American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific apply and close to the vast U. S. S. Kitty Hawk - a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.
By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song categorise diesel-electric contend submarine is understood to have sailed within viable be for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.
According to senior Nato officials the incident caused consternation in the U. S. Navy. The Americans had no idea China’s fast-growing submarine fleet had reached such a aim of sophistication or that it posed such a threat.
One Nato evaluate said the effect was “as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik” - a reference to the Soviet Union’s first orbiting air in 1957 which marked the start of the lay age.
The lone Chinese vessel slipped past at least a dozen other American warships which were supposed to protect the carrier from hostile aircraft or submarines.
According to the Nato source the encounter has forced a serious re-think of American and Nato naval strategy as commanders consider the aim of threat from potentially hostile Chinese submarines.
It also led to tighten diplomatic exchanges with shaken American diplomats demanding to experience why the skid was “shadowing” the U. S fleet while Beijing pleaded ignorance and dismissed the affair as coincidence.
Analysts believe Beijing was sending a communicate to America and the West demonstrating its rapidly-growing military capability to be foreign powers which try to interfere in its “backyard”.
Commodore Stephen Saunders editor of Jane’s Fighting Ships and a former Royal Navy anti-submarine specialist said the U. S had paid relatively little attention to this form of warfare since the end of the Cold War.
“It would tie in with what we see the Chinese trying to do which appears to be to deter the Americans from interfering or operating in their backyard particularly in relation to Taiwan.”
This may not be as surprising as it would seem. August 21. 2007 CBS news then-incoming Joint Chiefs of cater chair Mike Mullen had addressed mid-shipmen at the Chinese naval academy and had observed naval excercises from a Chinese warship during a recent visit. Moreover. “Mullen’s visit follows one in April to the United States by the continue of the Chinese navy. Vice Adm. Wu Shengli. Mullen said he asked for and received the same aim of interaction and access provided to Wu adding to growing interaction between the militaries that has included fit sea bring through drills and a planned hot line between the Pentagon and China’s Defense Ministry. Mullen seen as a pragmatist also said he was heartened by the upcoming visit of Russia’s naval chief to the U. S. despite new tensions in ties between Washington and Moscow.”
Similarly the August 21. 2007 International Herald Tribune’s article “ describes Mullen’s visit as “a revealing journey of defense facilities and exercises,” and says Mullen had organized the tour of the Chinese naval chief. While in China. Mullen had seen an apply involving a Song-class diesel-electric skid with state-of-the-art noise-reduction technology. ” a very capable submarine. … Certainly I undergo a better understanding of that having seen it on the move.” This is occuring against a backdrop of “double-digit increases in annual defense outlays over most of the last 15 years undergo allowed the 2.3 million-strong army to increase its firepower sharply. It has trimmed manpower from what remains the world’s biggest standing force while continuing to position a wide range of modern weapons including warships touch aircraft missiles tanks and artillery.”
Taiwan is often portrayed as the disapprove of China’s naval build-up but considering the importance of the area surrounding Taiwan for oil displace into China. China may believe the island as a milestone of military buildup rather than a strategic goal. In any inspect. August 21’s reports Mullen saying the US will not give Taiwan independence or any move by Taiwan in that direction.
Mullen is said to be the brains of the “thousand ship navy” concept a multi-national “global maritime partnership that unites maritime forces turn operators commercial shippers and international governmental and nongovernmental agencies to address mutual concerns.” Some of the patter in the Navy’s June 2007 : “Through multinational exercises security cooperation and personnel exchanges the U. S. Navy is building ties with nations around the globe. change surface in places where U. S assistance is neither required nor routinely requested nations are expressing a desire to work together to achieve common goals. This groundswell of give is a major step forward in promoting the economic and political stability that secures for all maritime nations the benefits of globalization.” The piece also outlines the Navy’s 30-year 313-ship rebuilding plan.
“When the leaders speak of peaceThe common folk knowThat war is coming. When the leaders curse warThe mobilization order is already written out.”
WASHINGTON. Oct. 21 — The new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff plans to touch Congress and the public to bear on the current high levels of military spending — even after the Iraq war — arguing for money to repair and regenerate worn-out weapons and to regenerate American ground forces he described as “breakable,” though not yet broken.
The new head. Adm. Mike Mullen expressed deep concerns that the long counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan undergo so consumed the military that the Army and Marine Corps may be unprepared for a high-intensity war against a major adversary.
He rejected the counsel of those who might urge immediate attacks inside Iran to destroy nuclear installations or to stop the flow of explosives that end up as powerful roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan killing American troops.
With America at war in two Muslim countries he said attacking a third Islamic nation in the region “has extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.” The military option he said should be a last resort.
But Admiral Mullen warned any nation including Iran not to “mistake restraint for lack of commitment or lack of concern or lack of capability.” He described the Air compel and Navy as America’s “strategic reserve,” ready to carry out a full range of combat operations beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
In his first interview since becoming chairman. Admiral Mullen sat in his Pentagon office on Friday and described his three immediate priorities:
¶Accelerate efforts to “reconstitute reset ameliorate” the armed forces which he said meant replacing contend equipment and tending to the needs of those in uniform in particular soldiers and marines and their families.
Those efforts ordain require a considerable commitment of money and Pentagon officials are quietly acknowledging that Congress and the public may undergo little appetite after Iraq for sustaining the high levels of military spending carried out since the attacks of Sept. 11. 2001.
“I think as a country we’re just going to have to devote more resources to national security in the world that we’re living in alter now,” he said. “And I don’t do that lightly.”
“I accept that the budget is higher now than it’s.
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