Water Wars: Chinese Military Takes Aim While Biden’s China Strategy Takes Shape
The Theodore Roosevelt and Nimitz Carrier Strike Groups conduct dual-carrier operations in the South China Sea on Feb. 9, 2021. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Elliot Schaudt)
The U.S. and Chinese militaries have continued to confront one another near Taiwan and in the South China Sea in the early weeks of the Biden administration. Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft conducted a simulated strike against a U.S. aircraft carrier in January 2021, while Taiwan has experienced near-daily incursions into its airspace by Chinese aircraft. The U.S. Navy’s persistent operations in the South China Sea and diplomatic pronouncements from senior U.S. officials indicate that the Biden administration is largely staying the course in confronting Chinese intimidation in the region. Yet, unlike the Trump administration, Biden and his team appear keen to bring U.S. allies alon
But this dream never hit the water for many different reasons.
Late into the Cold War, the Soviet military hatched a wildly ambitious scheme to become a blue-water Navy. The 1991 collapse closed that chapter in Soviet military history, but Russia’s lingering maritime ambitions remain.
In the late 1960s, the Soviet shipbuilding industry began to develop its first nuclear-powered aircraft cruiser. Project 1160 Orel (“Eagle”) was a nuclear-powered supercarrier with a displacement of around 80,000 tons. Orel would have featured steam catapults, carrying as many as seventy aircraft. In line with the Soviet concept of a “heavy aviation cruiser,” the proposed supercarrier would have differed from its western counterparts with a robust onboard arsenal of sixteen P-700 Granit anti-ship cruise missiles. By the early 1970s, the project was abandoned due to cost concerns and succeeded by the smaller and much less ambitious Kiev class of conventionally powered carriers.
Johnston (DD-557).
1 Declaring to his new crew and guests, “This is going to be a fighting ship,” he motioned toward the bunting-draped destroyer and added, “I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now.” He continued resolutely, “I will never again retreat from an enemy force.”
In recognition of his valiant spirit and heroism in fighting his ship until she sank in the Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944, Evans posthumously was awarded the Medal of Honor, and the culture he set serves as an example to all Navy ships striving for battle-minded and combat-ready crews.
The 3M22 Tsirkon is a part of a long-standing modernization effort by the Russian Navy.
The Russian Navy is arming its attack submarines with a first-of-its-kind submarine-launched hypersonic missile engineered to travel 600 miles at Mach 8 speeds toward ship targets at sea as well as fixed land targets within range.
The addition of the missile, which is now reported to be in testing for deployment, is now taking place as part of Russia’s Project 949AM submarine modernization effort arming the Irkutsk submarine for hypersonic attack by 2023, according to a report from Russia’s TASS news agency. The new missile is called the 3M22 Tsirkon, according to the TASS report.
English By Ralph Jennings Share on Facebook Print this page
TAIPEI, TAIWAN - A magazine with ties to the Chinese armed forces has acknowledged China would have difficulty in defending its artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. Analysts see the article as a signal to the incoming U.S. administration that it should not force Beijing to further fortify the islets.
Bases on a network of reefs and atolls, where Beijing has used landfills to create space for airstrips and other military infrastructure, are hard to defend because of their distance from mainland China, the monthly magazine Naval and Merchant Ships said in its most recent edition.