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.
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.