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Chinese navy launches its most advanced destroyer yet

Type 055 Chinese guided missile destroyer

Another piece of China’s military force projection strategy falls into place. The Type 055 guided missile destroyers will escort China’s aircraft carriers and defend them against enemy ships, planes and subs. Naval technology is a weak point of mine, but from what I gather, the Type 055 shows that China has pulled ahead of Russia in terms of shipbuilding capability (also note that China recently launched its second aircraft carrier, whereas Russia only has one–in the repair shop). This is also the first time China has built a guided missile destroyer that wasn’t significantly smaller than standard U.S. destroyers.

On paper, the Type 055 is roughly equivalent (in terms of ship dimensions and types of weapons) to the American Arleigh-Burke missile destroyers and Ticonderoga missile cruisers, which comprise the backbone of the U.S. Navy surface combatant force. However, it’s a safe assumption that there are many “devils in the details,” and the Type 055 has considerably inferior technology. The U.S. also has many more destroyers and cruisers than China (most of which are outdated Type 051 and “just OK” 052 class ships).

So while it’s certainly not time for the Pentagon to panic, China’s launching of the Type 055 should still be seen as an important milestone that shows China is steadily closing the naval gap with America. A single Type 055 isn’t anything to worry about, but six of them (which is how many China wants to eventually build) would be.

Links:

  1. http://www.janes.com/article/71903/china-launches-largest-surface-combatant-to-date
  2. https://southfront.org/china-launches-first-type-055-destroyer-first-step-shifting-naval-balance-power-pacific/

 

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Welcome!

Why I’m starting this blog

I’m starting this blog to create a public venue for my ideas about futurism, military affairs, technology, and science. I’ve had a lifelong passion for those subjects and a talent for writing, which make me hopeful that this blog will let me contribute something valuable to the world.

Aside from presenting my own ideas and observations, this blog will serve as a “news feed” for events and developments relating to futurism, military affairs, technology, and science. I’m also a news junkie and have honed my critical thinking skills over the years, leaving me well-suited to serve as a sort of information filter. By finding and passing along reliable information about those subjects, I hope to do my part to combat the worsening problem of bias, misinformation and hype in the media.

The sort of content that I’ll post here I already post on my social media accounts, but here I’ll be able to pull it together, organize it better, and reach a much larger audience. Friends who read my posts on social media have encouraged me to start a blog like this for a while, and I’ve slowly come to agree that it will be a worthwhile experiment.

I’m also hoping to learn something and invite readers to share their thoughts with me.

What’s with the name?

I choose “Militant Futurist” as this blog’s name for a few reasons. First, it combines two of the main foci of the blog: military affairs and futurism. Yes, I know “militant” isn’t a good synonym for “military,” but they sound similar enough.

Second, it’s a play on the title “militant atheist,” which at least half describes me. I am an atheist, though my attitude towards religion and religious people is “live and let live,” which puts me at odds with atheists who are truly militant about the subject of religion.

Finally, I am “militant” in the sense that I strongly believe that science and technology improve our lives and our world. And the very basis of science, the Scientific Method, is a rigorously logical and evidence-based process that colors my own thinking about all manner of things. I am militant in my belief that futurists should apply something like the scientific method to their predictions to ensure they are valuable and useful. This means doing things like putting forth evidence and trends that support the plausibility of the future prediction, including enough detail in the prediction to make it falsifiable (“There will be flying cars someday” vs. “By the year 2090, there will be millions of mass-produced flying cars in use”), observing whether or not the prediction came true, analyzing the reasons for success or failure, and then using the resulting lessons to improve subsequent future predictions. My efforts to do those things will appear here.

What is not allowed on this blog

  1. Obscenity (i.e. – foul language, nudity, grotesque images). This will be a family-friendly blog whose contents readers will feel comfortable sharing with anyone.
  2. Politics/Partisanship. Yes, I have my own social values and political stances, but I don’t plan on discussing them (or allowing anyone else to discuss their own) here, as it would distract from the blog’s purpose and just provide another arena for bickering about topics that are already done to death across the internet. Again, my goal is to use this blog to add something creative and valuable to the world, and talking about politics and the Culture War is usually the opposite of that. There might be exceptions to this rule in the form of discussions of and news articles about government policies on technology and science.
  3. Bigotry (i.e. – racism, sexism). I don’t plan on running afoul of this rule myself, so let me be clear that any comments of this nature will be banned. I’m also going to classify what could be termed “hyper-nationalism” as a form of bigotry and will not allow content that derides nationalities or unfairly insults countries (i.e. – “America is a criminal nation”).
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About me

My name is Eddie. I am male, 33 years old, and have college degrees in the sciences and public policy. I live in the Washington, DC area.

A basic personality trait of mine is a passion for learning new things, which drives my interest in the subjects I’ll write about in this blog, and which also impels me to travel frequently.