re: Within the next decade china will have a larger military than the US

Don’t believe that

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Can someone layout how the US is so far ahead, or are people just saying this out of arrogance?

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Technologically we are still pretty far ahead of the Chinese. Our planes are much better. The Chinese have always had problems with aviation engine production but they are certainly closing the gap on that everyday. Their still technology is still pretty far beyond ours as well but at least they have it. Only 3 countries have even attempted to build a stealth aircraft and China is one of them. Their navy is still behind us as well but that gap is closing fast. Very fast. China’s Navy will be America’s equal or better within 15 years.

China does have a lot of advantages though that offset these technological disadvantages. For one, it’s their home turf. They don’t need to deploy their forces to the other side of the world because presumably the war with China will be a Naval and Air war for the East and South China Seas. For that purpose their large fleet of diesel electric subs will be more than adequate. Their air defenses are top notch as well. Probably better than ours. We already know their cyber warfare capabilities are top notch as well. Their long range anti-ship missiles pretty much nullify our carriers. I’m just not sure we’d be willing to risk them by bringing them close enough for their air wings to be effective.

The US Navy just isn’t structured to fight a war against China at this point. Our navy is built around the carrier battle group. Probably half our fleet or more is dedicated solely to protecting the carriers instead of fighting battles with a near peer foe.

IMO the US should forego further construction of super carriers and focus on building submarines and anti-submarine capabilities. I’ll say it again, if aircraft carriers are an absolute necessity then we should be building smaller ones. And more of them. Enough that losing one wouldn’t be a crippling loss. And their mission should be focused on fighting naval battles as opposed to striking targets inland.

I like the idea of small hunter-killer teams. If we would halt production of Ford class carriers we could quickly acquire some gowind class corvettes and some soryu class attack subs. We could put quite a few of those together as a team and forwrd deploy them to guam, japan, and maybe even vietnam. We could counter china's naval capabilities with that.

The US has the most superior military

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You believe Trump when he says the military was running out of bullets under Obama

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several military officials are on record as saying this is true in certain respects. particularly the condition of some of the navy's ships. but you knew that already didn't you

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Aircraft carriers are going to be a huge liability in modern naval combat.
They are not going to help one bit

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i'm getting the impression you shouldn't be criticizing other people's comments.

as i said before, people are taking elements of a military out of context. as long as the carriers have appropriate support, they can be vital to naval warfare. if you leave them out by themselves, of course they're a liability

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China’s Navy will be America’s equal or better within 15 years

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by the time china becomes "equal" with the us' current status, the us navy will have advanced in other ways, particularly in the area of lasers. the us just has a significant head start on anything the chinese are trying to do. they are closing the gap but, it might be an asymptotic situation. at that point, the discussion leaves the military arena and delves into the long term sociopolitical/economic conditions of world cultures.

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it’s their home turf

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the us would not need to occupy china. all the us needs to do is cripple the technological and leadership infrastructure. not an easy task but the us is absolutely capable of doing that in the military's current state

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For that purpose their large fleet of diesel electric subs will be more than adequate

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again, there's no doubt their sub force is formidable but, all things together, the us has the advantage. the us has been roaming the pacific for decades longer than they have. the us tracks the movement of every sub they have. the reverse can't be said. not to mention the stealth advantage us subs currently enjoy

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Their air defenses are top notch as well. Probably better than ours

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they are no match for laser warfare. not even close

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We already know their cyber warfare capabilities are top notch as well

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now this is actually a great point. however, the us isn't standing still in this regard either. the two sides are constantly probing for weaknesses. hard to say who has an advantage here. if both sides were to neutralize the tech of the other, the us would then have an enormous advantage in conventional warfare.

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heir long range anti-ship missiles pretty much nullify our carriers

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taken out of context, probably. all things considered, no way.

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The US Navy just isn’t structured to fight a war against China at this point

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the navy doesn't operate in a vacuum. the other branches are involved and are protecting naval assets. the us military is pretty much exclusively dedicated to the china problem right now.

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the US should forego further construction of super carriers and focus on building submarines and anti-submarine capabilities

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the latter has already been happening however, this is not the direction the us military is going. space warfare, cyber warfare, laser warfare, stealth warfare are the next gen goals for the us military. these things make conventional chinese weapons pretty much useless.

again, the economies of the two countries are so intertwined it's hard to imagine outright conflict. not to mention the deterrent of m.a.d.

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Right now we have at least half of our fleet dedicated to protecting just 10 ships

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you're making my point for me. the carriers aren't just sitting ducks. they have a TON of support. the navy wouldn't be doing that for no reason.

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And the mission of those 10 ships could easily be taken over by more efficient and less expensive means such as surface-to-surface missiles and long range bombers from the Air Force

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you seem to be suggesting the us doesn't have that ALSO, because they do. besides, this is all current gen warfare. the us is leading the way in next gen warfare. all this talk of carriers, subs, etc is becoming more obsolete by the day.

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Super carriers are a very inefficient way to project power. They’re relics of WWII

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absolutely not true. there are plenty of military papers on why they're still beneficial

Tell us more about the laser warfare.