Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Military capability is related to manufacturing but is more complicated
DefenseTech has a post up discussing the prospect for China to catch the U.S. in high-tech weaponry.
I don't have time to dig into this right now, so I'll just observe that:
I don't have time to dig into this right now, so I'll just observe that:
- China has selected to preferentially modernize a few key areas of its military over the past twenty years, so a relevant follow-up question is always "can China catch the U.S. in what area of high-tech weaponry?"
- Technology is one facet of military capability (albeit a particularly easy one to focus on since one can observe it and the tech fanboys can fawn over it). It is much harder to get a good handle on the PLA's skill. Recent stories such as John Garnaut's piece on PLA corruption raise the possibility that the PLA could be less than the sum of its unevenly shiny parts.
# posted by Wiggins @ 12:13 PM 
