Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images
- Retired US Navy Adm. James Stavridis says China isn't ready to fight the US in the next 10 years.
- "If we ended up in a war with China, it wouldn't be just the US and China," Stavridis said.
- Stavridis said US allies such as Japan and South Korea would come to their aid if war breaks out.
China wouldn't be able to fight the US if war were to break out within the next decade, said a former NATO supreme allied commander.
"China, in my estimation, will not be ready to take on the US in a very mature way for about 10 years," retired US Navy Adm. James Stavridis said in an interview on The Michael Medved Show, which aired on Wednesday.
Stavridis had served as NATO chief from 2009 to 2013. Before taking the helm of NATO, he was the Commander of the US Southern Command from 2006 to 2009, overseeing military operations in Latin America.
In 2021, Stavridis co-authored a novel titled "2034: A Novel of the Next World War." The book is a fictional account of a war between the US and China over the South China Sea.
Stavridis gave his assessment of China's military capabilities when host Michael Medved asked if a US-China war would break out before 2034.
"Even though China is building a massive fleet, even though they're acting very aggressively, they're not ready yet to line up all that they need to take on the US Pacific Fleet," Stavridis said.
China has the world's largest navy, with over 355 vessels in its fleet, according to a 2021 US Navy Institute report. In July, leaked US Navy intelligence revealed that China's shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than the US.
But this, Stavridis argues, would be inconsequential given the strength of US military alliances.
"If we ended up in a war with China, it wouldn't be just the US and China. We have treaty allies who are sworn to come and be a part of a military campaign like that. That's Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand," Stavridis said.
"So that's a lot of firepower when you kind of put it all together," he continued.
Stavridis told Medved that such deterrence would give the US "a bit of a grace period" to strengthen its military further while easing bilateral tensions through diplomacy.
Stavridis's remarks come after a year of fraught relations between the US and China. Several tense military encounters have occurred between both countries.
In February, the US military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon after it flew over the continental US. Later in May, there was a confrontation between a Chinese jet and a US spy plane over the South China Sea.
"We urge the relevant people to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop stoking confrontation between China and the US, and do more things that are conducive to enhancing mutual trust between the two countries and friendship between the two peoples," Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the US, said in a statement to Newsweek of Stavridis' comments.
Representatives for Stavridis and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.