Well, we're 4 more tankers closer than we were a couple weeks ago!;). But yeah, if "rebuilding American shipbuilding" is important, buying new built tankers for MSC and Ready Reserve is an obvious way to do it.
And buying some Super Hornets to stash on some of these airfields until the Navy actually builds some F/A-XX is another no-brainer.
Yes to more tankers. Now, raise the pay scales for the crew so we can actually operate them.
No to deploying pre-staged aircraft. I'm fine with having them safe in CONUS, but not forward deployed: We won't know which (if any) forward bases are useable until after the war starts. In fact, I'd have things like (buried) empty fuel storage, maybe buried warehousing, and very, very little stuff actually there until needed. Prestaging is as bad an idea as a POMCUS site is.
Then there is the problem of guarding and maintaining all that pre-staged stuff. Probably not a desirable assignment unless you really like long walks on the beach. Every day. Alone.
One of the chem guys in my Army unit back in the 90s spent a year on Johnston Atoll, where the U.S. disposed of our chemical weapon stockpile.
They got free satellite tv and hazard pay due to the nerve gas and mustard gas being incinerated there, but there was no internet. It's 2 miles long and about a half a mile wide.
He said there was really nothing to do except take walks on the beach.
My word, it's almost like senior military and foreign policy officials inside the Trump administration -- and possibly even Donald Trump himself, having been the person who hired these senior officials -- believe that a war at sea and in the air with China in the western Pacific is a real possibility. A war which the much bally-hooed rules-based international order fails to deter.
I would be fearful of the result of a Sino American conflict in the western Pacific. You mention “rules based international order”. Subsequent to any possible unjustified incursion by the US into Greenland, there will no longer be any “guardrails” of such international order and any foreign military support for US forces in the Pacific will be nonexistent.
While not endorsing the taking of Greenland by force, I must dispute your logic that doing so somehow enables our adversaries to do things any more than if we didn't. The idea of America keeping/following of the rules based order acting as deterrent to revisionist powers is theoretical at best and self defeating at worst.
I am a fan of the US enforced status quo and think that it does indeed depend as much on us setting the standard as it does our overall strength, but I don't think any revisionist powers restrain themselves because America is such an honest Sheriff.
PRC is not waiting for a legal excuse to make a run at Taiwan, they are waiting until they think they can get away with it or until they deem it as somehow necessary. What you're saying is akin to "well, we invaded Afg/Iraq/Libya so we removed the guardrails keeping Russia from taking Georgia/Crimea/Ukraine." Though legally that might be true based on a certain reading of precedent in international law, it has no bearing on Russia's justification or any part of our response.
Foreign military support in the Western Pacific will be unchanged. Japan doesn't care about Greenland, nor does S. Korea, Vietnam or Taiwan. Europe is useless. Expanding the horizon to the Indian Ocean, India doesn't care either. Australia may care but they are increasingly anti-American in all things.
The USAF has been looking at the issue for some years. The Tinian project didn't start this year. It's been ongoing.
We may joke about the USAF, but they do maintain what appears to be a pretty cable and competent expeditionary force for just such a thing. 10 years ago or so, my son participated in a map exercise involving setting up an expeditionary airfield in the face of opposition.
The son of a friend of ours (also USAF) just got orders to assist in revamping one of those islands. As I understand it, his group will stage out of Guam.
This guy is in the Reserve, so does this organization have a reserve component? Or maybe he was called individually to serve with an active unit. He used to be a diesel mechanic for the AF, but was recently retrained to install fiber and cable. I can see both of those skills as being useful in this effort.
Like most of the other military components wartime base logistics and support, most of RED HORSE is in the reserves or NG.
Diesel mechanic sounds like a skill set that would be in RED HORSE as they are very much like SeaBees. The fiberoptic and cable sounds more like a civil engineering function which USAF does have. Though I think it's more like the Army Corps of Engineers civil engineering: AcDu officers supervising mostly civilians. That said, I can see fiberoptic and cable being something useful in standing up a base so it might be RED HORSE or he might be going to do finishing work on something they've already built out.
But the important thing to know in this case is that USAF is actively working on dispersed bases ahead of actual need.
You, like me, are only able to make assumptions about this sergeant’s part of the puzzle, but we agree completely on the need to complete that jigsaw puzzle.
