Holiday cheer
November 26th, 2010 | Life at Sea North Korea Photos | Posted by David Larter
Culinary Specialist 1st Class Lemuel ManLogon from Stockton, Calif., prepares a traditional Thanksgiving feast on the aft mess decks aboard the carrier George Washington. // MC3 David Cox
The carrier George Washington had a special holiday surprise this year courtesy of North Korea. While the Navy says the carrier was scheduled to participate in exercises with Japan, the plan changed in the wake of North Korea’s bombardment of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. (That situation has become even more tense today.) So instead of celebrating a nice Thanksgiving at home, the George Washington headed to the Yellow Sea to flex our national biceps for North Korea.
Do you think they’ll be impressed?
But despite the less than ideal Thanksgiving circumstances, the culinary specialists tried their best to make it homey. Check out the spread!
Message not received
November 23rd, 2010 | Carriers China Navy North Korea The Pacific Washington | Posted by David Larter
An F/A 18E Super Hornet assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-27 takes off from the flight deck of USS George Washington as the destroyer Stethem steams alongside during flight quarters. // MC3 Devon Dow
Remember all those exercises South Korea held with the U.S. a few months ago to send a message to its pugnacious northern neighbor? You know, the ones that had the carrier George Washington steaming with the South Korean navy? The exercises that drove U.S.-Chinese relations to a low-point earlier this year? Well Kim Jong-Il didn’t pick up the phone, apparently.
This morning, the news broke that North Korea opened a barrage of artillery fire on South Korean troops, killing at least two people.
The question must be asked: How do the U.S. and South Korea abide this? The U.S. pulled out the biggest gun it had in the region the last time North Korea acted up — the 80,000-ton, four-and-a-half-acre George Washington and its escorts. It could be argued the situation is worse now than it was in the immediate wake of the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan. Our relationship with China has suffered since and, by extension, so has our ability to respond diplomatically, since China is our only real means of reaching out to North Korea.
Another round of naval exercises would further tick off the Chinese and, given this morning’s news, would it be effective? How effective were those exercises this year if it failed to deter further aggression from North Korea?
The Defense Department said today it was monitoring the situation “with concern,” but that any discussion of a military response would be “premature.”
Meanwhile, South Korea put the word out that any further aggression from North Korea could be met with an “enormous” military response.
This situation could get ugly in the coming days. What do you think should be the response?
Take that, Kim Jong-il
November 1st, 2010 | Ballistic missile defense Foreign navies Maritime operations Navy North Korea Photos | Posted by David Larter
An SM-3 missile is launched from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Kirishima, successfully intercepting a ballistic missile target launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii. // U.S. Navy photo
The Japanese destroyer JS Kirishima shot down a medium-range ballistic missile during a joint exercise with the Navy. Read about it here.
What sank the Cheonan? Daddy issues, SecDef says
August 13th, 2010 | leadership North Korea | Posted by Phil Ewing
Sailors from the carrier George Washington visited the salvaged wreck of the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan on July 22. // Navy
We know who, what, where, when and how — and many thinkers have weighed in with theories on why North Korea sank the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan in March. But this latest one is a little different, because it’s from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. His analysis isn’t new in itself, but his imprimatur carries that certain Pentagon weight:
North Korea is on the brink of a succession crisis, Gates said, and the son of strongman Kim Jong-Il needs to convince the North’s entrenched brass that he’s got what it takes to wear his father’s ridiculous glasses, so to speak, when the time comes. Gates didn’t mention which son, but it’s probably be Kim Jong-Un, who has already been given an official superhero name, “The Brilliant Comrade.”
Whichever youngster Gates meant, the kid’s need to prove his mettle is what led to the sinking, and there could be more where that came from, Gates warned: “My worry is that’s the provocation behind the sinking of the Cheonan. We’re concerned this may not be the only provocation from the North Koreans.”
So the message for all the American and South Korean sailors in the Western Pacific seems to be: Stay on your guard.
For the eyes of the Dear Leader
July 26th, 2010 | North Korea Photos | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC3 Adam Thomas / Navy
MC3 Jacob Moore / Navy
MC3 Adam Thomas / Navy
Are you watching, Kim Jong Il? This show is all for you. More here, here, here and the Marine Corps gets into the act here.
North: Hey, quit it! U.S., allies: Nuh-uuh!
July 23rd, 2010 | North Korea The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
The Air Force's F-22 Raptor super-jet will make its saber-rattling debut in war games scheduled for this month with South Korea. // Airman 1st Class Anthony Jennings / Air Force
The Deck stands corrected: I wrote yesterday that North Korea probably wouldn’t be bothered by the imminent U.S. and South Korean military exercises called “Invincible Spirit,” but maybe you can get through to the Dear Leader and his underlings, after all. The North has threatened a “physical response” to the forthcoming war games, calling them “another expression of hostile policy against” North Korea.
Pish posh, answered the U.S.; if the North liked Asian geostrategic stability, it should’ve put a ring on it. The war games — including the carrier George Washington, its air wing, escorts, Air Force F-22 fighters and the South Korean military — will go forward.
Who are the WestPac war games for?
July 22nd, 2010 | China North Korea The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC3 Charles Oki / Navy
The carrier George Washington docked in Busan, South Korea on Wednesday for “a port visit to promote goodwill and ambassadorship to the United States’ longstanding ally,” according to the Navy. Its crew members wasted no time in paying their respects at the wreckage of the South’s patrol ship Cheonan.
