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Stas Bush wrote:The island disputes are too small to start a war, in my opinion.

However, the US tries to make inroads - with methods which hardly have anything to do with 'treaty alliances' - into countries like Myanmar. I would say that these are a better candidate for a hot point.

Stas Bush wrote:I agree that the whole thing will be a failure anyway (because half of Latin America hates the US but still has to deal with it, so even if all of Asia hates China they still have to deal with it too).

Patroklos wrote:Your analysis falls a bit flat when places like South Korea and Japan are treaty allies of one sort or another for instance. We are not there just because we want to be there, we are there because these advanced democratic countries want us there. In this neighborhood, especially with the SCS shenanigans of China, the Philippines will be the same shortly and even countries like Vietnam are getting cozy with the US. Again, as their choice.

Stas Bush wrote:Treaty alliances would only mean something if a treaty member is attacked. China attacks Japan or South Korea? No. The island disputes are too small to start a war, in my opinion. However, the US tries to make inroads - with methods which hardly have anything to do with 'treaty alliances' - into countries like Myanmar. I would say that these are a better candidate for a hot point.

It is not helping that the US made the first aggressive moves in SEA by announcing a strategy of 'Asia Pivot' which is a not-so-clever euphemism for 'containment of China' which in practical terms means forging an anti-Chinese military alliance.

BBC wrote: Why is the US Navy practising for war with China?

The US prefers to talk about engaging with China, but it is clear its navy is now also practising for a potential conflict, reports the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.

You don't get invited out on a US nuclear aircraft carrier all that often, and after writing this I might not get invited back for a while.

On the flight deck of the USS George Washington the noise is like nothing I've ever experienced. A few feet from where I am standing, 11 F/A-18 Super Hornets are lining up to be launched.

The first one is hooked on to the catapult; there is a massive crescendo as its engines roar to full re-heat. Then, in a cloud of white steam, the 15-tonne jet is thrown down the deck and off the end of the ship like a toy.

Seconds later, the deck crew in their multi-coloured smocks are calmly lining up the next one.

Control deck of USS George Washington
The crew of the USS George Washington are rehearsing an "anti-access, area denial" scenario
Watching the US Navy close up like this, it is hard not to be slightly awed. No other navy in the world has quite the same toys, or shows them off with the same easy charm.

But as I stand on the deck filming my report on how "the US is practising for war with China", I can see my host from the Navy public affairs office wincing.

You get used to hearing the PR rhetoric: the US Navy "is not practising for war with any specific country". But the US Navy has not assembled two whole carrier battle groups and 200 aircraft off the coast of Guam for a jolly, either. This is about practising what the Pentagon now calls "Air Sea Battle".

It is a concept first put forward in 2009, and it is specifically designed to counter the rising threat from China.

A few minutes later I am standing on the bridge of the George Washington with Rear Adm Mark Montgomery, the commander of Carrier Strike Group Five. The forces under his command are practising for what he calls an "anti-access, area denial" scenario.

Rear Adm Mark Montgomery
Rear Adm Montgomery says the US Navy has been ensuring stability in the region for the past 70 years
"When we talk about our capabilities," he says, "we are talking about our capabilities to operate in unrestricted way in the waters of our choice".

"As some countries have been developing increasingly complex anti-access weapons, we have to develop our tactics, techniques and procedures to continue to operate in an unfettered manner."

Rear Adm Montgomery won't discuss the specifics of the exercise. But his ships and aircraft face an increasingly complex web of threats, from beneath the water, from air, land, from cyberspace and from space.

"It's generally understood that some countries have the ability to remove satellites or to limit satellite communications," he says, "so we have to practise working in a communications-denied environment."

China's People's Liberation Army Navy is still no match for the US Navy, and won't be for a very long time. Instead, China has been developing other weapons designed to keep America's precious carriers far away from China's shores.

These include new quieter submarines, long-range hypersonic anti-ship missiles and, perhaps most worrying, very accurate medium range ballistic missiles that have been dubbed "carrier killers".

As if on cue, an alarm bell starts ringing. A voice comes on the public address system:

"This is a drill, this is a drill! Black smoke, black smoke!"

Are China's neighbours reassured by the US military presence in the region?
The George Washington is under simulated attack. Part of the ship is reported to be on fire. Teams rush to contain the damage.

For the last 10 years, China's most important, and oft-repeated, political slogan has been "peaceful rise". It is designed to reassure Beijing's neighbours its growing military might is no threat.

But since President Xi Jinping came to power last year, there has been a distinct change. China is now asserting claims well beyond its own coastline.

Its ships are aggressively patrolling the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands in the East China Sea, long controlled by Japan. It is spending billions building new islands in the South China Sea.

Senkaku/Diaoyu islands

The archipelago consists of five uninhabited islands and three reefs
Japan, China and Taiwan claim them; they are controlled by Japan and form part of Okinawa prefecture
The islands were also the focus of a major diplomatic row between Japan and China in 2010
How uninhabited islands soured China-Japan ties

In August a Chinese fighter jet confronted a US surveillance plane in international airspace over the South China Sea, repeatedly buzzing it and, according to the US Navy, closing to within 20ft (6m).

According to Rear Adm Montgomery, all this makes the US Navy's role in the region even more vital.

"The US Navy is one of the single greatest contributors to the security and stability of the Asia Pacific region," he says. "We have been for nearly 70 years".

"I think the US Navy plays a good role whether it is in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Philippine Sea, stabilising things, assuring partners and dissuading adversaries from taking actions that are non-transparent or illegal."

