A good day for a swim?
October 29th, 2010 | Photos SEALs The Pacific Training | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
There is just something about Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training that is, well, photogenic. The grueling, six-month training course at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif., is no vacation at the beach. Mother Nature at times makes it much more interesting. With ocean temperatures in the mid-60s – that’s relatively mild for the Pacific Ocean along Southern California – the chill isn’t as much a worry as the surf itself, as what students with Class 286 encountered during “surf passage” training Oct. 27. It’s known as “surf torture” for good reason.
Students with BUD/S Class 286 face off against the Pacific during surf passage training Oct. 27 at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, Calif.//Navy photo by MC2 Kyle Gahlau
Yesterday was the easy day. Students with BUD/S Class 286 tackle the tides during surf passage training Oct. 27 in Coronado, Calif.//Navy photo by MC2 Kyle Gahlau
Oh yeah, he just went there
October 20th, 2010 | China Foreign navies Navy The Pacific | Posted by David Larter
Shinzo Abe said in a speech Oct. 15 China's military ambitions were akin to the Nazi idea of "lebensraum." Franck Robichon / EPA
In contemporary rhetoric, one popular way to demonize political adversaries is to compare them to Hitler. That’s just what conservative former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did at a speech at the Hudson Institute think tank on Capitol Hill last Friday. Relations between China and Japan have been rather tense of late, and the war of words seems to be heating up.
Abe likened China’s naval expansion to Hitler’s idea of “lebensraum” or “living space.” It was Hitler’s belief that Germany needed and, by their superior nature, deserved space in which to grow and settle. According to Abe’s remarks:
Since the 1980s, China’s military strategy has rested on the concept of a “strategic frontier.” In a nutshell, this very dangerous idea posits that borders and exclusive economic zones are determined by national power, and that as long as China’s economy continues to grow, its sphere of influence will continue to expand. Some might associate this with the German concept of “lebensraum.”
There has been speculation that the impetus for China’s naval buildup was the 1996 crisis in the Strait of Taiwan. Whenever I think back on this incident, I recall the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the path that the Soviet Union took in its wake. The Soviet Union in 1962 and China in 1996 both suffered the indignity of capitulation in the face of the overwhelming naval power of the United States, and both countries threw themselves into building up their navies. We all know how well that worked out for the Soviet Union.
I have no way of knowing how the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party would view this analogy. Perhaps the party’s leaders, despite their fear of meeting the same fate as the Soviet Union, are unable to resist the call of the People’s Liberation Army for a military buildup. In any case, we can state with conviction that China has nothing to gain from an excessive expansion of its military.
If you are rusty on your mid-90s history, you can read up on the Taiwan Strait crisis here.
You can read Abe’s full remarks here.
Bonhomme Richard left out to dry
October 19th, 2010 | Gator Navy Navy Shipyard The Pacific | Posted by David Larter
The amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard is moored on Pier 13 at Naval Base San Diego. Bonhomme Richard is preparing for a nine-month dry-dock planned maintenance availability period. // MCC Joe Kane
The amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard is getting ready for a roughly $41 million overhaul in dry dock. Sailors on board are doubtless ready for a nine-month spell shore-side and ready to revel in the luxuries of living on a berthing barge.
The ship and its Marines returned earlier this year from a rough seven-month deployment to 5th and 7th fleets. Gidget Fuentes reported in April:
Bonhomme Richard and two other amphibious ships of the San Diego-based ready group, dock landing ship Rushmore and transport dock Cleveland, spent more than four months in the Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa regions conducting maritime security operations, and supporting theater security and cooperation exercises, including training in Kuwait, Djibouti and Tiimor-Leste.
A six-day liberty visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in mid-March came after 127 consecutive days at sea for the big deck Bonhomme Richard.
Repairs are expected to run through July.
Navies secure from ‘SNOOZEPAC’
August 2nd, 2010 | The greenside The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
The Singaporean frigate Supreme, here returning to Pearl Harbor, was just one of many exotic foreign warships that took part in this year's RIMPAC. // MC2 Brett Morton / Navy
The chips and dip are long gone; guys are waking up with marker on their faces; and the p-ways are echoing with the sound of empties rolling around — yes, the multinational naval kegger known as RIMPAC, aka SNOOZEPAC, is over. But unless you’re an expert insider, you shouldn’t try to discern any wider significance for the maneuvers, Vice Adm. Richard Hunt told the Associated Press, nor should any of the countries that weren’t invited (e.g. China, North Korea) be worried:
“What we are trying to accomplish with RIMPAC is training for ourself, not necessarily sending a message,” Hunt said. “Trying to read current events into it would be inappropriate, and is certainly not something that was part of the structure or the intent of the exercise.” He declared the world’s largest maritime exercises “a fantastic success,” saying it improved tactical coordination and built relationships that will improve security throughout the Pacific.
