The U.S. is currently incapable of building ships faster than China, so the head of the U.S. Navy is pushing a next-generation doctrine of smarter force packaging and autonomous system integration to sustain American naval dominance globally. U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle says beating Beijing on the shipbuilding front may not be feasible in the near term, because it would require production “at a higher rate than we have previously done.” “I can’t outbuild, certainly China, I can’t outbuild the rest of the Navy’s problems,” Adm. Caudle said in an exclusive video interview with The Washington Times’ Threat Status platform. “That’s just not a strategy that I think is even a viable one,” he said in the Threat Status Influencers video published on Thursday. While China has in recent years surpassed the U.S. in total ship numbers, with an estimated 370 Chinese naval ships compared to the roughly 295 American ships, the U.S. Navy maintains considerably superior power projection. The American force is bolstered by a fleet of larger, more advanced aircraft carriers and other dominant world-traversing vessels. However, concerns are great in U.S. national security circles about the Pentagon’s ability to maintain global naval dominance
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