Trying to keep my reasoning succinct in order to avoid writing a wall of text:

The soviets were geographically blocked from this being an option

Similarly for Vietnam for different reasons

Cuba doesn’t have the option of dedicating the requisite amount resources(and has the misfortune of being an island next to the most powerful current naval power)

China has the geography to become a great naval power. Sure, it doesn’t have both coasts. It has land connections that led to the Silk Road being a thing on the other, possibly a greater advantage.

They are building up militarily, and seem to be advancing commercial maritime pursuits on this well.

Thoughts?

  • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think its the only one that has has the resourses to be able to, the USSR had a decent navy but it face the challenges of the old russian empire like not having a good warm water port and with the sino-sovet split and the iranian revolution it lost any change to have a good one with a land connection.

    vietnam, north korea, cuba, angola, mozambique and others had the same challenge of being somewhat small and being to underdevelopt to be able to focus on the naval power they would have being able to proyect.

    China historically was the biggest naval power during the ming dynasty, they have access to many good warm water ports and they have a large population,with the large investments of the Mao era in industry and the access to the world market with deng they were able to develop themselfs out of being a semifeudal nation.

    Nowdays the chinese navy is the biggest one in the world but its mostly trading ships and not military ones, current military built up is probably a response to their big weakness they have in the malacca strait which is the most important shipping lane in the world and it under patrol of the US navy and if it were to close it would hit china really hard in the economic side hence why they puss the new silk road so much.

    current china strategy seems to follow Mahan's naval power theory with the importance of sea power, but also the Heartland theory with the current big push for the new silk road