Secretary of Defence Mark Esper said Wednesday that while China has more ships, it will be a while before it can match the power of the US Navy. “I want to make clear that China cannot match the United States when it comes to naval power.,” Esper explained at a RAND Corporation event. “Even if we stopped building new ships, it would take the [People’s Republic of China] years to close the gap when it comes to our capability on the high seas.,” he said.
“Ship numbers are important, but they don’t tell the whole story.
They do not address the types of ships and the capabilities of the vessels being counted; the skill of the crews that operate them; the prowess of the officers that lead them; or the ways in which we fight and sustain them,” the secretary said.
Esper said that the US military must take steps to maintain that overmatch, to include expanding the size of the US Navy to over 355 ships through the construction of new manned and unmanned naval assets....MORE
