First, let me prep you for this story.This story comes from Time Magazine. It is about the sudden arrival of 462 Tomahawk Cruise missiles on 3 Ohio Class "Boomer" submarines that had been refitted to carry cruise missiles instead of nuclear winter-bearing Tridents.
Let me tell you why I think this is a dramatic event:
I used to be Navy. You NEVER see these boats (yes, call them boats). They go down as soon as they hit properly deep waters. They don't come up until 9 months later, and in the same spot they went down. You can't get near them on the bases, without clearance. In fact, sub stations are pretty much segregated from other types of sailors and bases altogether. You will never set foot on one of these boats without a Top Secret clearance. Not Secret - Top Secret). In fact, my first reaction to this story was "How did they get that picture of that sub?"
I can't emphasize enough, how much of a shock to the Chinese it must have been for these three boats to simply surface, in plain site, in the Pacific theater. A very, very strong message.
On the other hand (and to be fair), this same article says that the US is responding to requests from Australia, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Viet Nam to respond to increasingly aggressive behavior by the Chinese navy in the area. Well, that sounds good too. I think.
U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send a Message
Now we all know that things are getting a little dicey in those parts. After all, there is North Korea, China, albeit grudginly, will stand for North Korea. There is also the scheduled (and repeating) rhetoric from China about Taiwan. Long story short: China thinks that the island nation of Taiwan, democratically goverened for 60 years, belongs to The People's Republic of China (Red China, as we called it in the 60's).
In January of 2010, the Chinese displayed to the world her ability to take a traveling missile out with another (both Chinese missiles). Don't forget that they took out one of their own satellites, in the same kind of display earlier. The more recent demonstration is said to be because they were pissed that we sold a Tomahawk based missile defense system to Taiwan. That story (again from Time) is here:
China's Missile Test: A Symbolic Warning to U.S.
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