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Old 02-04-07, 10:16 AM   #8
SeaQueen
Naval Royalty
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Washington, DC
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It really depends on what you mean by "opened ocean." All naval warfare is ultimately intended to influence events on land, and it always has been. These days that's by making strikes with aircraft and cruise missiles, landing Marines and SOF, raiding supply routes and commerce, and by delivering strikes with ballistic missiles. Since events at sea are driven by events on land, the tendancy is for war at sea to almost always be off the coast of somewhere.

It seems to me that "blue water" conflicts mean different things to different people. To ASW people, it usually means deep enough to have at least one reliable convergence zone. Well... there's places off the coast of Taiwan and Guam where that's the case. In that sense, in a hypothetical conflict with China, there might be "blue water" engagements tomorrow.

And to make things really interesting, Putin is really not a nice fellow and a resurgent Russia (the conflict nobody wants to think about anymore) lead by politician trying to re-establish the former Soviet empire, albeit with a capitalist bend, would be an interesting problem, I think. I dunno... though, the Cold War was so much more interesting than conflicts in the present day. Don't you think?
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