High stakes on the high seas as US, China test limits of military power
The guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG-76) slipped quietly into the contested waters near Scarborough Shoal on the morning of Aug.13. As it pressed toward the edge of China’s declared "territorial sea," shadowing vessels from the People’s Liberation Army Navy locked onto its wake. Beijing wasted no time issuing a formal rebuke, saying it had monitored, warned and "expelled" the U.S. warship for violating Chinese sovereignty.
Washington’s response was equally terse: the U.S. Navy insisted that Higgins’ passage — part of a freedom-of-navigation operation — was fully consistent with international law, and that China’s assertions to the contrary were "false."
In the heart of the Indo-Pacific, the encounter was a revealing snapshot of the new front line in global naval power — controlling sea lanes, projecting force and leveraging alliances.
"There is no clear winning position," said Brent Sadler, a retired Navy submariner and senior fellow for naval warfare at the Heritage Foundation. "The way we fight is very different — you can’t just look at the number of ships or munitions and say one side is better. That’s not how naval warfare works."
But at first glance, the balance of naval power still favors the United States. The Navy operates globally, with nuclear-powered carriers and unmatched experience sustaining operations far from home. China’s navy has only recently begun to push beyond its near seas.
Sadler said Beijing’s military posture has grown increasingly assertive. "Judging by how confident they act around us at sea and in the air, I think they believe they could go and win," he said. "A lot of them would die, but that’s not the point — victory for the Communist Party is taking Taiwan, whatever the cost."
"China’s military buildup sends a signal to all that Beijing intends to use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific," a senior War Department official told Fox News Digital.
In response, the department is focused on enhancing partnerships and investments to "increase production of critical munitions and advanced capabilities, and hardening our critical infrastructure and supply chains against China’s influence," the official said.
U.S. analysts have assessed that 2027 will be the year Beijing will have the capabilities to overtake Taiwan. They warn that China is now outbuilding the United States by a staggering margin. China’s commercial and military shipyards together have roughly 200 times the overall output capacity of the U.S. shipbuilding base, according to CSIS analysis — a gap driven by workforce shortages, fragile supply chains, and inconsistent funding.
Only a few U.S. yards are equipped to build major warships, primarily Huntington Ingalls in Virginia and Mississippi and General Dynamics in Maine and Connecticut. That’s far fewer than during the Cold War, when America had more than a dozen producing combatants. Material backlogs, shifting Navy requirements, and stop-start budgets add to the delays.
According to the Pentagon’s 2024 China Military Power Report, the People’s Liberation Army Navy now fields more than 370 ships, the world’s largest by hull count. The U.S. Navy, with roughly 290 deployable ships, is smaller but heavier — with greater tonnage, endurance and strike power. China’s state-directed industry lets shipyards increase output without profit constraints.
The Pentagon could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
"They’re probing with the bayonet to see how we respond," Sadler said, describing recent Chinese confrontations with U.S. allies in the South China Sea. "Bloodying a treaty ally like the Philippines is their way of testing American resolve."
Those production limits have also fueled a deeper argument inside the Navy — whether to keep investing in massive aircraft carriers or pivot to a more distributed, missile-heavy fleet built around submarines and unmanned vessels.
"We should have been doing things ten years ago," Sadler said. "Three or four administrations share the blame for why we’re in a perilous position today."
He added that fixing the industrial base is essential to maintaining deterrence. "To deter war, we have to close China’s window of opportunity fast. That means more firepower on unmanned vessels we can build quickly — but also fixing our shipbuilding base if we’re going to stay in the fight."
With Chinese missiles threatening U.S. surface ships from the mainland, the Navy increasingly sees its submarines as the most survivable way to hold Chinese targets at risk.
If the contest above the waves is loud and visible, the one below is silent — and arguably more decisive. Both nations are investing heavily in undersea warfare, where detection means survival and technology can outweigh numbers.
The U.S. Navy still commands the world’s most advanced submarine force: roughly 50 nuclear-powered attack boats that can operate undetected for months and strike anywhere on Earth. The Virginia-class subs — built for stealth, intelligence gathering and cruise-missile attacks — form the backbone of America’s undersea deterrent. They’re being joined, slowly, by the new Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines that will carry the nation’s nuclear arsenal into mid-century.
Production, however, is lagging. The Navy is completing just one or two Virginia-class subs a year, far short of its goal of three to four, as shipyards struggle to build both classes at once. Each delay narrows the window of U.S. advantage.
"I’d never say we have uncontested anything — there’s a hubris in that that can get you killed," Sadler said. "If they fought on our terms, we’d thump them, but that’s not how it works. They’ll use helicopters, surface ships, fixed sensors, mines, and their own subs to team up on one of ours."
"Submarines are critical," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They can go inside the Chinese defenses, and in war games their great usefulness was attacking Chinese amphibious ships during an invasion."
China, meanwhile, is closing the gap. The PLAN operates about 60 submarines, mostly diesel-electric boats built for regional defense and ambush tactics in shallow seas. It’s now fielding a mixed fleet that includes new Type 093B nuclear attack subs and Type 094 ballistic-missile boats — both quieter and longer-ranged than earlier designs. The Pentagon warns that by the early 2030s China could have nearly 80 submarines, including up to a dozen nuclear-powered vessels.
Operating close to home gives Beijing advantages: shorter supply lines and the cover of dense coastal missile defenses. In a clash over Taiwan or the South China Sea, Chinese submarines could flood chokepoints like the Luzon and Taiwan straits, forcing U.S. forces to fight their way in.
To counter that, the United States leans on its network of allies and bases — Japan’s undersea surveillance systems, Australian patrols, and the AUKUS partnership that will deliver nuclear-powered subs to Canberra later this decade.
"Submarines forward-based in Australia are worth three times their numbers because they’re so close to the threat, and the Australians can sustain them," Sadler said. "That causes the Chinese a lot of consternation — and that’s good for deterrence."
The undersea contest isn’t just about submarines and torpedoes — it’s also about information.
Roughly 95 percent of global internet traffic and trillions of dollars in financial transactions flow through fiber-optic cables running along the seafloor, many of them threading the Indo-Pacific. U.S. defense planners increasingly view those cables as potential wartime targets or intelligence assets, while China expands its deep-sea research and cable-laying fleets, blurring the line between civilian and military use. Western analysts warn that any regional conflict could disrupt communications or give one side the chance to tap into global data flows — a digital front beneath the waves.
"This competition with China is a completely different type of Cold War — much more challenging," Sadler said.
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