OBS Chapter 2214 Requesting Double Monthly Tickets!!!
Chapter 2214 Requesting Double Monthly Tickets!!!
Chapter 2214 Requesting Double Monthly Tickets!!!
In the past, people always said that the US hegemony was crumbling... but it was all just talk. The US would not fall so easily. But when the US Navy was completely annihilated, it was no longer a prophecy, but a fact!
This is actually not fatal. What is truly fatal is that the United States cannot build a navy of the same size again!
First of all, it is a human issue. A navy cannot be formed on a whim. There is a saying that a navy lasts for a hundred years... Of course, this statement is not actually accurate.
There has always been a saying about military construction that it takes 20 years for the army, 100 years for the air force, and years for the navy! The reason why the trolls on the Internet criticize that the gap between the Chinese navy and the navies of Western countries is that the Chinese navy has not been established for a hundred years... Let's first talk about the source of the saying of a hundred-year navy - the original meaning refers to the era of sailing warships. It takes at least a hundred years for a tree to grow into a plank for a ship. Only an oak tree that has grown for a hundred years and is more than meters tall can produce a section of wood that can be used to build the ribs of a warship. The symbol of naval power during the sail war was a three-layer gun deck first-class sailing battleship (more than guns), and it took thousands of century-old oak trees to build a three-layer gun deck first-class sailing battleship.
In the age of sailing warships, for a country, having no forests meant losing control of the sea. A good fleet requires an excellent leader, a group of well-trained soldiers and a good ship made of high-quality wood. Generals and soldiers are always available, but good ships are not often available. For example, the Netherlands, Portugal and other countries, although they once dominated the world, ended up becoming the wedding dress of others, for no other reason than that all the trees were cut down. In the industrial age, the growth of strength is exponential. Industrial countries do not need to train sailors and captains who can survive the wind and waves for hundreds of years, nor do they need to cut down their own forests to build three-layer gun decks and first-class battleships.
Let me give you three examples: The first example is the United States. It took less than 19 years for the United States to build the Great White Fleet from the late 20th century to the early 20th century. When the Great White Fleet sailed, the comprehensive strength of the US Navy's tonnage was second in the world!
The second example is Japan. The Imperial Japanese Navy was established in 1872. It defeated the Beiyang Fleet 22 years later and the Russian Navy 31 years later. It took only 50 years for it to become one of the three recognized naval giants.
The third example is Germany, the Second German Empire, which developed in just 1888 years from 1916 to its peak in 28. Before World War I, the total tonnage of the German Navy reached more than 140 million tons, making it the second largest navy in the world.
Of course, saying this statement is inaccurate does not mean it is wrong, because the navy is indeed a type of military force that requires long-term and intense training!
The navy can destroy all its resources in one afternoon. This is not what I said, but what Churchill said. Why did Churchill say that? Because you can regard the navy's war as a one-time deal. What is being tested is the internal strength and the stock. How do you get the internal strength? Day after day of hard study and practice. How do you get the stock? Year after year of spending money. The tanks and planes of the Army and Air Force have only a few members in a vehicle or aircrew. Once the personnel are in place and the equipment is handed over, they can immediately go into battle. The Navy is not like this. A Navy ship has at least dozens or hundreds of people, and at most, for example, the combatants and operators of an aircraft carrier have thousands of people. Moreover, the service time of the equipment is calculated in units of ten years, and the time to form combat effectiveness is also a long process. It takes several years to lay the keel, complete, outfit, sea trial, and finally form combat effectiveness. At the same time, the Navy is a branch of the military that relies heavily on the level of equipment technology. The gap in equipment cannot be made up by military spirit and morale. This is completely different from the Army. The Army only needs to maintain the quality and number of core officers to expand its scale exponentially in a snowballing manner, and a century-old navy is not just talk. Before World War I, the military expenditure of the British Royal Navy accounted for about 13% of GDP. After the war, it did not increase but decreased to 11%. Why? Because all shipbuilding plans were suspended, except for the Empress-class and R-class ships that were already on the slipway, no new ships were built during the entire war. The same was true for Germany. Except for the Bayern and Mackensen, all shipbuilding plans were cut. The same was true in World War II. The United States worked overtime to complete South Dakota and Iowa before entering the war and directly cut Montana. Japan did not start construction of any battleships or heavy cruisers during the entire war. So for the navy, the size of your fleet in peacetime is your entire combat effectiveness after the war. There is no such thing as fighting and replenishing at the same time. Even if your ships and equipment can keep up, the soldiers with skilled skills cannot keep up.
