A good time to take military action in the South China Sea

[Goatman]

No it didn't, that claim in the media was bullshit of the highest order.

Sitting an SSK along the transit route of a carrier on the basis of reading the ships website stating when she was sailing and to where and then surfacing as soon as you detect the carrier is not 'surfacing undetected in the middle of a battle group with a good firing solution.

1), It was nowhere close enough to prosecute an attack

2) The US ship was making a peacetime transit at cruising stations and with no offensive ASW screen.

I stand suitably abashed then.....but lets hope that USN gets a grip on its OPSEC if they ever need to go to war with anyone who is bright enough to put a captor mine on the seabed ......who needs a sub ?

There is a good deal of ' Yank technology will always prevail ' nonsense out there, mostly propagated by computer games bigging up non-existent capabilities... - people need to take a sober look at what both the former Sov U and China can put in the field should they wish....and in China's case Joe Stalin's old dictum :
' Quantity has a quality all of its own ' certainly needs to be borne in mind........

 

[Draft Dodger]

I stand suitably abashed then.....but lets hope that USN gets a grip on it's OPSEC if they ever need to go to war with anyone who is bright enough to put a captor mine on the seabed ......who needs a sub ?

There is a good deal of ' Yank technology will always prevail ' nonsense out there, mostly propagated by computer games bigging up non-existent capabilities... - people need to take a sober look at what both the former Sov U and China can put in the field should they wish....and in China's case Joe Stalin's old dictum :
' Quantity has a quality all of its own ' certainly needs to be borne in mind........

pffffffftt, our satellite space lasers will take care of anything they can throw at us.

 

[geezer466]

Holy Thread Resurrection Batman.....
@jarrod248 will be proud.... Important news and an existing thread to fit it...

The U.S. just sent a carrier strike group to confront China

In the past 3 days the US has sent a battle carrier group, led by the USS John C. Stennis, including two destroyers, two cruisers, and the USS Blue Ridge, a floating command centre and the flagship of the 7th Fleet, into the South China Sea. There is bound to be a sub also, probably two.

US Carrier groups normally operate with one cruiser but the Yanks clearly have decided to up the muscle by using two on this occasion, possibly for their anti-missile capabilities?

 

[geezer466]

The BBC must be missing all this war mongering in Asia. Have heard nil on mains stream news.

Long-range heavy bombers could be based in Australia, US general reveals

 

[4(T)]

IMHO, US and the regional countries with claims in the South China Sea ought to get together and agree by treaty an atoll, reef or island that the USA can them proceed to fortify in the same manner as the Chinese are doing - ie create a sort of Berlin bridgehead that holds open an international sea lane. In this way, Chinese attempts to seal off and annex the SCS would be thoroughly spiked.

 

[smartascarrots]

IMHO, US and the regional countries with claims in the South China Sea ought to get together and agree by treaty an atoll, reef or island that the USA can them proceed to fortify in the same manner as the Chinese are doing - ie create a sort of Berlin bridgehead that holds open an international sea lane. In this way, Chinese attempts to seal off and annex the SCS would be thoroughly spiked.

Problem is, the various nations with disputes don't just have disputes with the PRC. They're not capable of settling their own disputes to the extent of presenting a united front and the existing rules of maritime possession don't provide a framework for settlement that they will live with.

The US can't impose a solution, and arguably one wouldn't be in their interests as it would remove their justification for being in the middle East Asian affairs. They also have to consider that any solution of one dispute would rebound unpleasantly in another.

 

[4(T)]

I'm sure that the regional countries must be at the point where they realise its either a matter of facilitating a permanent US military presence in the centre of the SCS - or allowing China to annex the SCS.

If China does effectively annex the SCS, it will eventually lead to war of some sort. IMHO its a political issue with global significance and importance, and has to be addressed. Chinese imperial expansion needs to be prevented, or at least frozen in place - in the manner of Berlin and the Germanies - until a new philosophy prevails.

 

[smartascarrots]

If China does effectively annex the SCS, it will eventually lead to war of some sort.

Why would it? What consequence of dominance shifting from US to PRC would lead to material conditions changing? It's not as if they're going to close the sea lanes from east to west, they're going to great lengths and expense to open them up - the 'New Silk Roads.'

