American Military Power

American power has many edges; political, economic, military, Etc. And each edge can be seen to stem from the other. For example, it may be prudent to declare that America's political power stems from their economic power, or vice versa, or that their political power stems from their military power. In any case, we all know that America would be tremendously hurt by a loss of any one of their powers. Or, at the least, a realization that one of their powers isn't as powerful as it seems. If America woke up to find that they could be politically out-outmaneuvered by Russia, that would be trouble. Similarly if they realized they could be out-produced by Germany, that would also spell disaster.

Well, what if, during a routine training exercise, a Chinese submarine popped up within torpedo range of two American nuclear submarines -- and it did so undetected until the Chinese intentionally surfaced their sub? Because that's exactly what happened recently.

Let me break it down for you. America's military power stems from being able to quickly take the fight to the enemy wherever they are. Taking the fight there means gaining sea, air and ground control of the enemy zones. Gaining that control means moving mobile military bases to those zones. Those military bases currently happen to be aircraft carriers. And as such, carriers must have the best protection that money can afford. The protection of a multi-billion-dollar, 4500-personnel carrier usually consists of at least 2 multi-billion-dollar nuclear subs, at least 10 warships, helicopters, satellites, planes, specialized buoys, and more. If this protection fails, then let's face it, the enemy zone won't be controlled for very long.

So, if America woke up one day to find out that a Chinese diesel-electric sub could move within torpedo range of one of their carriers while remaining undetected by all of the carrier's protective devices... well, that's not good. But at least this lesson wasn't learned too late.