We still need hardening of bases. It's all well to say we'll just use Agile Combat Employment to avoid getting targeted, but the US does not control when the war starts and I doubt there is a General Traitor Milley on the Central Military Commission who will be telling the US about the PLAs war plans.
I figure that the PRC / PLA has 40,000 drones prepositioned in the USA already. Our top 100 bases will face 300 drones each while the base leaders homes will be hit with 100 to sow absolute chaos and terror. Every base commanders' kid has uploaded the CCP all the details already on TikTok.
CDR Sal, have to consider you the "Paul Revere" of U.S. Pacific readiness. Was neck deep in such affairs in a prior life, and have yet to find a flaw or serious disagreement with your analysis. While no longer plugged in to such things, sadly have a very uneasy feeling that we may actually be in a worse situation from a readiness standpoint than we were...and it was bad before UKR kicked off. Defending such logistics points is a necessity. That involves resources we have seriously depleted. Alway come back to our choices / what "winning" looks like: 1) Don't fight, 2) win fast or lose ("winning means imposing "unacceptable cost" whatever that turns out to be), 3) go nuclear. Given the time it takes to mitigate our shortfalls (ship and aircraft production, munitions, logistics bases / platforms) and the "other sides" constant assessment of where we are in ability to defend versus where they are in ability to attack / invade, have to think we are in a very dangerous "window" the next 18 months. Please keep fighting the good fight!
Older son recently texted from Bora Bora; "I'd love to see the history of the decision-making that led to the US abandoning the Naval Air Station here in 1946."
Seriously not glamorous, but critical when you need one. In the late 1980's three reserve MSOs sailed from Puget Sound to Bahrain. Along the way, one, USS Conquest (MSO 488) collided with their large amphib escort during unrep. They came to PHNSY where I assisted in her drydocking. The only available dock was #4, a huge hole into which was fitted a very small ship. Over the 30+ years since construction, she had developed a very odd underwater shape - the keel was no longer straight and the port and starboard sides were no longer a good reflection of each other. To simplify the story, it became a long tense day. But we had a drydock.
As would I, though due to age/medical conditions I don’t think they’d take me, at least not for forward deployed duty which is what I would prefer. I’d probably get stuck babysitting a technical school house or something similar. But, at least that’d free up someone else to do a deployed job.
I have to say, not being very close to US situation, I think things are going slightly better than I thought. After the Obama and Biden years, which were just downtrends, things are finally looking a bit better.
Closer to home, news is that Mare Island Drydock has run out of money and closed. Time to move fast and take it back? The three graving docks range from 525 ft to 720 ft. Could fix a lot of Navy ships there.
Technically the Napa River. I get your point, but I think we have too many resources concentrated in too few places. And there just ain’t much on the Left Coast in the way of navigable harbors for deep-draft vessels.
In the Reagan era, there was action taken to somewhat disperse the Navy, which I thought was a whopping good idea. “Homeport” in NY Harbor, home to USS Normandy (CG-60) despite some local opposition. That was closed in 1994, Normandy relocated to Norfolk. Governors Island gone in 1995 — was a base for USCG high-endurance cutters Gallatin, Morgenthau, and Dallas. (Well-armed vessels, compared to the Legend-class cutters today with a couple of popguns.)
After USCG left, I was sailing into Charleston harbor with a cargo. Two if not three of the WHECs were there, and the harbor pilot was chortling about how Charleston had stolen them from New York. (Of course this was post-9/11.) I, in my mind, politely but firmly informed the pilot that the US government had just deprived what was then the busiest port on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of any maritime armed defense. The AB on watch on the bridge later told me I had “gone all New York all over the pilot.”
I would take the time to totally reconfigure the yard. Without builds under way it could be done fast. Put in a synchrolift for land level work and then 2 graving docks specifically designed to handle a lengthened Columbia.
CDR Salamander, what do you actually know about “Future Lover”?
Why do you call (her) impatient?
Men are more impatient than women, yes?
About 3:30 PM, I sang a Ghanaian song inside the VAMC Radiology Department, 50 Irving Street, Washington D.C.! Ghanian Radiology Tech Mike, also from Ghana, said I’ll do your “Bone Density”!
Moslem Ms K, Ethiopian, drove me home!
About 1.5 hour drive, for only $32. God bless her! She had not an extra cent to her name! So many poor people right here in Maryland!
