ONGOING THREAD
 

ahem: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=214616 POST #17:D [QUOTE: me:03:]One things for certain: it's a' comin' They're not 'rattlin' the sabre'yet! but they're sure forging it![/QUOTE] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32331964 Nothing like a 10, 000 ft runway built on a reef in the middle of the 'Cow's Lick' of Chinese expansion. It's capable of accommodating military aircraft...and like Midway in WWII, is in reality a 'carrier you cannot sink' this one will bear monitoring. The slow trudge of Sino-dominance in the Western Pacific is well underway.

My thoughts exactly....the closer to their homeland meaning their boldness will become greater.

This area will fast become a no-fly zone at this rate and it was quite concerning to learn that civilian flightpaths are practically right above them.

The Fight To Control The South China Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmWWVtcOWxc

Plus, threads merged, thanks Aktung. :up:

http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibti...?itok=Mi9Qm15RAn aerial photo taken though a glass window of a Philippine military plane shows the alleged on-going land reclamation by China on mischief reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, Philippines, May 11, 2015.
"The U.S., which said that the man-made islands cannot be recognized as sovereign Chinese territory, may be expecting that any possible deployments of military units in the region would impact the Chinese aggression. However, the move could also backfire if China decides to double down its efforts in defiance of the U.S., the Journal reported.
“The risk of this is that China may use such deployments as a reason to try to challenge or confront U.S. forces,” Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Chinese embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan told Reuters that China had “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly Islands, and that the country’s construction in the area was “reasonable, justified and lawful.”
China has expanded the artificial islands in the Spratly Islands to 2,000 acres of land, which is significantly up from 500 acres last year, according to a February estimate by experts who studied the images released by IHS Jane’s, a defense intelligence provider." http://www.ibtimes.com/us-military-mulls-sending-planes-navy-ships-counter-chinese-expansion-south-china-sea-1919959 It is well past time to forge a pact with Viet-Nam, Japan, Brunei and Malaysia and put an extremely forceful halt to this expansion.

China’s Military Blueprint: Bigger Navy, Bigger Global Role

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordp...15/05/plan.jpg

Yesterday in the Danish news paper, I read this
"Make no mistake about it: the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law admits it"
Said by the Minister of defense Ash Carter

It was about this growing tension between USA and China.

Markus

Yeah, this has the potential to be B.A.D.

China isn't putting all that money and effort into those islands to be told no. :hmmm:

Building of Islands Is Debated, but China and U.S. Skirt Conflict at Talks
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/wo...alks.html?_r=0

Now the Ruskies have something to say

http://rt.com/news/263533-rusia-mult...l-navy-drills/

Markus

reactivate the Iowas-the great white fleet revisited
 

We seriously need to revisit T. Roosevelt 101: send 'em out and see who really wants to enforce what. http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/016126.jpgJust one Iowa led battle-group is impressive;http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ay%2C_1987.jpg

Spratly Islands
 

Tom Clancy wrote a great number of novels such as The hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, The Sum of all fears and many others. These novels evolved into screenplays which became the basis for the highly acclaimed movies of the same name. Tom also wrote a book titled simply " SSN " detailing a Sino / U.S scenario or war over the Sprately Islands which are supposed to have huge deposits of untapped oil.

It's Ironic That Tom, who was in Insurance before writing his novels foresaw the Sprately Island dispute many years before it has actually happened.

Hopefully these disputes can all be resolved amicably

China says changing position on sea dispute would shame ancestors

Totalitarism's old tricks include ancestor worship
 

War, war never changes.

However your post implies that you could ocupy areas of PRC. What kind of military force would such an action require? At what kind of cost? What I am saying is that unless PRC implodes it would still grow up as a viable challenger in Asia-Pacific area, simply because it's economic power would allow it to.

And this is b/c USA has to project power globaly and not in that specific region, EU states though wealthy are divided and individually are loosing meaningfull ability to project power into Asia-Pacific.

I think that it is a matter of perspective. Ie recent expansion of NATO and coup in Kiev are bad, bad things from our stand point - threats that require reaction. Thus Russian actions are not driven by perceived weakness and lack of deterence, but by perceived threat, thus increasing deterence measures leads to escalation and not balance.

Going to war against Russia or the PRC would be most unwise, as both countries have significant nuclear arsenals (ie US does not enjoy nuclear monopoly of the WW2). This is the only real existential threat US has ever really faced.
Morever a war against either of the countries, even should it stay conventional, would imply significant coasts.

The war in both cases (more so in case of the PRC) would be impossible without decisive US comitment.

I thoroughly agree with your analysis; both Hong Kong and Formosa (Taiwan) are significantly off the coast of China. :up: I do not believe any one would revert to nukes; this is warfare/haggling for economic resources, not national survival-and nobody's that stupid...yet.:timeout: The commitment would most certainly be critical against mainland China as our allies: Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Brunei, India and Viet Nam, all major players, would need to know we would stand the distance. They are the principle "frogs around this pond". The situation map> borrowed from the Chinese minisub thread (thanks Harvs) throws considerable light on the situation.http://resources3.news.com.au/images...d53e0ab2bf.jpg With recent Chinese submarine forays into the Indian Ocean...significant coasts indeed!

If this is a shooting war (and blockade of PRC would result in a shooting war), then PRC would deploy area denial assets, which have sufficient range to deny USN operations in the area... Unless USN is ready to take the risks. Which would mean that it would loose a number of surface ships, probably carrier included.

You couldn't just pressure a regional power into doing things by using military force threats and expect no resistance. If pressure is sufficient (ie an all out war with ocupation of Taiwan), then PRC would engage US bases in the region and may shift to tactical nukes.

Morever balance in the region is shifting, at the moment PRC has sort of parity with other regional players (ie Japan and ROK) and something one could count as a possible conventional superiority. This would change over time, as PRC naval build up goes on. If we take the estimates by globalsecurity.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...a/plan-mod.htm) then things are not looking rosy for the USN to conduct any meaningfull power projection in there even in near future.
The air/naval bases in that southern area further improve the PRC control of the area, further increasing costs of USN power projection in there.

Note that ROK and Japan strongly dislike each other for historic reasons. India and others are unlikely to commit, unless they were directly hit by PRC first. Hence allies in that war should not be taken for granted.

A war with PRC would also imply the need of Russia to be the Western ally, as otherwise blockade of PRC is not possible.

Which is why I cannot see any way out of this. China will try to enforce their idea of sovereignty and dictate to the other countries in the region regarding trade and navigation of this important sea lane. When push comes to shove, either China will have to back down and allow other nations the use of these sea lanes, as International law has always prescribed, or Japan and the US will have to concede and accept this. If the US decides to use military force to back China down, we will end up in another Korean-style war, at least initially. Somewhere down the line, like you say, someone will get fancy with tactical nukes and we will be undergoing our first nuclear exchange. Putin loves to bring up the topic of nukes. I know our current President will be cautious, but he's soon to be replaced, and anyone else is going to be more hawkish than him. So, China may get a surprise when they realize what they've brought on themselves.

Found some really good images of the progress they've made constructing these islands.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphi...uth-china-sea/

I have a bad feeling about this. I do hope they, the countries who are involved in this hot issue,-will find some agreement on which all parties can agree on.

Markus