationism is growing in US society. This allows countries such as Russia (which spends 10 times less on the military than the United States) to play a significant military role in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and elsewhere, including Europe.

As far as China is concerned, it is currently "modestly" growing its forces and outlining its sphere of interest in the Southeast Asia region. China does not yet claim the world's policeman role. How long this "yet" will last, no one can predict. In any case, pacifism and unwillingness to fight in the West can enable the East to achieve its goals, even when lagging behind in military power. Simply at the expense of people's lives being cheaper.

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