The Strategist

U.S. FONOPS Aren't Just About the South China Sea

By The Strategist 2018-10-09 17:22:26

[By James Goldrick] The recent close encounter between USS Decatur and the Chinese Luyang II–class guided-missile destroyer Lanzhou has attracted much attention in the media. There’s little doubt that the Chinese ship created a dangerous situation in breach of the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, which requires a vessel that is overtaking another to keep out of its way until ‘finally past and clear’. For a 7,000-tonne displacement ship to pass within 45 yards of another of 8,000 tonnes—an allegation...

Space: The Next South China Sea

By The Strategist 2018-07-13 08:12:31

The head of the Chinese lunar exploration program, Ye Peijian, has remarked that: the universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island. If we don’t go there now even though we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won’t be able to go even if you want to. This is reason enough. His reference to the Japanese-occupied Senkaku...

China's "Underwater Great Wall"

By The Strategist 2018-06-18 09:23:22

[By Ewen Levick] The news that China has deployed bombers and cruise missiles to contested reefs and islands in the South China Sea has caused significant concern. The move allows Beijing to target ships in disputed waters with a missile capable of maneuvering around defence systems at Mach 3. It has also placed northern Australia within reach of Chinese warplanes. The deployment has certainly changed the regional strategic picture. Yet modern conflict, as practiced by revisionist states like China and Russia, doesn’t often pit...

Who Lost the South China Sea?

By The Strategist 2018-06-15 08:46:05

[By Brahma Chellaney] U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has spoken out against China’s strategy of "intimidation and coercion" in the South China Sea, including the deployment of anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles and electronic jammers, and, more recently, the landing of nuclear-capable bomber aircraft at Woody Island. There are, Mattis warned, "consequences to China ignoring the international community." But what consequences? Two successive US administrations—Barack Obama’s and now Donald Trump’s—have failed to push back credibly against China’s expansionism in the South China Sea, which has...

Designing Warships for Modern Sub-Hunting

By The Strategist 2018-05-09 14:15:00

[By John Blaxland] The Australian government is weighing up its options when it comes to the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability requirements for the forthcoming decision on Project SEA 5000—the multi-billion dollar future frigate project. The proliferation of submarines in the Indo-Pacific certainly warrants close attention being paid to this decision. For starters, we need a clear understanding that ASW is about much more than just what can be expected from one ship, no matter how sophisticated the fit-out. But who understands this esoteric field?...

China is Planning a "Polar Silk Road"

By The Strategist 2018-04-27 19:56:00

[By Mike Scrafton] Under Xi Jinping, China has a grand strategy to reshape the current geopolitical landscape. Xi has set out an integrated and coherent set of ideas about China’s ultimate objectives in the international system, and how it should go about achieving them over the coming decades. That’s the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Chinese government ‘has mobilized the country’s political, diplomatic, intellectual, economic and financial resources’ to meet ‘the most pressing internal and external economic and strategic challenges faced by China’. The effective power...