🇺🇸 United Statesvs🇨🇳 China

A global force against a regional one

The United States spent $954 billion on its military in 2025, according to SIPRI, close to three times China’s estimated $336 billion. That money buys reach: 11 aircraft carriers, a large fleet of aerial tankers and bases across the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

China’s strength is concentrated close to home. It has more active personnel than any other country, more ships by raw hull count, and the largest stock of rocket artillery in this comparison. Much of its fleet is made of smaller corvettes and patrol vessels designed for operations near its own coast, but its destroyer and submarine numbers are now in the same range as America’s.

The gap is widest in the air and in nuclear weapons. The US operates several times as many aircraft, and holds roughly six times as many nuclear warheads. China’s arsenal is the fastest-growing in the world, though: SIPRI estimates it at about 620 warheads in January 2026, and expects that number to keep climbing.

What a fight would actually depend on

Any realistic conflict between the two would most likely happen near Taiwan or in the South China Sea, thousands of kilometres from the US mainland and right next to China’s. That geography offsets much of the US lead in raw numbers, which is why defence analysts treat the balance in the western Pacific as far closer than the totals suggest.