Posted on 08/31/2024 7:28:45 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (yes, that's really what they call it) has been acting aggressively towards Philippine shipping and fishing vessels in the South China Sea for some time now. Because of this, the United States Navy is now reportedly "open to consultations" about the possibility of using American ships to escort Philippine shipping through the contested area.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
The U.S. military is open to consultations about escorting Philippine ships in the disputed South China Sea, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Tuesday amid a spike in hostilities between Beijing and Manila in the disputed waters.
Adm. Samuel Paparo’s remarks, which he made in response to a question during a news conference in Manila with Philippine Armed Forces chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., provided a glimpse of the mindset of one of the highest American military commanders outside the U.S. mainland on a prospective operation that would risk putting U.S. Navy ships in direct collisions with those of China.
Granted the Philippines is a U.S. ally, at a time when we can use all the friendly faces in the west Pacific that we can find. We have important bases in the Philippines, which occupy a strategic location. But our ally is butting heads with China rather a lot lately:
China and the Philippines accused each other of causing a collision between their two vessels Saturday in the latest flareup of tensions over disputed waters and maritime features in the South China Sea.
In a statement posted on social media, Chinese coast guard spokesperson Liu Dejun was quoted as saying that a Philippine ship maneuvered and “deliberately collided” with a Chinese coast guard ship “in an unprofessional and dangerous manner.”
Philippine officials in Manila said it was their coast guard ship, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, that was rammed thrice by the Chinese coast guard without any provocation, causing damage to the Philippine vessel.
This is the kind of incident that we are going to be escorting Philippine shipping through. What happens when a Chinese Coast Guard captain "accidentally" bumps into a U.S. Navy frigate or destroyer?
These are the kinds of flashpoints that can start wars. And, candidly, we aren't ready for a war in the West Pacific.
That's not to say that we shouldn't stand by an ally. We have treaty obligations to consider, namely the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
But there's just a lot that can go wrong when things are this tense. China, by which we can only mean the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has been showing increasing bellicosity in the West Pacific for quite a while. Under Chairman Xi, it is facing a host of problems; a moribund economy that they have been trying to conceal, a population that is about to walk off a demographic cliff, and a real-estate bubble in the process of bursting; this is a recipe for national leaders becoming increasingly irrational.
China is not showing aggression solely towards the Philippines, either. Japan has been the target of China's bellicosity lately too.
Granted with many of these actions China is probably, as the saying goes, testing the waters. We do the same thing, calling it the exercise of the right of passage in international waters or airspace, as the case may be. Russia does it too; every seafaring nation does these things.
But for some reason, China is pushing harder on the Philippines, perhaps because that nation's military is, unlike Japan, rather modest - but surely China knows that the United States has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, which makes one wonder what, at the end of the day, they are really trying to accomplish.
And, of course, there is the visible weakness and incompetence of American leadership to consider. One wonders what General Douglas MacArthur might have said.
If we do this, should we not establish another deep water port base in the region?
At Cam Ranh Bay?
Subic Bay?
Etc?
Thoughts?
“the PI is of ENORMOUS geo political value. And we have a long history with the people there. I’m glad to see the increase of goodwill and cooperation.”
Well put!
I think we should. I do see an element of truth to the comments made by our fellow Freeper Mariner, but we did grant them their independence in 1946, so they could have done what they wished but they didn’t.
I see that mostly as corruption in the Philippine government. No doubt Bongbong Marcos’ father and his cronies (and their successors) got a great deal of American cash that flowed out of places like Olongapo.
No, it is not true. Some dum bass journalist from Business Insider said so, but they meant in the Far East Pacific.
The Carl Vinson is in San Diego, and the Nimitz and Lincoln are in Kitsap, Washington. Last I looked both ports are in the Pacific. If they had to, they could flank speed across the ocean in a couple of days.
The George Washington has been undergoing reactor changing for the past 6 years, and is ready go back to sea. She’ll go to her Yokohama Japan home port.
Correct on all counts. Glad to see it too, if that is what happens.
Okay, it would take a week, not a couple of days. Carriers don’t run at flank speed more than a few minutes at a time I’m told by my old retired Navy cousin (I am retired USAF).