What's more, the shipbuilding capabilities of the United States have seriously deteriorated!
There was once a saying circulating among the people: In wartime, the United States could quickly build a large number of aircraft carriers, even up to hundreds of them.
Although this statement seems incredible, it is not completely unfounded. The best example is the US Navy's construction of hundreds of aircraft carriers in a short period of time during World War II.
During World War II, Japan coveted the United States and launched a surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941. The attack on Pearl Harbor brought heavy losses to the US Navy and severely damaged the Pacific Fleet, resulting in the United States being extremely passive in the Pacific battlefield at the beginning of the war. As a result, Japan became extremely confident and even despised the true strength of the United States, believing that the Pacific Fleet was vulnerable. Japan's short-lived advantage in the Pacific battlefield was soon broken by the strong industrial production capacity of the United States. At that time, the economic strength of the United States had surpassed that of Britain and ranked first in the world. With strong economic support, American military industrial enterprises continued to build various warships for it. During World War II (1945-147), the amazing production capacity of the US Navy shipyard was remarkable, with a total of 30 aircraft carriers built, with an average annual construction of more than 97. In four years, in addition to building aircraft carriers, the United States also added 12 battleships, 189 cruisers and destroyers. After the Pearl Harbor incident, the US Pacific Fleet quickly recovered and strengthened with its amazing warship construction speed, which quickly changed the situation in the Pacific battlefield. During World War II, the United States' strong military and industrial strength had a decisive impact on the outcome of the war. The strong military and industrial production capacity of the United States during World War II is the root cause of some people's belief that it could quickly build hundreds of aircraft carriers once the war broke out.
Does the United States still have this strength now?
Obviously, this is no longer possible. Although the US economy is still strong, this strength is very different from that of the United States in its golden age.
During World War II, the strong economic strength of the United States provided a solid backing for its military industry, enabling the mass production of aircraft carriers. However, today the US economy can no longer support the same scale. In addition to economic factors, the decline of the US Navy's strength is also closely related to the decline of its own shipbuilding industry, which makes it difficult for the United States to replicate the large-scale warship and aircraft carrier construction capabilities during World War II. During World War II, the United States was able to quickly build a large number of warships in a short period of time with its world-leading shipbuilding industry, which became one of the key factors in the victory or defeat of the war in the United States. Statistics show that at that time, at least more than 50 shipyards were put into operation in the United States. Among them, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Philadelphia Navy Yard and the Mare Island Navy Yard were involved in the construction of military ships; in terms of civilian ship construction, large shipyards such as the New York Shipyard and the Federal Shipbuilding Company were involved. The strong US shipbuilding industry was the cornerstone of the rapid expansion of its navy during World War II, which enabled the United States to directly requisition a large number of shipyards to mass-produce warships and even build aircraft carriers at an astonishing speed.
But the problem is... the United States no longer has this ability.
The US shipbuilding industry is now facing a serious recession, mainly manifested in a sharp drop in production capacity. The US's current civilian shipbuilding capacity has almost been lost, and its shipbuilding industry is mainly concentrated in the field of warship construction. But even in the field of warship manufacturing, the US has problems such as insufficient production capacity and a single type of ship. The US's current shipbuilding capacity is no longer sufficient to support large-scale warship construction, especially it is difficult to meet the demand for building a large number of aircraft carriers.
In fact, it is not just the shipbuilding industry, but the entire industrial capacity of the United States is declining significantly!
