South China/West Philippine Sea

[Bugatti Veyron]

You can say it's a futile endeavor but you'll never know what the future holds. In the article below, Hillary Clinton wanted a common ASEAN stand on Scarborough Shoal. In my opinion, Hillary Clinton wanted a united ASEAN stand against China so that if China still continues its expansionist policies, the US can say that it's not only RP that is complaining against China. The US wants as many countries as possible to make a stand against China so that if it takes military actions against the Chinese, it can say that it is not doing it for one country, it is doing it for an entire region.

 

http://www.rappler.c...-on-scarborough

 

 

Yes I think this is an excellent analysis of the situation in this part of the world. You can imagine how complicated the life is of the US Secretary of State. No wonder Hillary got sick. Or at least pretended to be sick so she could retire from this extremely stressful job.

[Bugatti Veyron]

Somebody said "if we do not fight together, we will surely hang together".

 

One for all and all for one. The question is how will we finally unite as one bloc? The only way I see this happening is if the individual ASEAN nations are threatened in one way or another by China. Only then will we unite. But I think China is too smart to do anything which would provoke member ASEAN countries to band together. China knows that there is strength in a unified ASEAN so the last thing it wants is make member nations unite by threatening all the members of ASEAN at the same time.

 

China may threaten the Phlippines without necessarily antagonizing Malaysia or Vietnam. Or antagonize Vietnam without antagonizing Singapore or Indonesia. It will threaten a member nation but not all the ASEAN nations at once.

[Bugatti Veyron]

FYI:

February 2, 2013: Japan has agreed to provide the Philippines with twelve patrol boats. Ten will be 180 ton, 40 meter (124 foot) vessels and the other two are older 1,700 ton, 97 meter (300 foot) ships. The smaller boats have a crew of about 25 while the larger two have about fifty sailors to run it. The larger ship has a helicopter pad in the rear and carries three small speedboats for boarding parties. Both classes of ships are lightly armed, with a 20-30mm autocannon, machine-guns, and assault rifles. Both classes are seagoing patrol vessels, although the larger ships can stay out for weeks at a time compared to less than a week for the smaller boats.

 

The two larger ships are to arrive this year and the ten smaller ones next year. Japan and the Philippines have joined forces to confront Chinese claims to most of the reefs and rocks in the South China Sea and waters between China and South Korea and Japan. Japan has a lot of money and the Philippines is broke. Both nations have islands near their coasts that China claims.

 

This is the best news I've heard yet. Even if Japan is not part of ASEAN, it has been threatened repeatedly by its giant neighbor to the west. Tenisons were very high between China and Japan just recently and I suppose this is the reason Japan decided to enter into a direct alliance with the Phlippines against China. China made the mistake of antagoizing 2 countries more or less at the same time. If it antagonizes another country such as Vietnam, then maybe our party will increase from 2 to 3. The more countries China antagonizes, the better for us.

 

I kinda recall China getting into a spat with Russia recently. The Russias dealt the Chinese a decisive military blow. No retaliation from China. It knows that Russia is still a mighty military power and will not cross swords with its giant neighbor to the north.

[maxiev]

FYI:

"Japan has long relied on commercial photo satellites, and whatever they could get from the Americans. But for high resolution shots, on demand, of North Korea, and electronic eavesdropping from space, they need their own spy satellites. It is believed that the Japanese spy satellites are also being used to watch military developments in China and Russia."

 

This means that they can or are watching any signs of build-up like foe an invasion. The Japanese might be willing to share intel or at least give warning.

It would be great if Japan shares valuable intel with the Philippines and other ASEAN countries. But even if Japan warns us of an impending attack by China, what can we do militarily? The warning doesn't do us any good if we can't defend ourselves. I think what is needed desperately is a deterrent to prevent China from using force. I can think of no other nation that can act as a deterrent except the US. The mighty US military plus the fact that the China has a lot of money invested in the US may make China tow the line.

 

I hope this isn't wishful thinking.

Edited February 4, 2013 by maxiev

[tk421]

China just sent in warships to the area. Negotiations, it seems, are over.

[maxiev]

- Well, we kicked the US out because of our arrogance and short-sightedness; people who led the should be named as such just to shame them...Anyway, knowing that they are building up can help us prepare and we can tell them we know. "Surprise" is helpful in an attack, since it is a force multiplier. The intel can be given to the press just for them to sensationalize and we do not even have to announce it to the world. The world does not listen too much if someone always shout "wolf".

As I recall, JPE was one of those who spearheaded the ouster of the US from the Philippines. Which isn't actually the truth. The truth is the Americans decided to abandon their bases because of the devastation brought about by Mt. Pinatubo. The Americans probably figured the cost to clean up the bases was too high and not worth the effort especially with a hostile Philippine government telling them to leave.

