It has been 12 minutes since a catapult slung Labranche’s plane from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and Labranche is preparing to drop a pair of 225-kilogram bombs into the Indian Ocean’s two-metre swells.
Labranche checks his radar and scans the blur of blue below. Before he can release his payload on this practice run, he needs to make sure no one is within 16 kilometres.
There’s no telling whose fishing trawlers, research vessels or submarines are plying these waters.
A 21st-century Great Game is unfolding in the Asia Pacific, a region that accounts for more than half the world’s population and many emerging powers. Some, such as China, India, Pakistan and North Korea, are nuclear-armed rivals who have battled before.
As these regional rivals vie for control of trade routes, fishing stocks and rich, untapped oil and gas deposits, they are expanding and modernizing their maritime forces, conducting war games and opening naval bases in what has become the most perilous arms race in the world.
At the same time, the U.S. is trying to reestablish a dominant presence in the region, strengthening ties to some countries, including the Philippines and Australia, and trying to warm relations with others, such as Burma (Myanmar).
With the U.S. pledging to send more troops and ships to the Asia Pacific, regional neighbours want to coax China to be more open at the negotiating table. Ten Southeast Asian nations this week agreed on a code of conduct to prevent disputes over the South China Sea from escalating into open conflict. China has refused to sign the pact.
“The more militarized the region becomes the harder it is to resolve conflicts,” says Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbradt, a China analyst with the International Crisis Group, which works to defuse conflicts.
“You have increasing harassment of fishermen in disputed waters, which becomes a proxy for bigger issues of claimed territory,” she says. “It can easily spiral into a security dilemma, especially when nationalist sentiments in the region are increasing. There’s a real pressure in these countries not to cave in on disputes, and when you’ve been telling people for 50 years that you have a claim, it’s hard to agree to go to an international tribunal and live with its decisions.”
China is the pacesetter. It is said to be spending $106 billion this year alone on its military, up from $14 billion in 2000. It recently began sea trials on its first aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang, and is developing an anti-ship ballistic missile that can penetrate the defences of U.S. aircraft carriers, according to its military.
India — whose first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, once wrote, “to be secure on land we must be supreme at sea” — bought a Russian-built attack submarine, the Chakra, in January. It’s the first nuclear-powered sub India has operated in 20 years.
India’s first locally built aircraft carriers, the Vikramaditya and Vikrant, are scheduled to join the navy in 2013 and 2014.
South Korea last year began construction on a $970-million naval base for 20 warships, including submarines.
Australia, which has signalled it will build a sub fleet after construction is finished on three destroyers, recently agreed to allow the U.S. navy to station 2,500 marines in Darwin, while the Philippines is in talks with the U.S. about expanding an American military presence there.
Half a world away, the U.S. looms over the islands, straits and channels of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, a region U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called a “national interest.”
In January, President Barack Obama said the U.S. would “pivot” and “rebalance” its global military forces toward the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. is concerned about China’s sweeping claims of sovereignty, such as its directive to foreign oil companies not to help Vietnam develop oilfields in the South China Sea.
While the U.S. Defence Department has been ordered to pare spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years, Obama has mostly spared the navy from cuts. In June, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told a conference in Singapore that by 2020, 60 per cent of U.S. warships, including six aircraft-carrier groups, would be stationed in the Asia-Pacific.
Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in November’s presidential election, has pledged to increase the naval fleet from 285 warships to 346.
“In many respects, the broader Pacific will be the most dynamic and significant part of the world for American interests for many decades to come,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns said in November.
The U.S. announced last year it would develop long-range nuclear-capable bombers and better electronic jammers for the navy.
The military contractors General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman are also building a new stealth destroyer.
The ship, known as the DDG-1000, will cost as much as $3.3 billion and feature a new type of radar that offers improved scanning in shallow coastlines, a wave-piercing hull that leaves a minimal wake, and an electromagnetic rail gun, which employs a magnetic field and electric current to shoot a projectile at several times the speed of sound.
While the navy originally wanted 32 of the DDG-1000s, its order has been trimmed to three.
But Chinese Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor at China’s National Defence University, said the DDG-1000’s high-tech design wouldn’t protect it from a group of fishing boats packed with explosives. If enough fishing boats could be mobilized, the DDG-1000 “would be a goner,” Zhaozhong said recently on CCTV, China’s public broadcaster.
History would seem to support Zhaozhong.
During the Falklands War in 1982, Argentina used a single $200,000 air-to-surface missile to sink a $50-million destroyer, HMS Sheffield. And in 1967, an Egyptian vessel used several guided missiles to sink an Israeli destroyer.
Meanwhile, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Bangladesh have either acquired submarines or plan to buy them. Japan is increasing its 18-sub fleet to 24.
And China has more than 68 subs, three nuclear-powered, according to The Military Balance in Asia, a May 2011 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“For most countries, it’s not about a fight, it’s about the ability to dispatch to preserve your quarter,” says Mike Hennessy, a professor of naval history at the Royal Military College of Canada. “It’s about being able to intimidate so your claims go unchallenged.”
