By MICHAEL A MCDEVITT (Naval Institute Press – £38.50) ISBN 9781682475355 320 pages When someone claims that their organisation is ‘world class’ or aspires to that, my bullshit alarms flash red. How can one prove or disprove such a claim? Is there a Court of Arbitration for World Class Status (CAWCS, pronounced Corks) to judge? Not yet, and so many such claims prove illusory. But when President Xi announced in 2017 that China’s armed forces, including their Navy, would be world class by 2049 and that their modernisation would be largely complete by 2035, the assertion had to be taken seriously…
