It would be no easy task, though.
Here s What You Need To Remember: Yes, American carriers are heavily armored and so forth, as carrier proponents like to say, and yes, sinking one would represent no easy feat. That’s commonplace. But we’ve known for nearly a century that armored ships can be sunk by aerial, surface, or subsurface attack.
Could North Korea’s armed forces sink an American aircraft carrier? Yes depending on what type of carrier they confront, how skillfully U.S. Navy commanders employ the flattop and its consorts, how well North Korean warriors know the tactical surroundings, and, most crucially, whom fortune favors in combat. Fortune is a fickle ally, prone to switch sides and back again in battle. It’s doubtful an American carrier would fall prey to undersea or aerial attack but only the foolish say
Or, at any rate, it can’t do so lawfully. It could conceivably do so through conquest, enforced afterward by a constant military presence. Defenders of freedom of the sea, consequently, must heed General Chang’s entreaty. Southeast Asians and their external allies must take such statements seriously devoting ample forethought to the prospect of marine combat in the South China Sea.
That’s the first point about a people’s war at sea. A clash of arms is possible. Statesmen and commanders in places like Manila, Hanoi, and Washington must not discount Chang’s words as mere bluster.
Indeed, it’s doubtful China could comply with the UNCLOS tribunal’s ruling at this stage, even if the Chinese Communist Party leadership wished to. Think about the image compliance would project at home. For two decades now, Beijing has invested lavishly in a great navy, and backed that navy up with shore-based firepower in the form of combat aircraft, anti-ship missile batteries, and short-r
Vladimir Putin Has Played Russia s a Bad Hand Well: Here s Russia s Strategy
It’s worth asking how Moscow interprets Russia’s historic life interests eighty years hence. What do Russians want today?
Here s What You Need To Remember: The Russian armed forces like all armed forces have to live within their means. Russia depends heavily on exporting oil and natural gas, so low energy prices constrict its national income and thus its ability to afford pricey armaments.
Winston Churchill’s truism that Russia is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” remains as acute as it was when he articulated it during an October 1939 BBC radio address. It verges on impossible to forecast what Moscow will do tactically. What it will do strategically, however, is more intelligible and thus more predictable.
The U.S. Navy Can t Destroy North Korea, But It Might Not Need To.
Seapower furnishes the U.S military with options in its confrontation with North Korea, but none of them promises easy, quick, or painless results. Thankfully, this is not lost on high-ranking defense officials.
Here s What You Need To Remember: It’s possible to overcome an antagonist with minimal loss of life and treasure to both contenders. Indeed, it’s highly desirable.
How can the U.S. Navy destroy North Korea should Washington give the word? It can’t. Or at least it stands little chance of doing so by its lonesome barring improbable circumstances. What the navy can do is contribute to a joint or multinational campaign that destroys the Northern regime or its armed forces. But even that would involve perils, hardships, and steep costs.
pledged to close the Strait of Hormuz to surface traffic and has publicly
toyed with the idea of charging ships a toll to traverse the narrow waterway.
That chronic pain gnawing at officialdom’s guts is bipartisan. Presidential administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, keep trying to draw down the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf region in particular, to attend to more pressing priorities. Back in 2012 the Obama administration
vowed to “pivot” or “rebalance,” from the Middle East to the Pacific theater to counterbalance China. President Donald Trump and his lieutenants
proclaim that an age of great-power competition is upon us. Like their Democratic forerunners, they have signaled their desire to reapportion finite U.S. diplomatic and military resources elsewhere around the Eurasian perimeter say, to the South China Sea or Baltic Sea.