Business Insider:
No piece of hardware epitomizes US military might like an aircraft carrier. Capable of carrying over 60 planes, these hulking vessels allow the US to project power around the world while checking the potentially destabilizing behavior of rival governments.
But that balance might be starting to shift in East Asia, an area of increasing strategic concern to the US. In a time when China wants full control of the disputed South China Sea, Beijing has developed a potential carrier-killer: an anti-ship missile called the Dong Feng-21 (CSS-5) that could deal catastrophic damage to US vessels.
Because of the missiles, the US could be less willing to place its vaunted carriers in a potential conflict with Beijing.
“[Carriers are] now targets for the world’s first operational antiship ballistic missiles,”Andrew Browne writes for WSJ, in reference to the Dong Feng-21.
The missiles are just one part of a larger Chinese military upgrade. “[S]hock and awe isn’t part of any rational game plan these days against China, whose military spending has been growing by an annual average of 11% since 1996,” writes Browne, “narrowing the military gap with America faster than almost anybody thought possible.”
