The U.S. is currently building the "the most sophisticated warship in history", the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class destroyer, already dubbed "the invisible silver bullet." This "stealth" destroyer would be able to sail along the coast in shallow waters, and wipe out the enemy by using its highly advanced electromagnetic "railgun", while remaining undetected by the adversary’s radars.

The ship’s characteristics in shallow water would make it particularly suited to the shores and the numerous sea islands of the Far East. According to the statements of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at a recent meeting on security held in Singapore, the U.S. intends to deploy 60% ​​of navy fleet to the Asia-Pacific region by 2020.

The first of the new ships is currently under construction and scheduled for launch in 2014. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, is full of praise for this new generation of ships: "With its stealth, incredibly capable sonar system, strike capability and lower manning requirements — this is our future."

However, the Chinese admirals - who may ultimately be the potential adversaries of such ships - do not seem to be overly concerned at the prospect of one of these "silver bullets" making its appearance in the waters of the Pacific just like in a Hollywood science fiction movie.

Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong, who collaborates with the National University of Defense of China, derided the publicity surrounding this ambitious project. According to him, in spite of its modern design and high technology, this ship could be sunk "by a flotilla of fishing boats loaded with explosives."

The need to build these modern warships has been challenged in the U.S. itself because of their exorbitant cost, which already largely exceeds $ 3 billion a piece (7 billion when including research and development costs). The U.S. detractors of the ship consider that its advocates are simply trying to "suck the blood" out of the Treasury with their obsession with "future technologies". Initially the Navy had placed an order for 32 ships, but the cost explosion forced to reduce their number to 24, then 7. Today only three are under construction.

Many may still recall the controversy surrounding the fifth generation F22 Raptor fighter, which has been sowing terror among ... U.S. pilots, so much so that many of them refuse to fly on this "miracle of the 21st century." Now, the successor to the Raptor, the F35 multifunction aircraft designed primarily as a cheaper alternative to the F22, has turned out to be the costliest and most problematic endeavor in the history of the Pentagon [1]

For the analyst Lajos Szaszdi, Washington was fated to significantly reduce the defense budget in the wake of unnecessary wars in which the U.S. has been mired.

"The United States were victims of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as they spent so much on these wars that they now are forced to reduce the defense budget, due to the large national debt that they have already incurred, and continues to grow."

While they managed to precipitate the collapse of the USSR by pushing them into a mad arms race fueled by rumors of technologies known as "Star Wars", the United States is currently following a similar path under pressure from lobbies with a vested interest in war.

[1] “The Army’s new ’diet’”, by Manlio Dinucci, Voltaire Network, 14 March 2012,