Scenario: Acceptable US Casualties Against 3rd World Armies

[Suhiir]

Much like China, tho perhaps less important than it is to China, Russia lacks a navy that has any hope of matching the combined US/UK capability. A few subs one way or the other really don't make much difference.

[IronDuke99]

Russia has a very out of date navy right now. The two major units in the Russian Task Force shadowed by the Royal Navy recently, on its way to the Med, a Carrier and a large guided missile cruiser, were both old, Soviet era ships.

Russia, rather like Germany in the 19th-20th century suffers from geography in terms of her Navy. To operate as a Blue Water Navy the Russians have to get out of the Baltic or the Black Sea or operate (and defend) a significant base in the remote far east of Siberia. All them very hard to do. Plus it would be hugely expensive to maintain three significant fleets. Russia is, and always has been, mainly a Land Power.

Longer term, China has much more coastline on more open warm water and also has a lot more money than Russia. The Chinese are also looking to become a Carrier Navy, but it will be a while until the Chinese fleet could really challenge the USN and its major allies -Australia and Japan- in that part of the world.

Prediction: Japan will have a Carrier again by the end of the 20's. Indeed Japan (and Australia) already have flat top ships large enough to operate F35B.

Then there is India, with a Carrier Navy, that has been drawing a little closer to the US and UK lately (the Indian Air Force and the RAF carried out some joint training last year) in the face of the increased threat from China, etc.