Krueger
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16 January 2014
The overall strength of the PLA is 2.3 million people, while the strength of the British army is only 225 thousand people. However, Britain, which nobody regarded as a great military power for a long time, has all chances to win a victory over China if a conflict occurs an equal distance from the two countries, Professor of the British Royal United Services Institute Malcolm Chalmers says. Although this comparison may seem surprising, it is true, expert of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Vasily Kashin believes.
In recent years, the development of the PLA has attracted the attention of the whole world, while the British armed forces continue living through an endless period of reductions in the budget and size of the armed forces. However, Britain still has at its disposal more significant opportunities of transferring its troops to remote areas of the globe, and is superior to China at the level of training individual units and their technical equipment.
Britain’s capability to transfer forces to remote regions, for example, to Africa or the Middle East, still significantly exceeds the Chinese one. The matter concerns not only the amount of technical equipment, which China is able to increase quickly, but also the Britain’s vast experience in operating in remote corners of the globe - experience they gained hundreds of years ago and are still carefully preserving and multiplying.
Despite their current ridiculous dimensions, the British armed forces are always present in different regions and climatic zones successfully solving the issues of supplies and maintaining equipment, combat readiness and health of the personnel. Besides their presence, the British have experience in almost constant combat operations in these areas. In general, in terms of experience and training of personnel for real combat operations in remote parts of the planet, the British can only be compared to the Americans and, to a lesser extent, to the French.
Despite the budget cuts, even British technical capabilities of power projection are not inferior to the Chinese. The number of ships of the British Fleet is gradually being reduced, and now, the British haven’t got a single effective military aircraft carrier. However, according to the plans, by 2020, two CVF type (Queen Elisabeth) aircraft carriers capable of carrying up to 50 aircrafts each will be built and achieve initial combat readiness.
The only Chinese aircraft carrier is not battle-ready yet. China is in the process of training carrier pilots, and considerable time will pass until they gain abilities to intensively operate in difficult conditions. Taking into account the British experience and the possibility of them receiving US technical assistance, the British aircraft carriers will be ready for deployment in remote areas of the planet much earlier, than two new Chinese ships that are presently under construction.
Britain has more powerful and better equipped strategic military transport aviation, including eight C-17A Globemaster II aircrafts and thirty two C-130 aircrafts, including the latest C-130J. The UK still has more (6 versus 5) multipurpose nuclear submarines, and their technical and crew training level is significantly higher than that of the Chinese. Let’s not forget that Britain is the only country in the world to use a nuclear submarine in a real sea battle: in 1982, it killed the Argentine cruiser Admiral Belgrano.
From the point of view of economic presence in remote parts of the world, China has long surpassed old European colonial powers - Britain and France. However, in terms of being able to provide security of its citizens and property abroad, China is far behind them. Britain is actively involved in the war on terrorism headed by the US; its forces are present not only in Afghanistan but also in Cyprus, the Middle East and the British overseas territories. France has conducted a successful military campaign in Mali and is now operating in the Central African Republic. So far, it is difficult to imagine that the PLA is able to do something like that.
At the same time, it is obvious that China is purposefully overcoming weak points hindering the PLA from expanding the geographic scope of its warfare. The Chinese military is increasingly involved in peacekeeping operations around the world. Thousands of Chinese military have already passed through the mill of serving on other continents, and in addition to engineering and medical units, combat units of the Chinese army also started to participate in peacekeeping missions. China is rapidly increasing the strength of its military transport aviation and designing its own heavy transport aircraft. The Air Force of the PLA is gaining experience in deploying in other countries through joint exercises with such countries as Russia and Turkey. The ocean fleet is under construction. Technical issues are often resolved faster than organizational and personnel ones; however, by the next decade, the PLA may become a real global force.
Vasily Kashin
Has China surpassed Britain? - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video
The overall strength of the PLA is 2.3 million people, while the strength of the British army is only 225 thousand people. However, Britain, which nobody regarded as a great military power for a long time, has all chances to win a victory over China if a conflict occurs an equal distance from the two countries, Professor of the British Royal United Services Institute Malcolm Chalmers says. Although this comparison may seem surprising, it is true, expert of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Vasily Kashin believes.
In recent years, the development of the PLA has attracted the attention of the whole world, while the British armed forces continue living through an endless period of reductions in the budget and size of the armed forces. However, Britain still has at its disposal more significant opportunities of transferring its troops to remote areas of the globe, and is superior to China at the level of training individual units and their technical equipment.
Britain’s capability to transfer forces to remote regions, for example, to Africa or the Middle East, still significantly exceeds the Chinese one. The matter concerns not only the amount of technical equipment, which China is able to increase quickly, but also the Britain’s vast experience in operating in remote corners of the globe - experience they gained hundreds of years ago and are still carefully preserving and multiplying.
Despite their current ridiculous dimensions, the British armed forces are always present in different regions and climatic zones successfully solving the issues of supplies and maintaining equipment, combat readiness and health of the personnel. Besides their presence, the British have experience in almost constant combat operations in these areas. In general, in terms of experience and training of personnel for real combat operations in remote parts of the planet, the British can only be compared to the Americans and, to a lesser extent, to the French.
Despite the budget cuts, even British technical capabilities of power projection are not inferior to the Chinese. The number of ships of the British Fleet is gradually being reduced, and now, the British haven’t got a single effective military aircraft carrier. However, according to the plans, by 2020, two CVF type (Queen Elisabeth) aircraft carriers capable of carrying up to 50 aircrafts each will be built and achieve initial combat readiness.
The only Chinese aircraft carrier is not battle-ready yet. China is in the process of training carrier pilots, and considerable time will pass until they gain abilities to intensively operate in difficult conditions. Taking into account the British experience and the possibility of them receiving US technical assistance, the British aircraft carriers will be ready for deployment in remote areas of the planet much earlier, than two new Chinese ships that are presently under construction.
Britain has more powerful and better equipped strategic military transport aviation, including eight C-17A Globemaster II aircrafts and thirty two C-130 aircrafts, including the latest C-130J. The UK still has more (6 versus 5) multipurpose nuclear submarines, and their technical and crew training level is significantly higher than that of the Chinese. Let’s not forget that Britain is the only country in the world to use a nuclear submarine in a real sea battle: in 1982, it killed the Argentine cruiser Admiral Belgrano.
From the point of view of economic presence in remote parts of the world, China has long surpassed old European colonial powers - Britain and France. However, in terms of being able to provide security of its citizens and property abroad, China is far behind them. Britain is actively involved in the war on terrorism headed by the US; its forces are present not only in Afghanistan but also in Cyprus, the Middle East and the British overseas territories. France has conducted a successful military campaign in Mali and is now operating in the Central African Republic. So far, it is difficult to imagine that the PLA is able to do something like that.
At the same time, it is obvious that China is purposefully overcoming weak points hindering the PLA from expanding the geographic scope of its warfare. The Chinese military is increasingly involved in peacekeeping operations around the world. Thousands of Chinese military have already passed through the mill of serving on other continents, and in addition to engineering and medical units, combat units of the Chinese army also started to participate in peacekeeping missions. China is rapidly increasing the strength of its military transport aviation and designing its own heavy transport aircraft. The Air Force of the PLA is gaining experience in deploying in other countries through joint exercises with such countries as Russia and Turkey. The ocean fleet is under construction. Technical issues are often resolved faster than organizational and personnel ones; however, by the next decade, the PLA may become a real global force.
Vasily Kashin
Has China surpassed Britain? - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video
