The Effects Of Geography and Maritime Strike Capabilities For The US Navy Vs. Iran: Implications For China
🇨🇳 | Analytical Extensions
Analytical extensions-themed posts expand on material that has appeared in another newsletter/section and other parts of this website more generally.
China-related commentary expanding upon the post published in another section/newsletter:
The Iranian experience with the U.S. military in general and the U.S. Navy in particular is highly salient to anyone interested in Chinese military capabilities. In times of crisis and war in the Pacific, American naval vessels operating in the Indian Ocean and its marginal seas, such as the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, will have to transit the Malacca, Sunda, or Lombok straits—or else navigate around Australia—so as to rendezvous with American warships operating in the Philippine Sea and elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean. This presents risks for the United States and multifaceted opportunities for the Chinese military. It bears emphasis that American warships homeported at ports along the eastern coast of North America encounter similar dynamics, and may even have to transit into the Indian Ocean via the southern coast of Africa in the event that Iran and Ansarallah in Yemen continue to constrain American transits of the Bab al-Mandeb—following transits ofthe Mediterranean and the Suez Canal—into the Indian Ocean. The United States’ nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are too large to transit into the Pacific Ocean via the Panama Canal. The alternative for American aircraft carriers homeported along the eastern coast of North America is to reach the Pacific Ocean by navigating around the southern tip of South America.