They are IN PORT, lol, it’s 7000 mi to Taiwan, they can’t get there in 2 days lolololol
I don’t think that is true, but...I have caveats.
On one of my two deployments (I think my first to the Med) I went to sleep shortly after we left Norfolk that night. My berthing was near the aft end of the ship right under the arrestor cables (the flight deck was LITERALLY right above my head, where I had stupidly, not knowing any better, chosen the top bunk!)
Anyway, at sometime after midnight, I woke up to the sound of “WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM” at probably near to 250 times a minute...I don’t know what that translated to for shaft RPM since the screws each had probably five blades.
(I make this estimate by slapping my hand on my thigh to approximate what I remember vividly, and it comes out to 250 “WHAMS” a minute.
And my whole rack was shaking with each WHAM as it thumped.
I jumped out of my rack and made my way to the stern of the ship to the fantail (right underneath the flight deck) and was astonished to see this great big huge boiling mountain of white water being churned up by the screws.
The vibration was equally as impressive, and this went on for hours. I have to imagine that was flank speed, because we were really moving.
We do have some black shoes on this forum who will know for sure since I was an “Airedale” (attached air wing) but I don’t think our carriers have any problem running at flank speed.
Although, to be fair, I never recall that kind of thumping and vibration after that, so perhaps we didn’t use “flank speed” all the time.
And I never found out why we were doing it (if that is what it was) that night right after leaving Norfolk and heading across the Atlantic.
Finally, the Philippines offer many locations for hiding distributed small land bases and extensive protected waters for US ships. If China moved against Taiwan, even with a blockade, the US could use ship and land based long range missiles in the Philippines to interdict essential trade routes to China.
The Vietnamese kicked their @$$es in a border skirmish back in the '70s.
The last time the Chinese military fought an actual war was the Korean War. That was 70 years ago.
I just searched and cannot find it now. I think it was in an article in the past few days about our naval problems in the Med. I may not be able to look any more because we are headed out on vacation early tomorrow.
As a side note I had an employee who was a veteran medic in the USN.
One time he said they went to port in Manilla, or somewhere thereabout.
Then a sailor came to him, dropped his drawers and needed to be swabbed for STD’s.
Medic said the guy’s weiner looked like a giant purple mushroom.
“You got to swab that yourself, I’m not touching it!” he said.
I know about that horrible and incredibly pier fiasco. But I swear I saw something this week about naval ships in bad condition in the Med. I just looked and couldn’t find it.
Right. The top speed is supposed to be classified, but in 1999 the US Navy did “declassify” top speeds and the fastest carrier at that time (still even faster than the newer Nimitz classes) was the USS Enterprise at 33.6 knots which is about 38 mph, which means that at that top speed, the Enterprise would take 7 days to go 7000 miles.
Those of us with suspicious minds always think the Navy would never release that performance metric, but honestly, who would we be fooling? Our foes know how fast they can go...using submarines, satellites, etc. they could monitor and calculate I am sure. The only ones who likely didn’t know were the American public! (just spitballing here)
Navy Could Sideline 17 Support Ships Due to Manpower Issues.
I don't see anything that says these 17 support ships are in the Med.
They took our bases in the Philippines, and now they want our help???!!!??
Not a chance in hell
I understand. I have been a critic of our current Navy, but I don’t think it has been as bad as all that. If there were an actual engineering casualty that kept even one of our Arleigh Burke’s in the Med from coming home, I suspect we would have heard about it.
That pier fiasco though...amazing. And THAT doesn’t surprise me.
LOL...as if I had never, in 101,317 posts made a mistake, especially a grievous one because...I have.
Go forth and sin no more...:)
I just saw the other day a report that says we have absolutely no aircraft carriers operating in the Pacific at the moment. 11 naval support ships have been mothballed because they don’t have enough people to crew them.
This is the problem. The military has right now is they cannot get enough recruits to volunteer to serve. They will have to bring back the draft and military duty for two years to get enough people to operate our military effectively.
In the traditional Chinese art of war, weaknesses are to be covered by aggressive posturing so as to deter attack. This tends to put China's bellicose rhetoric and incidents with the Philippine in a less menacing context as a sign of weakness, not strength.
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