 

[One_of_the_strange]

Why would it? What consequence of dominance shifting from US to PRC would lead to material conditions changing? It's not as if they're going to close the sea lanes from east to west, they're going to great lengths and expense to open them up - the 'New Silk Roads.'

Exactly. China just feels that the dominant maritime power in the South China Sea should be ... China. Which isn't that unreasonable, after all. The US would never tolerate foreign navies dominating the seas around their coasts, why do we expect China to do the same ?

 

[smartascarrots]

Exactly. China just feels that the dominant maritime power in the South China Sea should be ... China. Which isn't that unreasonable, after all. The US would never tolerate foreign navies dominating the seas around their coasts, why do we expect China to do the same ?

Trivial fact of the day: the Chinese don't call it 'the South China Sea.' They call it the Southern Sea.

 

[Kromeriz]

Exactly. China just feels that the dominant maritime power in the South China Sea should be ... China. Which isn't that unreasonable, after all. The US would never tolerate foreign navies dominating the seas around their coasts, why do we expect China to do the same ?

Because looking at the map, they are just doing a land (sic) grab of areas that are nowhere their border but could reasonably be argued over by Vietnam or Indonesia. It is crass bullying and they need to be faced down.

 

[smartascarrots]

Because looking at the map, they are just doing a land (sic) grab of areas that are nowhere their border but could reasonably be argued over by Vietnam or Indonesia. It is crass bullying and they need to be faced down.

How does that differ from the Monroe Doctrine - or, for that matter, the insistence that 'freedom of navigation' applies to more than just innocent passage?

 

[AULD_SWEAT]

Trivial fact of the day: the Chinese don't call it 'the South China Sea.' They call it the Southern Sea.

And the Vietnamese call it the East Sea.

 

[Kromeriz]

How does that differ from the Monroe Doctrine - or, for that matter, the insistence that 'freedom of navigation' applies to more than just innocent passage?

I suggest that 200 years on, we have moved away from that doctrine.

Russian aggression in the Ukraine is meeting a, measured, response; it is making the Russians catch their wind.

China should be encouraged to de-militarise the islands they have created.

 

[smartascarrots]

China should be encouraged to de-militarise the islands they have created.

Are we going to encourage our allies to de-militarise the SCS? Vietnam and the Philippines both started before the PRC did. Sauce for the goose, after all.

For that matter, the SCS has been 'militarised' for decades. The only thing that's new is that the existing militarisation is suddenly not the only one.

 

[Kitmarlowe]

How does that differ from the Monroe Doctrine - or, for that matter, the insistence that 'freedom of navigation' applies to more than just innocent passage?

I'd suggest that the Chinese are interfering with 'freedom of navigation' by creating new islands and demanding all the territorial rights that land implies.

The US is quite rightly insisting that a fake island created on a reef unlawfully claimed does not suddenly magically create territorial waters. If the Chinese really do believe that their claim is legitimate then there are processes to get that claim ratified and accepted by the world thro the UN. Has the Chinese Government started that process ?

 

[smartascarrots]

I'd suggest that the Chinese are interfering with 'freedom of navigation' by creating new islands and demanding all the territorial rights that land implies.

Innocent freedom of navigation isn't impaired in any way, even assuming the PRC's territorial claims were based on artificial islands. Which they're not, as it happens.

 

[Kitmarlowe]

Innocent freedom of navigation isn't impaired in any way, even assuming the PRC's territorial claims were based on artificial islands. Which they're not, as it happens.

This seems to explain the position very well

The U.S. Navy’s Freedom of Navigation Operation around Subi Reef: Deciphering U.S. Signaling

 

[smartascarrots]

This seems to explain the position very well

The U.S. Navy’s Freedom of Navigation Operation around Subi Reef: Deciphering U.S. Signaling

From the article.

Accordingly, such innocent passage acted as a freedom of navigation operation because it challenged China’s attempt to put illegal restrictions on the movements of warships.

So not challenging the territorial claim but only the restrictions on 'innocent passage' that the PRC has attempted to enforce.

As the article states, the Mischief Reef situation is different as it doesn't confer any Exclusive Economic Zone under UNCLOS. The PRC has never claimed that it does, though.