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Letters | China’s navy is sailing blind, bogged down by its reliance on inappropriate military theory
Foreign analysts and, one suspects, Cary Huang (“China takes aim at the US for the first time in its defence white paper”, August 7) have long understood that China’s vast and ill-configured new navy is no more than the result of being late to the race and not fully briefed.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most countries except China had devoured the great Alfred Thayer Mahan’s transformative book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890) within a decade or so of publication. China took no note until 1957 when the first translation appeared. Now, China is uncritically rushing to embrace Mahan’s ideas, much refuted, discussed and refined in the interim, without being clear on whether they are appropriate.
These ideas are not appropriate for China any more than they were for Germany or Russia. The fleet, I suspect, will rust or possibly be sunk, or bankrupt the country. Fortunately for its neighbours, China is clueless about how best to spend its military capital.
Arthur Waldron, emeritus professor of strategy and policy, United States Naval War College
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