What's New
China's Navy has significantly closed the gap with its U.S. counterpart in vertical launch system (VLS) missile cells, now boasting more than half the U.S. Navy's total, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Why It Matters
Vertical launch systems, introduced on U.S. Navy ships in the 1980s, are modular compartments that store and launch missiles in an upright position.
Their vertical configuration, combined with the ability to rapidly deploy various types of missiles—cruise, antiair, and antiship—strengthens a warship's capacity to address multiple threats while maximizing onboard space.
The London-based think tank's report highlights concerns in Washington over the rapidly modernizing People's Liberation Army Navy. PLAN continues to expand its capabilities, conduct major drills around Taiwan, and put on shows of force to Beijing's sweeping claims over the South China Sea.
What To Know
The report says the U.S. Navy has 8,400 VLS cells distributed across 85 surface ships, including its 74 Arleigh-Burke-class destroyers, two of its three Zumwalt-class destroyers (one active), and nine Ticonderoga-class cruisers.
This marks a decrease of nearly 1,000 cells from the Navy's 2020-2021 peak, attributed largely to the phasing out of older Ticonderoga-class cruisers, which each carried 122 cells.
By contrast, China's VLS capacity has expanded dramatically under President Xi Jinping's leadership. In 2005, the PLAN's capacity was just 1.5 percent of the U.S. Navy's; by 2015, it had risen to over 13 percent. Nearly one-third of its current capacity was added in just 2021 and 2022, IISS reports.
"New U.S. warship construction is neither keeping up with those reductions nor with Chinese major warship output," wrote Johannes Fischbach, an IISS maritime research analyst and author of the report.
The U.S. builds its heavier-armed Arleigh-Burke destroyers at a rate of 1.6 per year. Until 2022, China was producing nearly twice as many Type-052D destroyers annually and has also been adding two newer Type-055 cruisers each year.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense with a written request for comment.
What People Are Saying
Johannes Fischbach, IISS maritime research analyst, wrote: "The U.S. Navy, of course, can still rely on a much greater wealth of experience operating its VLS-equipped platforms in conjunction with the advanced Aegis combat system. On the other hand, its aging platforms will continue to be retired, although in 2024 it decided to keep the oldest Arleigh Burkes and three Ticonderogas in service for longer than planned.
"The PLAN's future VLS capacity ambitions are uncertain, but for the U.S. Navy, the route to recovering its VLS numbers may need to be a combination of maintaining current capabilities for longer, improving industrial capacity to build more platforms, and finally making the transition it has long set its sights on of shifting to more and cheaper uncrewed platforms that can act as VLS carriers."
What Happens Next
A slide leaked from the Office of Naval Intelligence estimated China's shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than that of the U.S. China now fields the world's largest navy, with around 370 naval vessels compared to the U.S. Navy's fewer than 300.
"For every one oceangoing vessel that we can produce, China can produce 359 in a single year," Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the ranking Democratic member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, warned in an interview with Fox News earlier this month.
President-elect Trump called for expanding the U.S. Navy to 350 ships since his 2016 campaign. Critics, however, question whether any substantial shipbuilding increase is feasible given budgetary constraints.
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