China's leaders would no doubt disagree. Beijing's long-term aim is to dominate the waters close to its shores. If the US Navy tries to stop it, might that not make conflict more likely?

But from Tokyo to Taipei, Manila to Hanoi, there are governments that are very happy to see America's great carrier battle groups sailing these waters.

"When we talk about our capabilities," he says, "we are talking about our capabilities to operate in unrestricted way in the waters of our choice".

"As some countries have been developing increasingly complex anti-access weapons, we have to develop our tactics, techniques and procedures to continue to operate in an unfettered manner."

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:It's good to be prepared, but let's face it, if China ever did decide to attack the US, they would attack our infrastructure digitally and we're too busy waving around our carrier-sized F-35 inch dicks to notice that everyone can count the polyps on our exposed cybersecurity assholes and we're crouched over an egg beater. I'm glad that the economic destruction is mutually assured and there doesn't seem to be a terrorist group that has its hackt together for a serious cyber-offensive, but the fact is that we're as unprepared for a cyber attack today as we were for hijackings before 9/11, and all those carrier groups aren't going to help us any more than they helped the WTC employees. Time to get real and prepare for actual threats while filing the Chinese naval assault scenario next to the equally-plausible extraterrestrial invasion ones.

Channel72 wrote:Just install FreeBSD everywhere and call it a day.

Ace Pace wrote:

Channel72 wrote:Just install FreeBSD everywhere and call it a day.

I despise this shitty attitude that makes it appear as if computer attacks are a localised phenomenon specific to Windows or other large OSes, while the majority of problems are in security policies and applications built on top of operating systems.

Ace Pace wrote:

Channel72 wrote:Just install FreeBSD everywhere and call it a day.

I despise this shitty attitude that makes it appear as if computer attacks are a localised phenomenon specific to Windows or other large OSes, while the majority of problems are in security policies and applications built on top of operating systems.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:It's good to be prepared, but let's face it, if China ever did decide to attack the US, they would attack our infrastructure digitally and we're too busy waving around our carrier-sized F-35 inch dicks to notice that everyone can count the polyps on our exposed cybersecurity assholes and we're crouched over an egg beater. I'm glad that the economic destruction is mutually assured and there doesn't seem to be a terrorist group that has its hackt together for a serious cyber-offensive, but the fact is that we're as unprepared for a cyber attack today as we were for hijackings before 9/11, and all those carrier groups aren't going to help us any more than they helped the WTC employees. Time to get real and prepare for actual threats while filing the Chinese naval assault scenario next to the equally-plausible extraterrestrial invasion ones.

Nova Andromeda wrote:Agreed. If it came to an all out 'shooting war' (that didn't involve both sides with lots of large smoking glass fields) then it would be mostly digital / electronic. I'm not sure, but large scale EMP style attacks seem like a great tactic if possible - hardened military assets won't save you when your entire infrastructure is fried). In any event, the 'soft war' is already being waged (it's economic) and the US is losing badly.

Nova Andromeda wrote:

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:It's good to be prepared, but let's face it, if China ever did decide to attack the US, they would attack our infrastructure digitally and we're too busy waving around our carrier-sized F-35 inch dicks to notice that everyone can count the polyps on our exposed cybersecurity assholes and we're crouched over an egg beater. I'm glad that the economic destruction is mutually assured and there doesn't seem to be a terrorist group that has its hackt together for a serious cyber-offensive, but the fact is that we're as unprepared for a cyber attack today as we were for hijackings before 9/11, and all those carrier groups aren't going to help us any more than they helped the WTC employees. Time to get real and prepare for actual threats while filing the Chinese naval assault scenario next to the equally-plausible extraterrestrial invasion ones.

Agreed. If it came to an all out 'shooting war' (that didn't involve both sides with lots of large smoking glass fields) then it would be mostly digital / electronic. I'm not sure, but large scale EMP style attacks seem like a great tactic if possible - hardened military assets won't save you when your entire infrastructure is fried). In any event, the 'soft war' is already being waged (it's economic) and the US is losing badly.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:That goes double for China, which is still an export-based economy that is far more dependent on the buying power of the US consumer than vice versa. We should take care to characterize China as an entity that will act in its own best interests and not a Fu-Man-Chu mustachioed yellow menace capable of wreaking havoc via actions that would ultimately harm its own economy worse than ours. It's also worth noting that never in the historical record has China attacked a Western power that wasn't invading its neighbor (Korea in 1950), while post-industrial Europe and America have been the most bellicose warmongers since the Mongols. The average US citizen should spend about 1 second worrying about military or economic attack from China for every 10,000 hours we spend worrying about our own government's meddling in the affairs of others to the detriment of all but a few corrupt insiders.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:China regaining its position as the world's dominant economic superpower will simply be the end of a brief (relatively speaking) historical anomaly and a return to normalcy.

It's nothing to fret about, not that this will stop my countrymen from working themselves into a mounting frenzy. The average British or French citizen is much better off living in a nation that isn't running around trying to impose its will on the globe, and after the American economic empire recedes, I suspect the average US citizen will be too.

We should take care to characterize China as an entity that will act in its own best interests and not a Fu-Man-Chu mustachioed yellow menace capable of wreaking havoc via actions that would ultimately harm its own economy worse than ours.

It's also worth noting that never in the historical record has China attacked a Western power that wasn't invading its neighbor (Korea in 1950),

It's also worth noting that never in the historical record has China attacked a Western power that wasn't invading its neighbor (Korea in 1950)