Toys for the boys

This prompted by a piece in this morning's (Friday) FT about push and shove in the South China Sea.

First, at least the US has the sort of defence budget which can support toys of the sort snapped above. Which we do not, ambitions of our many admirals notwithstanding. I associate to the old yarn about us having more officers of flag rank than we had ships - even when you stretch to include things like offshore patrol boats in the count.

Second, one of the two sorts of planes used by the Chinese during the incident in question was made in Russia quite recently, while the other was a old Russian design made under license in China.

Third, the US has got rather used to being the only country in the world which can project power across the globe with carrier groups. The adjustment to being one of two might be tricky - with our experience of the same sort of thing, here in the UK, not being very encouraging.

Fourth, I was irritated by the use of the word 'genocide' to describe the way that the Chinese are treating their Uighur minority. Which is bad, but falls short of what I understand by genocide. An abuse of language, another example of the deteriorating standard of public debate.

PS: regarding the snap: 'the USS Theodore Roosevelt was leading a group of US Navy vessels in the area © REUTERS © FT'.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/11/white-elephants.html. Previous thoughts about aircraft carriers.