In the dark, Caucasian male yelled “Wack Job!” Jealous because Department of Veterans Affaires takes good care of me!
Earlier today, about 10:30 AM, Caucasian Bald Chuck tried messing with El Salvador Felix, my UBER driver!
There is only one “Lieutenant Commander” living on my First Avenue…
Jealousy is the color Green!
Kinda matches the poor discarded Christmas Trees!
African American VAMC Eye Specialist, Ms Beauty, came outside her Clinic space to hug me strong!
Everyone at VAMC knew VA Battle Transportation lost the contract 5 January 2026!
All the VA Doctors knew there would be delays! I saw Dr Thompson, Dr Maiberger, Nurse Tomika and Radiology Tech Mike!
Not bad from 11:20 AM - 16:00 PM.
Stony Biz, a Texas Company had zero clue how to pick up 100% disabled veterans like me! So Clerk Brenden scheduled UBER!
We Naval Officers, Enlisted and Marines get “Tough”! Thank you again CDR Salamander for the Chart Room!
Chanel 15 FOX News is reporting TURKEY wants to take over Iran!
So hold onto your hats, this Winter is going to be one heck of an “Adventure”!
Lead… Follow… or please “Get out of my way”! Very Respectfully, Nurse Jane
I cut my teeth in the Pacific in my first operational assignment in the USAF as a C-130 navigator. On my theater indoctrination mission we flew into North Field on Tinian. The Navy Seabees had done an exercise and we we flew in to pick up the USAF fire truck that was deployed there. The C-130Es and Hs had limited range, and we needed islands like Shemya, Midway, and Wake to move C-130s across the Pacific. One by one they went away or dramatically reduced operatoins in the 1990s. It got harder and harder to move C-130s across the Pacific. The newer C-130J's longer range helps, but they would be load limited on longer legs. I think in the early 1990s the USAF used to keep a KC-135 at Wake on alert in case an refueling was required. Former USINDOPACOM deputy commander and later Air Force Air Mobility Command commander General Mike Minihan used the term "tyranny of distance" to describe moving military assets to forward locations in the Pacific.
And the recent activities in South America remind me we used to have a significant military presence in Panama.
Coming from the Reserve side of the house, COVID response was the impetus to shift from mobilizing through Norfolk to get everyone through the NRCs, and then to locations.
As for units, it's going to be Munitions Command West, Japan Korea and Marianas support units, Surface and Submarine repair commands, the whole Military Sealift Command reserve manpower (CART and EPUs especially), Coastal/Riverine Squadrons, and then NMCB to start off. Some commands may be shifting from mobilization locations on the East Coast to Pacific operations as time goes on, but they haven't released that information if it exists.
Wonder if you could put an Aegis system on a barge (yeah, I know seaworthiness, but something like it) and tow it to where you wanted. Otherwise it's a tempting target for ICBMs and commandos. Still is, but at least you put it where you have some resources to protect it as it's protecting them.
CDR Salamander - You are exactly right. What would these 50,000 reserve call ups accomplish? The Chinese are intending to strike with asymetrical warfare. meaning they will blow up the US airfields and logistics bases with their hundreds of intermediate range missiles arrayed along their coast. The Chinese will use cyber to take down our radars. In the end there will be a small remnant left of our western Pasific bases. Our aircraft won't fly because they will have bombed and cratered our airfields. The Naval ships will be deployed underway but with no piers to return to with limited underway logistics resupply. We will not take our aircraft carrier or other ships closer than 500 miles to the Chinese coast to avoid missile swarms. We will be in a quandary as to how to proceed. Only a limited US nuclear strike could change the battlefield. But the politics of a nuclear strike will prevent that from happening. End of story. r/Karl
Well, we're 4 more tankers closer than we were a couple weeks ago!;). But yeah, if "rebuilding American shipbuilding" is important, buying new built tankers for MSC and Ready Reserve is an obvious way to do it.
And buying some Super Hornets to stash on some of these airfields until the Navy actually builds some F/A-XX is another no-brainer.
Yes to more tankers. Now, raise the pay scales for the crew so we can actually operate them.
No to deploying pre-staged aircraft. I'm fine with having them safe in CONUS, but not forward deployed: We won't know which (if any) forward bases are useable until after the war starts. In fact, I'd have things like (buried) empty fuel storage, maybe buried warehousing, and very, very little stuff actually there until needed. Prestaging is as bad an idea as a POMCUS site is.