[Bugatti Veyron]

I must agree with VUBULI, it will be sunk, although it will take more than 5 or the 5 that get through the defense, but no sane admiral will put a carrier in the confined waters of the West Philippine Sea. "Quantity has a quality of it's own", those are tactics. However, that will mean that the US ...and Allies (NATO, Australia, Japan, and South Korea will have to respond) and all bets are off...far fetch scenario. china will confine itself to the Philippines; looking at the stats, the chinese do not need their navy just the coast guard. They will want a repeat of what they did with Vietnam back in the 80's. And that is me being an armchair admiral.

The Chinese navy, for all its power, is no match against the superior US navy. I highly doubt if China will want to do anything that will provoke American retaliation. Nobody will ever forget what transpired after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Or what happened to al Qaeda's leader and the Taliban. America is a country steeped on war. It's history is one of war. From the Declaration of Independence in 1776, America has been at war beginning with the American Revolution against the British, the American Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, World War 1, World War 2, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars parts 1 and 2. Each war brought new innovations in the fields of tactics and weapons development.

 

There is no doubt that America posseses the most powerful military in the world as of the present. A US analyst mentioned this but said that this may all change in 10 years or so.

 

In the meantime, I think China will lie low and will prevent a direct confrontation with the US. Attacking a US warship constitutes a direct confrontation.

[sonnyt111]

NATO? What are you talking about? The NATO countries are on the other side of the world. With the exception of the US, which is one of our staunchest alllies, the NATO countries wouldn't really care that much with the events happening in the Southeast Asian region.

 

Read up on the Aegis Missile Defense System to know what I'm saying.

If you take NATO out of the equation, do you think Australia, Japan and South Korea will band together with the US if a shooting war (God forbid) erupts between the US and China?

[sonnyt111]

Are Japan, Australia and South Korea NATO members? You're talking about countries half a world away.

 

The US has mutual defense treaties/agreements with these countries and should there be a shooting war with China, the three countries you mentioned are obliged to assist the US. Of course, China has to strike first in order for their treaties to take effect.

 

That's why I mentioned removing NATO from the equation. NATO, as a political and security alliance, includes European nations, the United States, and Canada. NATO is dedicated to peace and security in that part of the world. Hence it would obviously not be involved in peace and security in our part of the world.

 

The mutual defense treaties between United States, Japan, South Korea and Australia probably act as sufficient deterrent towards Chinese hostility.

 

That aside, check out this piece of North Korean propaganda uploaded onto YouTube.

 

http://news.yahoo.co...-140005920.html

Edited February 5, 2013 by sonnyt111

[tk421]

Wow China is getting serious. In its row with Japan, they actually made a radar weapons lock on Japanese naval vessels.

[airport-noo]

-NATO is a military alliance, an attack on one will be considered as an attack on everyone, hence why the Alliance was in Afghanistan. Attacking an American ship is an attack on the US. Somebody just need to read the charter. That was made clear to me in Brussels.

We're not part of NATO but in 2003 we were designated a MNNA (Major Non-NATO Ally). The benefits of MNNA doesn't include going to war for our sake; it's mostly training & logistics cooperation (wikipedia). Personally, I think if war breaks out the US participation will depend on where it's fought. If the fight is in the sea to decide who puts a flag on disputed territory, the US will not go to war for that. Maybe they'll help us with arms/supplies but not live bodies. If China starts invading us then that's a different story. South Korea wasn't MNNA until the 80's but freedom-loving countries like Philippines (even Puerto Rico) sent troops without any formal military alliance when the S.Koreans called for help.

[dungeonbaby]

this is what i've been saying we should be doing: taiwan students, teachers to camp in spratlys

[dungeonbaby]

Good idea. The question now is, how long can these students camp on Taiwan's portion of the Spratlys? Or do they have relievers on a rotation basis so that Taiwan's portion of the Spratlys would always have Taiwanese on it?

 

a good idea but you know as well as i do that this was a point of contention just last year. what does occupation amount to?

 

anyway, the time frame is being kept under wraps for security reasons, but the taiwanese will be sending postcards from the spratlys. apparently they already have LSTs there, and frigates. can't confirm this last bit of info though.

[tk421]

Occupation is one thing. Asserting control is another. I don't think we can do the latter.

[maxiev]

We're not part of NATO but in 2003 we were designated a MNNA (Major Non-NATO Ally). The benefits of MNNA doesn't include going to war for our sake; it's mostly training & logistics cooperation (wikipedia). Personally, I think if war breaks out the US participation will depend on where it's fought. If the fight is in the sea to decide who puts a flag on disputed territory, the US will not go to war for that. Maybe they'll help us with arms/supplies but not live bodies. If China starts invading us then that's a different story. South Korea wasn't MNNA until the 80's but freedom-loving countries like Philippines (even Puerto Rico) sent troops without any formal military alliance when the S.Koreans called for help.

I concur with this analysis.