Welcome to the CavasShips Podcast with Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello…a weekly podcast looking at naval and maritime events and issues of the day – in the US, across the seas and around the world. This week…How should the US respond to the seemingly never-ending rise of China’s Navy? A new effort to focus on Chinese naval and maritime expansion is underway, sponsored by the US Naval Institute’s PROCEEDINGS magazine. Project originator Hunter Stires and veteran analyst Brent Sadler will join us to bore into the issue.
Please send us feedback by DM’ing @CavasShips or @CSSProvision or you can email chriscavas@gmail.com or cservello@defaeroreport.com.
This Week’s Naval Round Up:
Japan released its annual Defense of Japan white paper on July 22. Accompanying the report, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said the military balance between China and Taiwan is shifting in China’s favor. Kishi warned that the combination of continued Chinese pressure and Russia’s war on Ukraine has created the world’s most serious situation since World War II. Among other provisions, the new white paper said that providing Japan with a counter attack capability in case of missile attack is not being excluded.
Japan-based US destroyer BENFOLD made a Taiwan Strait passage July 20, passing through the waterway between Taiwan and mainland China. Earlier in July, on July 13 and 16, the same ship carried out freedom of navigation passages near Chinese-claimed territories in the South China Sea near the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Chinese warships and aircraft tracked the BENFOLD and China vigorously protested the moves, saying the US, quote, “hyped up” the moves.
NATO warships and aircraft are tracking the Russian submarines SEVERODVINSK and VEPR as they travel from their Northern Fleet base near Murmansk to Saint Petersburg for upcoming Russian Navy Day celebrations on July 31, reports Britain’s Ministry of Defence. Each submarine surfaced near the British frigate PORTLAND on July 16 and 19 off Bergen, Norway before the PORTLAND handed over tracking duties to other NATO units. The subs entered the Baltic Sea by July 22.
The Peruvian corvette GUISE [WE-SAY] suffered an engine room fire on July 17 while taking part in RIMPAC exercises near Hawaii. Two injured crew members were medevaced to Honolulu and the fire was extinguished at sea. The corvette returned to Pearl Harbor on July 20 under tow for damage assessment.
In new ship news, Austal USA delivered the new littoral combat ship SANTA BARBARA LCS 32 to the US Navy on July 21. Work continues at the shipyard in Mobile, Alabama on three more Independence-class ships, the AUGUSTA, KINGSVILLE and PIERRE.
Cavas Squawk:
As we’ve just heard, another project is underway to heighten awareness of China’s naval and maritime activities and to encourage a meaningful response from the U.S. Navy. The Maritime COIN project joins other new efforts such as the American Seapower Project and the Navy League’s Center for Maritime Strategy, as well as more established groups, in sounding the alarm and pointing to the need for a more vigorous American response. But there’s one more group that it would be nice to hear from – or simply to open the door. That group is the US Navy itself.
Any number of people out in the western Pacific are reporting – privately and professionally but not so publicly – about China’s continually aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan, even the Coral Sea and many other areas. But we don’t SEE or even HEAR what the Chinese are doing. Hardly ever any video or images or audio recordings of radio transmissions.
When the US Navy challenges China’s excessive territorial claims, whether through Freedom of Navigation maneuvers near disputed territories or Taiwan Strait passages in the waterway between mainland China and Taiwan – the US side almost never shows the Chinese warships or aircraft that are buzzing nearby, or releases the audio of the Chinese radio warnings and protests. Just lame images – yes, lame images – taken on board the US ship of the ship itself, or of people on board intently looking at something we can’t see.
What’s the point of that? You go out, make a demonstration, but don’t even show what’s going on. These images have no impact at all. Yes the Chinese see the American ships, but the American public doesn’t see anything other than images that could have been taken in Chesapeake Bay. Whoop-dee-do.
The Chinese routinely protest these naval maneuvers all over their government-controlled media – stories often picked up by other regional news services. They even released two images of the recent FONOPS of the US destroyer BENFOLD near the Paracel Islands on July 13, one showing the Chinese close by the BENFOLD reportedly shooing away the Americans.
The US Navy itself really doesn’t have to do much to get the word out about what this looks like. Here’s a tip: let the civilian media do it. If the US simply offered media the chance to embark a US cruiser or destroyer or a P-8 aircraft on patrol in the region and simply report what they see, it would go miles to raising awareness of China’s activities – awareness that undoubtedly over time would prompt more support for a more effective response.
There are high-level entities in the American defense and political establishment dead set against such a move – the commander of US Pacific Command, for one, and others in the upper levels of the Pentagon and elsewhere. They are wrong to oppose media access.
From what I’ve heard, the Chinese are aggressive, threatening, sometimes belligerent, sometimes antagonistic, and quite often simply pushy. It would be good if we could see for ourselves and report back to the world.
