Bryan Clark, at the Centre For Strategic And Budgetary Assessments, told Bloomberg: “Having this kind of long-term inhabited station has not been attempted this deep, but it is certainly possible.

That’s because while China has spent billions of dollars upgrading many aspects of its armed forces, from fighter jets to naval destroyers, its ability to carry out anti-submarine warfare still lags behind, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. 

“This development would potentially give the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] a relatively secure second-strike capability. This could reduce the value of the U.S. nuclear deterrent against the North Koreans,” Bryan Clark a senior naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments told The National Interest.

The serious tone of the guidance reflects the growing threat of great power conflict between the U.S. and China, said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and former senior aid to Chief of Naval Operations Jon Greenert.

The developments will strengthen sea-basing capabilities, which sit at the heart of Expeditionary Force 21 — the Corps’ 10-year plan for dispersed operations. Sea basing, in turn, enables the necessary shift toward smaller, more distributed amphibious operations, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who previously served as special assistant to the chief of naval operations and director of his Commander’s Action Group...

The MV-22 is also key to this new concept. Its ability to deliver forces hundreds of miles from a host ship could enable, for example, forces to fall in on an existing missile battery or establish advanced bases in multiple locations across an archipelago like the Philippines, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who previously served as special assistant to the chief of naval operations and director of his Commander’s Action Group…