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The Pentagon recently began funding maritime security projects with countries in the South China Sea aimed at giving them the capability to monitor activities in their territorial waters and air space amidst concerns of regional Chinese expansion. Read More
The following is the April 1, 2016 Congressional Research Service report, Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Disputes Involving China. Read More
Destruction in Katmandu on April 26, 2015. Photo by Krish Dulal
As terrible as the loss of life and damage has been since the April 25, Gorkha earthquake in Nepal, an American and Nepalese training exercise a week before the quake predicted an even worse result, U.S. officials involved with the relief effort told USNI News on Wednesday. Read More
This week’s visit by People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to the Russian port of Novorossiysk comes amid reports Russia is considering a purchase of PLAN Type 054A frigates. Unthinkable just ten years ago, it’s a reminder of how far China’s domestic arms industry has come since the West imposed an arms embargo. Read More
Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, commander of U.S. 7th Fleet, delivers remarks during a change of command ceremony aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73). US Navy Photo
The head of U.S. naval forces in the Western Pacific said the U.S. would support an emerging plan to create multi-national patrols in the South China Sea that could bear similarities to anti-piracy patrols in the Strait of Malacca. Read More
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works of Kobe Harbor in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture, Japan in 2006. via Wikipedia
The recent relaxation of Tokyo’s ban on arms exports has introduced Japan as a budding player in the international arms market. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has given the go-ahead for Japanese firms to compete internationally for arms contracts. Read More
A 1947 map of China’s maritime claims.
The following is from the March, 14 2014 Congressional Research Service report, Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Disputes Involving China: Issues for Congress
China’s actions for asserting and defending its maritime territorial and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claims in the East China (ECS) and South China Sea (SCS), particularly since late 2013, have heightened concerns among observers that ongoing disputes over these waters and some of the islands within them could lead to a crisis or conflict between China and a neighboring country such as Japan, the Philippines, or Vietnam, and that the United States could be drawn into such a crisis or conflict as a result of obligations the United States has under bilateral security treaties with Japan and the Philippines. Read More
Crew members on board a P-8A Poseidon assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 16 man their workstations while assisting in search and rescue operations for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March, 16 2014. US Navy Photo
USS Kidd (DDG-100) has been pulled from search and rescue operations to look for a Malaysian Airlines plane that went missing last week, according to U.S. 7th Fleet in a statement released on Tuesday morning. Read More
USS Kidd (DDG-100) in 2012. US Navy Photo
The U.S. Navy has sent two destroyers and a maritime patrol aircraft to look for a Malaysian Airlines that went missing on Saturday. Read More
The Asia-Pacific region recently has seen a rise in construction of multipurpose, aviation-capable ships by major area powers. Australia, China, South Korea, Japan and Thailand all have built ships with full-length flight decks with a variety of purposes: some as helicopter carriers, some as amphibious assault ships. Only one, China’s Liaoning, was built to accommodate traditional fixed-wing aircraft carrier operations, but many others, such as Japan’s Izumo-class of helicopter destroyers could conceivably carry some form of vertical or short takeoff-and-landing aircraft. Read More
