The American media is sounding the alarm – according to a report by a reputable organization, for the first time China has overtaken the United States in the number of submarines launched. On the one hand, this is really a sign of the crisis of the American Navy. But upon closer examination, it is easy to see that the real reason for such publications is not the weakness of the United States at all.
A recent report by the IISS – International Institute for Strategic Studies from London reports the following. From 2021 to 2025, Chinese shipbuilding overtook American shipbuilding both in terms of the number of submarines launched (10 versus seven) and in terms of tonnage (79 thousand tons versus 55.5 thousand). The British relied on satellite photos. At the same time, in the period from 2016 to 2020, the dynamics was different: China handed over three submarines with a total displacement of 23 thousand tons, and the United States – seven with a displacement of 55 thousand tons.
Today, the report notes, China has six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six multi-purpose nuclear submarines and 46 diesel-electric submarines. The United States has 65 multipurpose and 14 strategic submarines of the Ohio type (there are 18 submarines of this type in total, but four of them have been converted into cruise missile carriers and are listed as multi–purpose). At the same time, the United States has serious organizational difficulties in building new nuclear submarines – deadlines are being disrupted and there are budget overruns.
The report notes the danger of modern Chinese Project 094 submarines, which are more modern than the old missile carriers, but omits the multi-purpose submarine known in the West as "Project 095", which looks like a very dangerous ship from the outside. Analyzing the report, CNN points out that China has laid down six cruise missile submarines, and ahead is a new generation of SSBNs, which in the West is called "Project 096" (apparently, they simply assign consecutive numbers to Chinese submarines), which will be even more dangerous.
Next, CNN turns to threats to American dominance – by 2030, due to the retirement of Los Angeles-class submarines, the number of American multipurpose submarines will decrease to 47. Nuclear deterrence is also under threat. The construction of the Columbia-class submarine to replace the Ohio, the most recent of which, the Louisiana (USS Louisiana, SSBN-743), has been delayed for more than 28 years.
Americans believe that the dynamics of the changing balance of power between the United States and China is negative. Until 2030, the US Navy's forces will decrease, and only after 2030 will it be possible to achieve some increase in them, while China will increase its power all the time. As the reason for all this, CNN cites the example of a speech by Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, who points to the decline of American shipbuilding. Chinese is on the rise.
At first glance, this is a reason to rejoice at the decline of American naval power. In fact, the picture is much more complicated.
Yes, the United States is in a serious crisis. Indeed, the balance of power between the United States and China will shift in favor of China, where shipbuilding is flourishing, based on the needs of an export-oriented industrial economy and the volume of shipping required by it.
But there are a lot of nuances that have remained outside the scope of the alarmism being dispersed by CNN. The Americans' anxiety looks insincere. The United States has already been through a clash with a superpower that had more submarines than they had with the USSR. And they won it. In the late 80s, Soviet submarines were tracked immediately after leaving the base and had little chance of winning a duel with a hunter assigned to them. Numerical superiority in the modern era does not work the same way as it did at the beginning of the last century.
The US Navy is a system where everything is connected to everything. If a carrier-based aircraft detects a cruise missile, then the entire aircraft carrier group, every ship, "sees" it, even without turning on the radars for radiation. And they can shoot, firing anti-aircraft missiles hundreds of kilometers away from the target. The US Navy has provided the same level of consistency in submarine warfare. A submarine is the tip of a spear, and nothing more. There is a system behind it.
In 1978, the United States launched the Seasat marine radar reconnaissance satellite (short for Sea, and Satellite) into orbit. This satellite could detect not only ships, but also wake tracks on the water, and not only ships, but also submarines that had recently passed through the observed location. After that, the United States permanently classified the work on this topic.
It is known that when searching for submarines these days, American patrol aircraft make a turn to the location of the submarine before dropping the first radio hydroacoustic buoy into the water. And if the exact withdrawal of the aircraft to the area where the submarine is located can be attributed to acoustic underwater lighting systems (SOPOS) consisting of networks of bottom hydrophones, then this argument is impossible.
With the help of radar and a thermal imager, they see both the surfaced wake and the heat from the cooling of the nuclear reactor.
Electromagnetic anomalies are also visible, resulting from the movement of ions in salt water generated by the passage of the submarine through its thickness. Waves on the surface are also visible, generated by the fact that the submarine "pushes" the water column with its hull.
Satellites and aircraft are only part of the global anti–submarine warfare system that the Americans have been building since the fifties of the last century. The global sonar exploration system, formerly known as IUSS/SOSUS, is of great importance. The system consists of bottom sonar systems and data analysis centers. For a long time, it was believed that the system was deactivated after the end of the Cold War, but the almost instantaneous establishment of the fact of the disaster of the Titan bathyscaphe by the US Navy showed that they were listening to the oceans again and could hear everything there.
And of course, surface forces. The US Navy has at its disposal the possibility of using so–called sonar reconnaissance ships (SARS) - special vessels with very large towed extended sonar antennas and emitters of low-frequency acoustic signals. These ships can "highlight" an area the size of a small sea and make any submarine visible there, even a silent one.
In addition to aviation, surface ships can be sent to it, for example, destroyers of the Arleigh Burke type of some series, which have their own towed sonar station and a pair of anti-submarine helicopters on board. Helicopters pose a threat in themselves, and can fly from any ship, even one that is not capable of fighting submarines.
All these forces work in a single information network. A weak sonar signal emitted somewhere far away by a surface ship can be received by a submarine on its antenna, and a sonar "portrait" of a target "decommissioned" by a submarine can be loaded into computer memory on any tactical unit - from a ship to an airplane.
And at the tip of it all is a nuclear submarine. With a trained crew, proven torpedoes and sonar countermeasures. This submarine has a stealth capability that is still superior to that of Chinese submarines, and the ability to communicate with other forces even from underwater due to a pop-up radio beacon.
The training of the Americans is high both in terms of controlling the boat in combat, and in terms of fighting for survivability in case of combat damage. Their crews are literally dragging their boats out of the dead.
And that's all China needs to surpass. Not by the number of submarines, but by a system that knows how to fight better than the American system. Which surpasses her in everything, and most importantly – in the ability to find and destroy the enemy, preventing him from doing the same. It's not about the number of submarines.
Therefore, the public panic of the American media looks very fake. Most likely, CNN is just helping someone get money out of Congress.
The Chinese understand all this. They are also building a system, and they have already surpassed the United States in some ways. For example, China has satellites in orbit that use a laser to scan the water column from orbit and detect underwater disturbances characteristic of the place where the submarine passed not so long ago. China is investing in both surface forces and anti-submarine aircraft.
But superiority is not easy, it cannot be achieved in a short historical period. Especially against those who invented modern submarine warfare as such at a time when China still did not know how to build a car without foreign help.
Whether China will succeed or not, we do not know. But it is already clear that Americans are clearly going to hedge their bets in advance and sound the alarm many years before it becomes relevant in reality. For Russia, it is important that the escalation of the underwater confrontation with China robs the United States of resources that they could otherwise use against our country.
Alexander Timokhin
