China and Ivan’s Warship Bazaar

We’re often told to worry about things that aren’t really worth worrying about.

The latest false alarm from the media’s nattering nabobs of neurosis comes courtesy of the Chinese Navy’s recent shopping spree. Seems that they picked up a couple of creampuff destroyers from Smiling Ivan’s Ruskie Warship Bazaar. The worry warts on the geopolitics circuit are warning that China’s new warships are going to change the balance of power in the region.

And if we follow the media line on this, we’re supposed to be fretting over the specter of these destroyers prowling the tense waters of the Taiwan strait, where they supposedly pose a threat to nearby U.S. warships.

Yeah, right. The U.S. Seventh Fleet could wipe the entire Chinese Navy off the face of the planet in any given weekend, and still have time left over for beer and volleyball on Sunday afternoon.

Making a great leap forward from having a large, low-tech Army to an effective, blue-water Navy is a difficult gig indeed. It’s an endeavor that spans generations. There’s a difference between lording over a mass of unarmed and hungry peasants on home turf, and being able to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. Navy on (and under and over) Neptune’s lair.

Peasants can man an Army. They cannot effectively man a modern Navy. A ship, by its very nature, is an instrument of technology. Furthermore, mere ships do not a Navy make; it takes generations of knowledge and even tradition to forge a fighting fleet. A couple of Ruskie destroyers being added to the Chinese roster ain’t going to change these facts one little bit.

Good thing that I’m not the U.S. Navy’s public affairs chief. I’d be smiling into television cameras saying “Go ahead, China…make my day.” Or maybe, “do ya’ feel lucky, punk?” Oh, it’s a ripe subject for a quipster.

In the wake of the great Chinese and Ruskie destroyer scare, China recently fired off another volley of jingoistic gibberish at Taiwan, the same “thinly veiled threat” brand of threatening to whip Taiwan’s butt if the urge strikes. This comes at election time in Taiwan.

For one, it remains an open issue whether China has the capability to move the necessary men and machines across the strait under fire. It’s been over a decade since I engaged in any formal study of the Chinese Navy, but I don’t recall I regarded China’s navy as anything more than a rag-tag brown-water bunch of puddle-pirates back when I was a naval officer. Unless things have changed drastically over the past decade–and I doubt they have–even nearby Taiwan might not be within effective striking distance of the Commie Armada if any substantial resistance is offered.

And, of course, if we add the U.S. fleet to the equation, there’s no equation left to solve. China’s new destroyers aren’t ships-they’re TARGETS.

We’ve got plenty of things to worry about here in Saipan. Worry about the economy. Worry about your job. Worry about your receding hair line and your receding gum line. Worry about the Spice Girls’ fall from grace. But don’t worry about China’s puffery or the media’s fear mongering. The red Chinese don’t pose a conventional military threat to the world at large.