I guess I need to write a disclaimer about Perun: He's a smug liberal commentator from Australia (the ideology, I don't know what party he votes for in elections), though his gaming channel is pretty comfy. He has a degree of western bias, and has been invited to high profile international weapon conferences. He does attempt to cover conflicts neutrally however.
Some big points I notice:
- The US continues to make staggering investments in assets against China, which will be ready in the early 30s.
- This increase by itself is greater than the entire Russian defense budget for 2025 while in active warfar- Special Military Operations
- "Golden Dome" will provide some protetion against Chinese retaliation on the US homeland which China can threaten with Type 93B Cruise Missile Submarines.
- Golden Dome may also provide good enough insurance against ICBMs for confronting China's relatively small stockpile of warheads.
- Large Investments in US nuclear forces, including a "classified nuclear deterrent", and a small yield ship launched nuclear missile which congress has funded despite navy not wanting.
- 4.5 Billion investment to "accelerate" acquisition of B21 Stealth Bombers,
- Massive increase to US capabilities in naval mining, including autonomous torpedoes and underwater drones, which the PLAN has limited countermeasures prepared
- Combine that with new missiles and the US leaving its missile treaties, it seems like the US may be positioning itself to take an asymmetric stance against China, which sounds unique since it's typically the side close to home that chooses to adopt asymmetric tactics.
Thankfully a lot of US foreign policy seems to rely on the idea that the US's enemies will just sit there and do nothing while the US builds up. I don't think China is naive or incompetent enough to not prepare for this, and they have a far larger industrial base and ability to actually direct their industry towards war and defense. With China's most recent actions it does seem like they are fully aware that the US will attack them sooner or later, and there is nothing they can do to prevent this, all they can do is prepare, and they're a hell of a lot better at planning and preparation than the US is right now.
China is currently in their 10 year modernization of their military. That's why we just saw them unveil a bunch of new planes an equipment. It'll come in waves with the last being in 2035.
That makes it sound like they just began their 10 year modernization of their military... which is less reassuring.
No, they began the design stage years ago. This year marks the beginning of the rollouts of new equipment. For the next ten years they will be rolling out new equipment until basically everything is updated. The fighter jet they showed that our military has testified in Congress is better than the US's? That is just the one they released this year. By 2035 they will be updating that to an even better one, for instance.
And it's not even just updating equipment. They are using this opportunity to expand their airforce and navy. So it's a complete overhaul, though I suspect many mainstay munitions will remain the same.
I wish China would help out against Israel, even if just by halting trade with Israel and increasing with Ira. If would reduce the sphere of influence they have in that part of the world and Israel is looking more and more vulnerable lately. Of course the US's still has Japan and South Korea, but still, it would help.