The ChiComs are taking a page out of the old Soviet playbook – NOT considered a way to impress one with their overall peaceful intent!
A Chinese submarine stalked a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group in the Pacific last month and surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected, The Washington Times has learned.
The Chief did active duty on a DDG (guided missile destroyer) that deployed to the 6th (Mediterranean) Fleet during the Vietnam War period when the Cold War was going full tilt. My ship was primarily an AAW (anti-air warfare) platform, but like all destroyer class ships, she was also set up for ASW (anti-submarine warfare).
We generally had tasking that left the ASW to other ships that did not have the AAW capability. It was a regular feature of the time that the USSR threw everything they had at the carrier battle groups – just for stalking practive, to see if they could get inside of the USN defensive perimeter.
Russian pilots flew Soviet supplied aircraft out of Egypt, Syria, and Libya to see if they could sneak into range. This was NOT something that was well received when it ever occurred. (Faces WERE red during a memorable NATO joint exercise when the Spanish Air Force successfully penetrated close enough to disrupt our carrier air ops by flying out at wavetop level in WW-II era Heinkel-111 twin-engine prop bombers that had been supplied to Franco by the Nazis in the late 30’s! They were so rickety, that one couldn’t even make it back to base, but they DID get through the defensive perimeter.
There was the same concern for allowing Soviet subs into striking range of the carriers, too, and the USSR took thier submarine force seriously indeed at that time, as the ChiComs apparently do today. There is another aspect of this one that is even more disturbing:
The surprise encounter highlights China’s continuing efforts to prepare for a future conflict with the U.S., despite Pentagon efforts to try to boost relations with Beijing’s communist-ruled military. The submarine encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk and its accompanying warships also is an embarrassment to the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. William J. Fallon, who is engaged in an ambitious military exchange program with China aimed at improving relations between the two nations’ militaries.
Fallon SHOULD be embarrased. He reminds me of those like Lindbergh, and Ambassador Joseph Kennedy who thought that the only realistic attitude of the US towards the Nazi Reich was to be friendly and accomadating with Herr Hitler and his minions. We all know how well THAT turned out!
Now, that same attitude comes at us in the current context – from Admiral Fallon and his ilk, and the ultra free-traders that want to see the US spread wide open for the ChiComs to have their way at our expense.
How does one abbreviate “aid and comfort to an enemy”? T-R-E-A-S-O-N.