Then there is the problem of guarding and maintaining all that pre-staged stuff. Probably not a desirable assignment unless you really like long walks on the beach. Every day. Alone.
One of the chem guys in my Army unit back in the 90s spent a year on Johnston Atoll, where the U.S. disposed of our chemical weapon stockpile.
They got free satellite tv and hazard pay due to the nerve gas and mustard gas being incinerated there, but there was no internet. It's 2 miles long and about a half a mile wide.
He said there was really nothing to do except take walks on the beach.
My word, it's almost like senior military and foreign policy officials inside the Trump administration -- and possibly even Donald Trump himself, having been the person who hired these senior officials -- believe that a war at sea and in the air with China in the western Pacific is a real possibility. A war which the much bally-hooed rules-based international order fails to deter.
I would be fearful of the result of a Sino American conflict in the western Pacific. You mention “rules based international order”. Subsequent to any possible unjustified incursion by the US into Greenland, there will no longer be any “guardrails” of such international order and any foreign military support for US forces in the Pacific will be nonexistent.
While not endorsing the taking of Greenland by force, I must dispute your logic that doing so somehow enables our adversaries to do things any more than if we didn't. The idea of America keeping/following of the rules based order acting as deterrent to revisionist powers is theoretical at best and self defeating at worst.
I am a fan of the US enforced status quo and think that it does indeed depend as much on us setting the standard as it does our overall strength, but I don't think any revisionist powers restrain themselves because America is such an honest Sheriff.
PRC is not waiting for a legal excuse to make a run at Taiwan, they are waiting until they think they can get away with it or until they deem it as somehow necessary. What you're saying is akin to "well, we invaded Afg/Iraq/Libya so we removed the guardrails keeping Russia from taking Georgia/Crimea/Ukraine." Though legally that might be true based on a certain reading of precedent in international law, it has no bearing on Russia's justification or any part of our response.
Ref:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-183742230
Foreign military support in the Western Pacific will be unchanged. Japan doesn't care about Greenland, nor does S. Korea, Vietnam or Taiwan. Europe is useless. Expanding the horizon to the Indian Ocean, India doesn't care either. Australia may care but they are increasingly anti-American in all things.
The USAF has been looking at the issue for some years. The Tinian project didn't start this year. It's been ongoing.
We may joke about the USAF, but they do maintain what appears to be a pretty cable and competent expeditionary force for just such a thing. 10 years ago or so, my son participated in a map exercise involving setting up an expeditionary airfield in the face of opposition.
The son of a friend of ours (also USAF) just got orders to assist in revamping one of those islands. As I understand it, his group will stage out of Guam.
Sounds like a RED HORSE guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Engineer_Deployable_Heavy_Operational_Repair_Squadron_Engineers
This guy is in the Reserve, so does this organization have a reserve component? Or maybe he was called individually to serve with an active unit. He used to be a diesel mechanic for the AF, but was recently retrained to install fiber and cable. I can see both of those skills as being useful in this effort.
Like most of the other military components wartime base logistics and support, most of RED HORSE is in the reserves or NG.
Diesel mechanic sounds like a skill set that would be in RED HORSE as they are very much like SeaBees. The fiberoptic and cable sounds more like a civil engineering function which USAF does have. Though I think it's more like the Army Corps of Engineers civil engineering: AcDu officers supervising mostly civilians. That said, I can see fiberoptic and cable being something useful in standing up a base so it might be RED HORSE or he might be going to do finishing work on something they've already built out.
But the important thing to know in this case is that USAF is actively working on dispersed bases ahead of actual need.
You, like me, are only able to make assumptions about this sergeant’s part of the puzzle, but we agree completely on the need to complete that jigsaw puzzle.
Thank you for that perspective.
Maybe we actually have a department of War. Hallelujah
We still need hardening of bases. It's all well to say we'll just use Agile Combat Employment to avoid getting targeted, but the US does not control when the war starts and I doubt there is a General Traitor Milley on the Central Military Commission who will be telling the US about the PLAs war plans.
I figure that the PRC / PLA has 40,000 drones prepositioned in the USA already. Our top 100 bases will face 300 drones each while the base leaders homes will be hit with 100 to sow absolute chaos and terror. Every base commanders' kid has uploaded the CCP all the details already on TikTok.
