If the United States wants to keep pace with China’s military, it needs to expand its navy and acquire more ships, said retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis.
“You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-winning mathematician to understand that China will continue to outnumber our ships,” Stavridis said. Former NATO Commander He said this in an interview on Sunday radio’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
Leaked US Navy information in July stated that China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times that of the US.
China has the world’s largest navy, with more than 355 ships in its fleet, according to a 2021 U.S. Naval Research Institute report. The U.S. fleet is small at 296 ships, according to a 2021 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“We have more experience, but there’s only so much quality in quantity,” Stavridis told radio host John Catsimatidis. “We need to build more warships. We need to think about the U.S. Navy approaching 350 ships.”
“We don’t want to be the world’s police officers, but we do want to live in safe neighborhoods, and sometimes that means having a very capable military,” Stavridis said. Ta. “For that we need a bigger navy.”
This is not the first time Stavridis has considered the naval powers of the United States and China and how they compare. In an interview on “The Michael Medved Show” in December, Stavridis said China was not ready to take on the United States.
“Although China is building a large fleet and acting very aggressively, it is still not ready to have everything it needs to counter the U.S. Pacific Fleet,” Stabb said. Liddis said.
A former top NATO commander said the strength of the US military alliance would blunt Chinese aggression.
“If we go to war with China, it’s not just the United States and China. We have treaty allies who have committed to participating in such a military operation,” Stavridis said.
“That’s Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand,” he continued. “So when you put it all together, it’s a lot of firepower.”
Representatives for Mr. Stavridis did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment outside of normal business hours.