Another day... another aircraft carrier!

So, what’s happening in the world today, anything interesting? I was mildly amused, I suppose, that China now has an aircraft carrier and that everybody around the globe is worried about this alarming escalation in arming for potential world domination. I even noted one correspondent concerned about how this would lead to an arms race with the US!

Well… that’s interesting isn’t it! For a start, China has bought a second hand, unfinished hulk from the Russians which, as a hull, was based on an outdated design and which was empty inside. In a few years it will be fully fitted with the best Chinese, previously enjoyed, technology and will have undergone sea trials. Knowing the state of the Russian navy and of ship building in the still largely state owned yards, it will have sunk by the end of 2012!

Even if it does survive, I guess our American cousins could always hang a Greenpeace flag on the side of it and then the French will sink it whilst claiming not to know what happened and shrugging their shoulders in a very Gaelic way!

I do like the word anachronism. I can’t help but feel aircraft carriers are a little anachronistic. Signs of days gone by when everybody had to have their own personal set of dreadnoughts to rule the waves. I can only assume therefore that Somalia is absolutely chock a block with dreadnoughts as you can barely get out of Dover before you are warned of the existence of pirates on your route.

Come to think of it, if the Chinese sail too close to Africa, which they pretty much own nowadays anyway, then they’ll probably lose it to piracy… which would lead to another of my favourite words… ironic!

I guess aircraft carriers are useful for missions like Libya and the like but they do cost rather a lot of money to build and run. Then once you start running them then you kind of need to keep ordinance on board and if you do that, well, you might as well use it eh!

Not to mention, aircraft carriers are brilliant when you are fighting people in the back of a converted pickup truck who seem to have more ammunition than Arnie in all his films added together but who would fail to hit a barn if they were parked inside it. However, when it comes to taking on another world power, they’re not that great really, after all, they tend to be quite large, have a high degree of visibility, to the naked eye let alone radar, and can be taken out with one standard conventionally armed long range missile… or a torpedo fired from a few miles away… or the old UK favourite, for thirty years now, an exocet… from a Mirage! Even better, from a Saab! Saab, who build their jets in the back of a garage and are bidding for contracts to arm India… Fortunately the Indians said ‘thanks, but no thanks!’ The Brazilians on the other hand…

As for an arms race with the US. I think they have some catching up to do first. Then they can race them. Hopefully our friends and allies will have learnt something from the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union and recollect how this was somewhat linked and that right now, the US is a little skint! It would be irony indeed if another Cold War broke out between communist China and capitalist USA and the USA went broke and embraced communism! Would be an interesting sight to see all my American friends and colleagues in the same standard dress and a cap with a little red book! Bit like all of them working for IBM really, they have a red book, which is odd when you think about it!