Oh, and just for grins, the carrier, its air wing and its escorts will train with South Korean naval and air units in an exercise called “Invincible Spirit,” in case any regional powers are curious about the oceangoing might of the U.S. and its allies. Here’s the thing: Does North Korea really need a “demonstration” of what a carrier strike group can do?
There isn’t a military commander anywhere on this planet who isn’t familiar with the destruction the U.S. can deliver from the sea. But as we’ve written before, there’s almost nothing you can do about North Korea short of a full-scale attack, and despite what you might read in the kookosphere, that is not in the offing. Conclusion: the North gets a free seapower show off its coast, but will that actually change its behavior? Here’s a hint.
So who is “Invincible Spirit” actually for? South Korea and Japan, maybe, to demonstrate that the U.S. continues to stand by them. Regional American commanders, maybe, who have got to be frustrated by all the hardware at their fingertips that they cannot use, even in the face of a flagrant provocation. And what about China? Does GW’s mission show that the Navy isn’t yet convinced that sending carriers to WestPac makes them into “sitting docks?”
What do you think?
The airstrike that never happened
July 7th, 2010 | Historical North Korea The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was ready to launch an air strike within 48 hours in 1969 after North Korea shot down a Navy reconnaissance plane, but the order ultimately never came. // Navy
NPR’s Mike Shuster has an outstanding story this week about the thorny strategic problem of North Korea: Those guys are always doing nasty things that make the world angry, but U.S. and international commanders can seldom respond for fear of sparking off what could become one hell of a tinderbox. Shuster’s story drew on newly declassified, must-read documents about what the Nixon administration considered doing after North Korea shot down a Navy reconnaissance plane in 1969, including a battle plan that involved up to four aircraft carriers.
The carriers Kitty Hawk, Enterprise, Ranger and Hornet all were available in the Western Pacific to launch retaliatory air strikes, according to one document (pdf); the Battle Cat was ready to go within 48 hours and the other ships could’ve been on station within 72 hours. Nixon’s top commanders presented him with a set of plans for hitting North Korea, including an initial strike from Kitty, a combined strike involving Air Force jets based in South Korea, and many other permutations.
Ultimately, however, he had to confront the classic problem: If the U.S. hit a North Korean target, would the North attack the South, or even invade? Would it attack Japan? Would China be drawn in somehow? With an inscrutable, dysfunctional child-state like North Korea, you never know what’s going to happen. So — just as with March’s sinking of the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan – the world could do nothing.
A tricky situation
June 2nd, 2010 | Maritime operations North Korea The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
The destroyer Lassen sortied Wednesday from Yokosuka, Japan. Where's it going? We'll have to see, won't we. // MC3 Charles Oki
The American military presence in the Western Pacific may have a stabilizing effect on the security of the region, but it can have a decidedly destabilizing effect politically. Case in point: the resignation this week of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose career was undone, in part, by the never-ending debate over the Marine Corps’ presence on Okinawa.
It’s only the latest chapter in the long history of the fraught politics of the U.S. military presence. Earlier this year, Hatoyama broke with his predecessors by acknowledging the open secret that American warships visited Japan while carrying nuclear weapons, in violation of the ban on that very practice. Two years ago, Japan was in a minor uproar when the Navy admitted the fast attack submarine Houston had been “weeping” radiation. Before that, Japanese protesters were angry the U.S. was forward deploying a nuclear carrier, the George Washington, to take the place of the conventionally powered Kitty Hawk. And so on.
But: Although Navy spokesmen in the Pentagon woudn’t comment on this, there are more reports out of South Korea and Washington today that GW and its escorts will be sent up to the Korean Peninsula for anti-submarine exercises next week. The Navy has two photographs online, dated today, that show the cruiser Shiloh and destroyer Lassen putting to sea. If you’re interested in getting international seapower to the waters off Korea quickly — and even the government of Japan would likely acknowledge it is — having U.S. ships right in the neighborhood can be pretty convenient.
Tensions build, rumors fly
May 25th, 2010 | Maritime operations North Korea The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
Did the cruiser Shiloh -- which was exercising with South Korean forces around the same time the Cheonan was sunk -- have anything to do with it? Almost certainly not. But that doesn't stop the speculation. // MC3 Taurean Alexander / Navy
Internet rule number one: In the absence of accurate information, make stuff up. This dictum, which applies in any situation, is in full effect for the showdown on the Korean Peninsula over the sinking by the North of the South’s patrol ship Cheonan.
South Korean investigators say they found traces of explosives, parts of a propeller and other evidence that proves Cheonan was torpedoed by the North. That’s all we know for sure. Why would the North do it? Was it an official order or did a local commander go rogue? What does the North want out of all this — if it’s even thinking that far ahead? These are the questions to which there are no real answers yet.
Oh, but there are theories: One is that it was a friendly fire attack by the South’s own navy or, even the U.S. Navy. You’ve got to check out this column in the Asia Times which all but blames 7th Fleet for the sinking of the Cheonan, and then, once you have, please post a comment explaining it to the rest of us so we can try to understand it. Here’s just one gem:
A South Korean sister paper of the Washington Times, Segye Ilbo, on March 29 quoted a military source as saying: “The radar of the CIC on the corvette Cheonan is capable of easily detecting any torpedo within any radius of 20-30 kilometers but on that fateful day it detected no sign of a torpedo attack or naval firing by North Korea.
Yes, you read that right — this “military source” says the ship’s “radar” should’ve “easily” detected the torpedo.
Others: South Korea was “warned” about a submarine “suicide attack” and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il’s son personally ordered the attack. Here’s something that is very real, though — commanders have sortied American warships in Japan to take a cruise up North Korea way.