In Defense of the Destroyer by US Navy Captain Tal Manvel
As long as commerce flows on the surface of our oceans, capable, well-armed and ably crewed surface combatants will be needed in war to protect our carriers, and in peace to deal with pirates to keep the sea-lanes open.
China will be able to “capture the high ground of the seas” in the South China Sea with their short-range, anti-carrier ballistic missiles that will probably not allow us to defend Taiwan, but they will not be able to do that anywhere else in the world.
That is why they are building a large aircraft carrier to signal to the world that they are willing to extend their military domination elsewhere. The question is: are we going to accept that? If we allow Taiwan to be taken over by China, many will accept that, but not me.
The problem with that is that coercive socialism-communism-destroys the individual’s will to work because it demands that each must give according to his/her ability and receive only what he or she needs that makes slaves of all. So need not value is to be rewarded, and altruism-otherism-is the morality.
A British Destroyer
The individual must sacrifice and his life and happiness be dammed. Hopefully, the people of China will see the benefits of Capitalism, and reject communism and rebel. But that will take a long time. But time is not on the side of Chinese communists.
For every taxpaying worker in China, 5 are retiring because of the One-Child policy. That is why they are acting to crackdown on the young people of Hong Kong and try to subjugate Taiwan now. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/august/war-never-was
The real solution is that here in America is we need to re-commit to the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. Our racism has denied life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for many African Americans, and the truth of the matter is that when their rights are denied, their consent will be withdrawn, and revolution will occur if their rights are not recognized and protected.
Indeed, the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence are playing out now. We should not turn away from them, but restore them, for all Americans.
The problem is that these truths are only self-evident when we use the power of Newton, Locke and Bacon, reason, to understand the laws of Nature.
Using reason and the laws of nature, we should see just as we-everyone are subject to the law of gravity, so we should use reason-not faith-to make objective laws where all humans are equal before the law, (but not in results); that all are humans possess certain unalienable rights to the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
They are unalienable not because they provided by some supernatural being, but because individuals cannot live without them.
That the purpose of government, the institution with the monopoly of force to enforce certain social norms is just to protect rights and not provide for needs.
A long answer to explain why destroyers, defender of freedoms on the high seas, will still be around in 20 years. Here is an article I wrote to defend aircraft carriers: