State Dept. Makes Us All Look Stooopid

Who does this insult more, the Chinese, the American military, or any thinking person reading it?

As China's first aircraft carrier takes to the open seas today for its inaugural sea trials, the U.S. government directed a pointed question at the Chinese military: Why would you need a warship like that?

"We would welcome any kind of explanation that China would like to give for needing this kind of equipment," U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters today. "We have had concerns for some time and we've been quite open with them with regard to the lack of transparency from China regarding its power projection and its lack of access and denial of capabilities."

This is not helpful.

The PRC is a sovereign nation with legitimate maritime security requirements that are easily understood by anyone with an even rudimentary understanding of where maritime strategy and commerce come together.

The fact that the DOS would ask this in public does too things; it insults the Chinese through its patronizing tone and it makes our nation look like it is led by arrogant imperialists at best, simpletons at worst.

STRATCOM fail.

If I were the Chinese I would respond thusly;

"Here are our plans for our follow-on carrier development. Also, the Chinese people would like to know what plans the United States government has to bring its credit rating to back AAA. Our people worry about their investments. Until the Americans do that and assure worries in the investments by the Chinese people in the sovereign debt of the American government, we do not see the reason for their continued spending on such an unnecessarily large and offensively-minded military.

We have had concerns about the American ability to service their debt for some time and we've been quite open with them with regard to the lack of transparency from the Americans regarding their capabilities to ensure their own economic stability."

As a final note - I find all the wide-eyed panting over the Chinese carrier immature and silly.

It is a limited carrier with a limited airwing. The French CVN Charles de Gualle is a much more capable platform and we have seen what it can do off Libya. Nice, but no biggie.

I am more interested in how we would kill the Chinese carrier if we ever needed to. That is no problem at all.

As a matter of fact - in the case of general war, I would give the job to the Japanese. Their SS could take care of that quite well and no one would know whose submarine took it out until the conflict was over. I've tangled with the Japanese submarine community in RIMPAC. They would do just fine with the mission. Just fine.

Anyway, it would be fun to watch the US 1120s whine that they didn't get the mission.

If you want to nibble your nails over the Chinese, then nibble over the multi-axis "Porcupine Strategy" they have for the Taiwan Strait that wants to make the prospect so painful to contemplate that we simply won't go there. They don't need a carrier for that. SS, Houbei Class, ASCM, ASBM, H-6M and other land based long range strike aircraft; that is what you should focus on; that is the challenge. Simple, but in numbers and worth a sober ponder.

Against our carriers coming across the Pacific, they only need to get lucky once; we have to get lucky every time.

Like Lucius says;

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."