Maybe, the problem is the longer they are on the ground in the US the chance of discovery goes up.
CDR Sal, have to consider you the "Paul Revere" of U.S. Pacific readiness. Was neck deep in such affairs in a prior life, and have yet to find a flaw or serious disagreement with your analysis. While no longer plugged in to such things, sadly have a very uneasy feeling that we may actually be in a worse situation from a readiness standpoint than we were...and it was bad before UKR kicked off. Defending such logistics points is a necessity. That involves resources we have seriously depleted. Alway come back to our choices / what "winning" looks like: 1) Don't fight, 2) win fast or lose ("winning means imposing "unacceptable cost" whatever that turns out to be), 3) go nuclear. Given the time it takes to mitigate our shortfalls (ship and aircraft production, munitions, logistics bases / platforms) and the "other sides" constant assessment of where we are in ability to defend versus where they are in ability to attack / invade, have to think we are in a very dangerous "window" the next 18 months. Please keep fighting the good fight!
Older son recently texted from Bora Bora; "I'd love to see the history of the decision-making that led to the US abandoning the Naval Air Station here in 1946."
Retired EDO here, ship and submarine repair. I would go in a heart beat if they need. I need to work on my PT. Back later.
Someone should also get you some destroyer tenders and submarine tenders to bounce about those protected lagoons.
A floating drydock would be nice, too.
Having them available would be nice.
That is an understatement!
Seriously not glamorous, but critical when you need one. In the late 1980's three reserve MSOs sailed from Puget Sound to Bahrain. Along the way, one, USS Conquest (MSO 488) collided with their large amphib escort during unrep. They came to PHNSY where I assisted in her drydocking. The only available dock was #4, a huge hole into which was fitted a very small ship. Over the 30+ years since construction, she had developed a very odd underwater shape - the keel was no longer straight and the port and starboard sides were no longer a good reflection of each other. To simplify the story, it became a long tense day. But we had a drydock.
As would I, though due to age/medical conditions I don’t think they’d take me, at least not for forward deployed duty which is what I would prefer. I’d probably get stuck babysitting a technical school house or something similar. But, at least that’d free up someone else to do a deployed job.
I think Trump is first trying to secure the Western hemisphere if it hopes to challenge China. You can’t play soccer without a goalie.
Or without a soccer ball and a net.
I have to say, not being very close to US situation, I think things are going slightly better than I thought. After the Obama and Biden years, which were just downtrends, things are finally looking a bit better.
At 70, I doubt they would want me back :) .. but I would go in a minute if needed ..
Very good stuff and thanks, CDR.
Closer to home, news is that Mare Island Drydock has run out of money and closed. Time to move fast and take it back? The three graving docks range from 525 ft to 720 ft. Could fix a lot of Navy ships there.
Only downside is it's in San Francisco Bay.
But with the money saved on fraud in MN we've got plenty to rehab it.
Technically the Napa River. I get your point, but I think we have too many resources concentrated in too few places. And there just ain’t much on the Left Coast in the way of navigable harbors for deep-draft vessels.
In the Reagan era, there was action taken to somewhat disperse the Navy, which I thought was a whopping good idea. “Homeport” in NY Harbor, home to USS Normandy (CG-60) despite some local opposition. That was closed in 1994, Normandy relocated to Norfolk. Governors Island gone in 1995 — was a base for USCG high-endurance cutters Gallatin, Morgenthau, and Dallas. (Well-armed vessels, compared to the Legend-class cutters today with a couple of popguns.)
After USCG left, I was sailing into Charleston harbor with a cargo. Two if not three of the WHECs were there, and the harbor pilot was chortling about how Charleston had stolen them from New York. (Of course this was post-9/11.) I, in my mind, politely but firmly informed the pilot that the US government had just deprived what was then the busiest port on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of any maritime armed defense. The AB on watch on the bridge later told me I had “gone all New York all over the pilot.”
And I’d do it again.
I would take the time to totally reconfigure the yard. Without builds under way it could be done fast. Put in a synchrolift for land level work and then 2 graving docks specifically designed to handle a lengthened Columbia.
CDR Salamander, what do you actually know about “Future Lover”?
Why do you call (her) impatient?
Men are more impatient than women, yes?