All kidding aside, Quantico types were really excited about this year’s RIMPAC because of the chance it gave them to try out their new smaller-unit amphibious theories, including ways to use sea-based artillery. If the Marine Corps of tomorrow is to become the nouveau-”small wars” force that some planners envision — disembarking from gators in small groups, engaging in some tasteful, limited violence, then packing up after only a few weeks — it needs venues like RIMPAC to try that stuff out, the thinking goes.
Update: The Navy has posted an official, good-time-had-by-all wrap up of this year’s exercises that included this breakdown of all the fun:
“During the exercise, participating countries conducted three sinking exercises, which included 140 discrete live-fire events, 30 surface-to-air engagements, 40 air-to-air missile engagements, 12 surface-to-surface engagements, 76 laser guided bombs and more than 1,000 rounds of naval gunfire from 20 surface combatants. In addition, units flew more than 3,100+ air sorties, completed numerous maritime interdiction and vessel boardings, explosive ordnance disposal, diving and salvage operations and mine clearance operations and 10 major experiments — the major one [was] the Marine Corps Enhanced Company Operations experiment.”
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?
Gasp! Is RIMPAC a ‘snoozer?’
July 8th, 2010 | Foreign navies The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
Is the international exercise known as RIMPAC a waste of time? This Indonesian marine, who underwent "shallow water egress training" as part it, does not look like a fan. // Tech. Sgt. Cohen Young / Air Force
That ominous thudding noise you hear isn’t thunder — it’s the sound of heavy guns, shelling a target the Navy probably didn’t think it needed to defend: The annual, international Rim of the Pacific exercise, at which take-no-prisoners blogger Gina DiNicolo has leveled this broadside:
Despite the size, locale and agenda, these games seem anything but exciting. Take away the French, and really, what’s left? SNOOZEPAC is 38 days of too many visitors gorging themselves on foreign and U.S. naval delicacies. Air assets become personal taxis transporting their fares from vessel to vessel. (Maybe that’s how it got its rep as the world’s largest floating cocktail party.)
Boom! Whoosh! (Those shell splashes are getting close!) DiNicolo, who runs the Military Officers Association of America’s blog “Inside the Headquarters,” writes that RIMPAC is more patty-cake playtime than serious military outing, more kaffeeklatch than combat practice. But she concedes that it’s probably useful for the U.S. to make friends with Pacific allies, and at least the Hawaiian economy gets a boost.
So what do you think? Are the three dozen U.S. and international warships out in RIMPAC just there to soak up some sun, enjoy some awesome helicopter rides and drink cocktails with little umbrellas? Or is this exercise ultimately worth all the time, money and fuel?
Pilot wash-down links
July 8th, 2010 | Personnel Royal Navy Submarines The Pacific | Posted by Phil Ewing
"Keep it comin', shipmates!" // Navy
It’s a brutally hot week here in the National Capital Region. Cars are getting trapped in the asphalt as it liquefies; birds are bursting into flames in mid-air; and on Wednesday we had to turn off all the lights here at the Center of Excellence in order to forestall a blackout. Y”know what would be nice? Landing a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier, climbing out of the cockpit and getting drenched by a fire hose. That, and looking at some links:
- Our senior colleague Bill McMichael obtained a copy of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell survey making its way to service members across the military, and you can check out his exclusive report here.
- Time Magazine says the presence of all four SSGNs in the Pacific — you can remember them because they’re two pairs of football rivals, Ohio v Michigan and Florida v Georgia — should sound “alarm bells” in Beijing.
- The U.K.’s top navy man, First Sea Lord Adm. Sir Mark Stanhope, is going on the defensive: The Royal Navy is not a luxury, he says — it’s a necessity.
- The U.S. Navy’s cruiser-mod program continues apace, but it doesn’t seem to be following the ships’ class order: The next patient to undergo the treatment is Chosin, which is CG 65, after the first one to finish was Bunker Hill, CG 52.
- Strikegroupsploitation continues on the periphery of the web! Now the senior naval correspondent of Workers World is breaking the story those stooges in the lamestream media don’t want you to see: “The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Force included an aircraft carrier, a guided missile cruiser and nearly a dozen Aegis-class destroyers. Also included were the German frigate GGS Hessen and at least one Israeli vessel. Three nuclear-powered carriers with their complements of destroyers and cruisers, amphibious assault ships, and 10,000 combat personnel are now arrayed off Iran’s coasts.” Pow! Shazam! Gee whiz!
- Military Times’ senior sportswriter Mike Hoffman has all the details on the Naval Academy’s incoming class of football players over at our siblog After Action.
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.