Throughout the sprawling Asia Pacific region, there is no shortage of maritime claims.
The biggest dispute is over the Spratly Islands, a barren patch of 750 islets, coral reefs and outcroppings in the South China Sea about 350 kilometres southeast of Vietnam and 900 kilometres southeast of China.
For more than 50 years, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have fought for control of the archipelago. In 1956, a Filipino businessman named Tomas Clomas arrived at the islands and declared an independent country, Freedomland.
Manila rejected the suggestion but claimed the islands, occupying some with armed troops since 1968. Last year, Vietnam announced that six monks who belong to the government-sanctioned wing of the Buddhist church would set up temples and live on several islands in the Spratlys chain, presumably to establish Vietnam’s claim.
In April, the Philippines and Vietnam said they would hold soccer and basketball matches in the Spratlys, the same day a Chinese cruise ship completed a voyage to the disputed territory.
At first glance, the Spratlys seem to hold scarce value. Some of the islands actually disappear below the water at high tide.
But, the Spratlys offer a prime location to monitor the shipping lanes of the South China Sea. More important, the seabed is believed to contain as much as 225 billion barrels worth oil and natural gas — enough to fuel Canada for 280 years, based on current consumption of about 2.2 million barrels per day. (The Athabasca oilsands formation, by contrast, is estimated to contain 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil.)
It’s no wonder China covets the Spratlys. The world’s fastest-growing economy, China uses five times as much oil and gas as Canada, but its supply of hydroelectricity declined by 40 per cent last year because of a prolonged drought.
When the Philippines announced recently that it would work with a U.K. company to explore for deposits near the Spratlys, China’s government-owned Global Times newspaper wrote an editorial that China should strike first.
“Everything will be burned to the ground should a military conflict break out,” the paper argued. “We shouldn’t waste the opportunity to launch some tiny-scale battles that could deter provocateurs from going further.”
Oil and gas are only one reason for the naval buildup.
The Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca off Indonesia combine to form a crucial trade route. At least 40 per cent of the world’s oil is carried aboard tankers that travel these waters.
An estimated 700 million people live near the South China Sea and depend on the rich fishing stocks for their livelihoods, as well as 80 per cent of their diets. Vietnam, for instance, estimates its population of 87 million will surge by 25 per cent by 2050 and it will need additional food and fish.
This spring, on April 8, China and the Philippines quarrelled in a stretch known as the Scarborough Shoal after the Philippine Navy discovered coral, giant clams and live sharks on a Chinese boat. The Philippines announced the Chinese fishermen would be arrested for poaching.
The showdown, some 200 kilometres west of the Philippine island of Luzon, simmered for more than two months. Then, on June 17, the Philippines ordered its two ships to withdraw. The day before they left, China had seven large ships and as many as 26 fishing boats stationed at the shoal, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
China has alienated and antagonized its regional neighbours during the past two few years over a string of incidents, pushing them “into a coalition and toward the Americans,” says M. Taylor Fravel, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has written a book about China’s territorial issues.
Last year, a boat owned by PetroVietnam was surveying the ocean floor about 120 kilometres south of Vietnam and 600 kilometres from China’s Hainan Island. Three Chinese patrol vessels intercepted the Vietnamese ship and cut its cables to the seabed. China’s foreign ministry blamed Vietnam for the clash, claiming its oil and gas operations “undermined China’s interests and jurisdictional rights.”
That incident came 10 months after the U.S. and Vietnam began joint naval exercises in the South China Sea.
“I think China has realized the open hostility has been a mistake and you’re seeing it take a more moderate approach now,” Fravel says.
“It’s unarmed or lightly armed vessels, the Chinese version of the coast guard, who are responding to conflicts, not its navy.”
Fravel says China is also becoming better at international diplomacy, using civilian maritime law agencies to press its claims in conjunction with its navy, which is becoming formidable.
In 1990, China’s navy amounted to two Soviet-era destroyers. By 2011, China had 71 frigates and destroyers and 71 submarines, as well as its first aircraft carrier.
China bought HMAS Melbourne aircraft carrier from Australia in 1985. Its engineers spent years dissecting the ship and building a replica flight deck to train pilots. Two other carriers, the Minsk and the Kiev, were bought from Russia and they, too, were studied by engineers before being converted into floating theme parks.
In August 2011, the Shi Lang, China’s first aircraft carrier left port. It is named for the Chinese general who conquered Taiwan in 1681.
Russia built the Varyag — as the Shi Lang was first known — in 1990; two years later, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, its ownership was transferred to Ukraine. In 1998, China bought the carrier from Ukraine for $20 million. China said the vessel would become an aircraft carrier-themed hotel.
Instead, the Varyag was rechristened and became the first of five carriers China hopes to launch by 2050.
China is also using its financial power to expand its influence in the Asia Pacific.
China’s Export-Import Bank is financing 85 per cent of a $1-billion port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka. The Chinese government is also building a $200-million port in Pakistan near the Strait of Hormuz and another port and pipeline in Burma to bring natural gas to China.