The decline of the US manufacturing industry did not happen overnight. The proportion of the US industrial sector in the gross domestic product has been declining since 2013, when it was 11.7% and fell to 2017% in 10.9. After Trump took office, although he put forward the slogan of "revitalizing the manufacturing industry", the effect was not satisfactory. Under his rule, the proportion of manufacturing in the United States was only 10%, and it never returned to its previous level. So what is wrong with the US manufacturing industry? In the final analysis, it is all because of globalization. In recent decades, the United States has moved many companies overseas in pursuit of the lowest cost and the greatest efficiency. They have placed their development focus on high-end industries such as finance, technology, and medicine. In short, they are unwilling to do those industries that are both hard and unprofitable, leaving such low-end industries to other countries, and then focusing on developing high-end products. This approach will not cause any major problems in the short term, but as time goes on, the domestic industry in the United States will be completely "hollowed out". This, together with the 2008 economic crisis, has caused a huge impact. At that time, the United States' investment in the manufacturing industry dropped sharply, and many small and medium-sized enterprises were unable to raise funds, leading to bankruptcy. Even though there is still a certain degree of competitiveness in the field of high-end manufacturing, overall, the US industry has gone from "full bloom" to today's "high-end island", which is almost blank.
Without strong industrial capabilities, what would they use to build ships?
Even if we want to boost the industry, this involves many aspects and cannot be changed by one or two people or one or two words.
Without these, no one will listen when the Americans speak.
Naturally, no one cares about methods like making cards out of thin air.
Carter felt that this kind of political tactic was... a bit unpresentable.
"Is that so?" Benjamin himself was a very good politician. He actually knew that some things could not be generalized.
For example, he imagined using the aid to establish a relationship with Kamar-Taj, or even become a 'shareholder' or even a behind-the-scenes controller of Kamar-Taj.
But again, how do you know if you don’t try?
"Regarding Ancient One's sacrifice and the succession of the new generation of Sorcerer Supreme, do you think we can help?"
Carter was a little helpless when he heard this. Benjamin seemed to understand, but in fact he still couldn't escape the politicians' tricks. Since the aid didn't work, he thought of political means and wanted to interfere in the transfer of power in Kamar-Taj.
But how to say it?
Carter didn't mind this at all.
Because the United States really needs to establish a connection with Kamar-Taj.
Kamar-Taj, this secret organization that no one knew about a few years ago. But now they have discovered that this secret organization has been outside of human society and has been monitoring human society for 10,000 years... Although the word "monitoring" sounds bad here.
But at least that's how it seems to most people.
Even Carter is like this.
When they heard about a mysterious organization like Kamar-Taj, their first reaction was not relief... but an instinctive disgust.
No one likes to have a retired emperor above their head, even if they have never interfered with the operation of human society for all these years and are as invisible as ever.
But the moment they learned the truth, countless possibilities emerged in the minds of people like Carter and Benjamin!
If, what if.
If, one day, Kamar-Taj feels that humanity needs them to lead, what will they do?
Will they step up and become the masters of the world?
Uh... although it is rude to think like this about an organization that has been maintaining the world for 10,000 years, this is how politicians think. They are more convinced that human nature is evil, perhaps because they themselves are like that.
People always put themselves in other people’s shoes. Think about it, if the United States had the ability to rule the world, would they not use it?
The answer is obviously no.
After all, that's what Americans did in the past few decades. When they found that they could use power unscrupulously to exploit others, they did not hesitate at all.
So in their view, it doesn't matter whether Kamar-Taj really adheres to the principle of non-worldliness.
It doesn’t matter whether they want to or not, what matters most is whether they can!
Just like rulers will try every means to get rid of those people or things that may threaten their rule, many emperors will kill loyal ministers. In fact, many times, it is not because they think the other party is really disloyal. In fact, loyalty or not is not important. What is important is that he has the ability to threaten the ruler's position.
So instinctively, Benjamin and the US government both want to intervene in Kamar-Taj!
They are scared!
Even if you can't control Kamar-Taj, you still need to understand its movements!
An invisible and intangible enemy is the most terrifying!