About 3:30 PM, I sang a Ghanaian song inside the VAMC Radiology Department, 50 Irving Street, Washington D.C.! Ghanian Radiology Tech Mike, also from Ghana, said I’ll do your “Bone Density”!
Moslem Ms K, Ethiopian, drove me home!
About 1.5 hour drive, for only $32. God bless her! She had not an extra cent to her name! So many poor people right here in Maryland!
In the dark, Caucasian male yelled “Wack Job!” Jealous because Department of Veterans Affaires takes good care of me!
Earlier today, about 10:30 AM, Caucasian Bald Chuck tried messing with El Salvador Felix, my UBER driver!
There is only one “Lieutenant Commander” living on my First Avenue…
Jealousy is the color Green!
Kinda matches the poor discarded Christmas Trees!
African American VAMC Eye Specialist, Ms Beauty, came outside her Clinic space to hug me strong!
Everyone at VAMC knew VA Battle Transportation lost the contract 5 January 2026!
All the VA Doctors knew there would be delays! I saw Dr Thompson, Dr Maiberger, Nurse Tomika and Radiology Tech Mike!
Not bad from 11:20 AM - 16:00 PM.
Stony Biz, a Texas Company had zero clue how to pick up 100% disabled veterans like me! So Clerk Brenden scheduled UBER!
We Naval Officers, Enlisted and Marines get “Tough”! Thank you again CDR Salamander for the Chart Room!
Chanel 15 FOX News is reporting TURKEY wants to take over Iran!
So hold onto your hats, this Winter is going to be one heck of an “Adventure”!
Lead… Follow… or please “Get out of my way”! Very Respectfully, Nurse Jane
I cut my teeth in the Pacific in my first operational assignment in the USAF as a C-130 navigator. On my theater indoctrination mission we flew into North Field on Tinian. The Navy Seabees had done an exercise and we we flew in to pick up the USAF fire truck that was deployed there. The C-130Es and Hs had limited range, and we needed islands like Shemya, Midway, and Wake to move C-130s across the Pacific. One by one they went away or dramatically reduced operatoins in the 1990s. It got harder and harder to move C-130s across the Pacific. The newer C-130J's longer range helps, but they would be load limited on longer legs. I think in the early 1990s the USAF used to keep a KC-135 at Wake on alert in case an refueling was required. Former USINDOPACOM deputy commander and later Air Force Air Mobility Command commander General Mike Minihan used the term "tyranny of distance" to describe moving military assets to forward locations in the Pacific.
And the recent activities in South America remind me we used to have a significant military presence in Panama.
Coming from the Reserve side of the house, COVID response was the impetus to shift from mobilizing through Norfolk to get everyone through the NRCs, and then to locations.
As for units, it's going to be Munitions Command West, Japan Korea and Marianas support units, Surface and Submarine repair commands, the whole Military Sealift Command reserve manpower (CART and EPUs especially), Coastal/Riverine Squadrons, and then NMCB to start off. Some commands may be shifting from mobilization locations on the East Coast to Pacific operations as time goes on, but they haven't released that information if it exists.
It's a good start. Time to figure out a way to move Aegis Ashore to these facilities.
Gotta have radars and missiles available.
Wonder if you could put an Aegis system on a barge (yeah, I know seaworthiness, but something like it) and tow it to where you wanted. Otherwise it's a tempting target for ICBMs and commandos. Still is, but at least you put it where you have some resources to protect it as it's protecting them.
It's the only alternative that makes sense, ESPECIALLY for a pacific war.
Have mobile launchers that can be delivered when needed. Leave them there and they'll be destroyed (or fired) on day 1.
CDR Salamander - You are exactly right. What would these 50,000 reserve call ups accomplish? The Chinese are intending to strike with asymetrical warfare. meaning they will blow up the US airfields and logistics bases with their hundreds of intermediate range missiles arrayed along their coast. The Chinese will use cyber to take down our radars. In the end there will be a small remnant left of our western Pasific bases. Our aircraft won't fly because they will have bombed and cratered our airfields. The Naval ships will be deployed underway but with no piers to return to with limited underway logistics resupply. We will not take our aircraft carrier or other ships closer than 500 miles to the Chinese coast to avoid missile swarms. We will be in a quandary as to how to proceed. Only a limited US nuclear strike could change the battlefield. But the politics of a nuclear strike will prevent that from happening. End of story. r/Karl