China’s loans and construction of airports, roads and ports has been called a “string of pearls” strategy, a concerted effort to develop markets for their goods and services in economically stunted parts of Asia.
The U.S. and others shouldn’t view China’s buildup as threatening, says Christian Le Miere, a naval expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London.
“It’s not like you’re going to see China strangling world trade,” Le Miere says. “Everyone wants open and free shipping lanes.”
Still, good relations can quickly sour and become games of brinksmanship.
In 2010, a South Korean corvette called the Cheonan was on a routine patrol in the Yellow Sea when it was sunk near Baengnyeong, 22 kilometres from the North Korean coast. Forty-six South Korean sailors died. An investigation concluded the warship had been crippled by a torpedo from a mini-submarine.
“No one can predict what North Korea will do, and no one can say what China will do if the U.S. rushes in to help South Korea,” says David Zimmerman, a professor of military history at British Columbia’s University of Victoria.
Tensions are already raw between South Korea and China.
Last December, a South Korean coast guard commando was stabbed and another injured after they arrested nine Chinese fishermen who had been illegally fishing in the Yellow Sea.
After the commandos boarded one fishing vessel, another rammed it, prompting fishermen on board to start attacking the commandos. The captain of the Chinese fishing boat smashed a window and used broken glass to kill the commando.
“One of the reasons for worry is that there is no code of conduct when there are incidents at sea,” says Kleine-Ahlbradt of the International Crisis Group. “During the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union, there would be at least one confrontation between vessels each year but we never heard about it because there was an agreement known as the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement to settle those disputes. China hasn’t wanted to negotiate that kind of agreement.”
While the U.S. argues its interests in the region are based on ensuring ships receive free passage in international waters and regional countries enjoy fair access to mineral deposits, China contends the U.S. is a cunning meddler.
To monitor shipping routes, the U.S. says it’s necessary to patrol waters within a 321-kilometre exclusive economic zone of China’s shores.
“They’re actually just spying on Chinese subs as they leave port,” says a former United Nations official. “The U.S. would say that they would respect China’s right to do the same off the coast of Florida, but it’s not a fair comparison. It would take years before China’s in a position to have subs there, if they are able to do it at all.”
The U.S. has discussed deploying P3C Orion spy planes to the Philippines to monitor disputed areas in the South China Sea.
Even though the U.S. holds an advantage both in technology and the number of vessels, military strategists and security hawks note the U.S. now has 285 ships, its smallest naval fleet since 1916 and down from a 600-ship fleet during the Reagan years. The average age of its ships is approaching 20 years.
Still, the U.S. remains far ahead of its rivals. Of the 22 operational aircraft carriers in the world, according to the trade journal Jane’s Guide to Fighting Ships, the U.S. has 11. They form the backbone of the American fleet.
“If the U.S. doesn’t have a base in a country, it’s irrelevant,” says Zimmerman. “They can just bring their carriers around and they have a major airbase right there. They’re powerful enough that one carrier group could defeat the entire Iranian air force.”
The power and size of carrier battle group is difficult to overstate. Carriers like the Carl Vinson are home to as many as 85 aircraft, as well as vast stores of ammunition and fuel. A carrier’s protective escorts usually include two guided missile cruisers, two destroyers, a frigate, two submarines and a supply ship.
In 1981, after Libya claimed the Gulf of Sidra was within its territorial waters, threatening to punish anyone who crossed a “line of death,” the aircraft carrier Nimitz was dispatched to the region. Two Libyan fighters were subsequently shot down and Libya backed down.
Twenty years later, with China conducting a series of naval war games, the U.S. sent two carriers, the Constellation and Carl Vinson, to participate in a drill off the coast of Taiwan.
“The fact is, as long as carriers are in a region, they represent pressure,” Zimmerman says. “The message is, ‘We can, if we decide we have to, strike at you and there’s little you can do about it.’”
As Labranche waited in his office aboard the Carl Vinson for the last of his pilots to touch down on deck following their daily missions, he said technology and decades of experience give the U.S. an advantage over its rivals.
Labranche, 51, said he recently met a Russian pilot who was his country’s most experienced at landing on a carrier at sea. That pilot had 100 landings. Labranche has 1,300.
“So what do I have, a factor of 13?” Labranche said. “That’s huge and in this game, experience is gold.”
Labranche said it would take China years to catch up.
“All the lessons you learn on a ship like a carrier are written in blood. This takes time and we’ve had a 60-year head start.”
It’s almost 10 p.m. aboard the Carl Vinson, which is now about 500 kilometres off the western coast of Australia, and the last few planes are landing for the day.
Though his ship is only two days away from docking in Perth, the Carl Vinson could, in five days, easily make its way through the South China Sea to within sight of Hong Kong.
Labranche would have no reservation about going, even if it meant conflict with nuclear-armed China.
“You pick a fight with one of us, you pick a fight with all of us,” he says “If you’re not hostile with us, we don’t want to be kinetic, but we will if we have to. It’s all in the name of global peace.”
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Rick Westhead
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