The incursion of a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine into Japanese territorial waters this month has illuminated a mounting competition under the surface of the Pacific and Indian Oceans and their adjacent seas.
The chief rivals for submarine supremacy in this region are China, which has given priority to submarines as it acquires a blue-water or deep-sea navy, and the US, which is rebuilding submarine capabilities that had atrophied after the Cold War.
China and the US are not alone. North Korea has a sizeable coastal submarine force and South Korea has begun to counter it. Japan has a modest but proficient fleet.
Taiwan is pondering the procurement of eight boats that would triple the size of its force. The city-state of Singapore has three submarines and is acquiring a fourth. Australia has six modern submarines, based on a Swedish design, for surveillance in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
In South Asia, India has been acquiring a submarine fleet with Russian help. A specialist on South Asia, Donald Berlin of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, has written that India will also build six to twelve French-designed submarines and is working on a nuclear-powered boat that will go to sea in 2006.
Pakistan has launched two submarines and is constructing a third. Berlin says "Pakistan will likely want a submarine-based nuclear weapons delivery system" to deter India. Iran has several submarines.
Even Israel, usually considered a Mediterranean nation, is believed to have sent submarines armed with cruise missiles through the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean to deter a potential nuclear attack by Iran.
In contrast, Russia, which once deployed 90 submarines into the Pacific, has laid up all but 20 boats because of that nation's financial distress.
"They've held onto their more capable boats," said a US official with access to intelligence reports, but their operations are constricted.
The Chinese submarine in Japanese waters was one of five Han class boats, the first of China's nuclear-powered submarines. After she left port at Ningbo, she was detected by Taiwan as she steamed east, then by the US near Guam in the central Pacific, and finally by Japan after she turned north to steam near Okinawa.
After a Japanese protest, Chinese spokesmen expressed regrets and blamed the mistake on unexplained "technical difficulties," raising questions about Chinese seamanship; the Chinese have long had problems operating submarines.
China is acquiring submarines to "patrol the littorals, blockade the Taiwan Strait, and stalk [US] aircraft carriers," say two researchers, Lyle Goldstein and Bill Murray, at the Naval War College in Rhode Island.
China, which has 50 submarines in two older classes, began expanding 10 years ago when it bought four Russian "Kilo" submarines, then ordered eight more in 2002 for delivery starting next year.
The Chinese are producing the "Song" class of attack boats armed with cruise missiles. Training has been intensified throughout the fleet.
It is in the Taiwan Strait that Chinese and US submarines would most likely clash if China seeks to blockade or invade Taiwan, the country over which it claims sovereignty but whose people prefer to remain separate.
US submarines would go into action because Taiwan lacks sufficient anti-submarine weapons to break a blockade or stop an invasion. The US policy is to help defend Taiwan from an unprovoked assault by China.
In the US, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Walter Doran, has made the revival of submarine warfare his top priority and has set up a special staff to oversee that resurgence. The Navy has recently established an anti-submarine warfare center in San Diego to improve training and readiness.
The US has moved two submarines from Hawaii to Guam and will add a third to base them closer to operating areas. Where 60 percent of US submarines operated in the Atlantic during the Cold War and 40 percent in the Pacific, the Navy is planning to reverse that ratio.
Attack submarines whose mission after the Cold War was to launch cruise missiles at land and sea targets and to gather intelligence have been assigned anew the task of fighting other submarines since the best anti-submarine weapon is another submarine.
Six "SURTASS" ships (Surveillance Towed-Array Sensor System) that use powerful sonar to detect submarines in vast areas of deep water have now been assigned to the Pacific. Four ballistic missile submarines are being converted to carry 150 cruise missiles each and to infiltrate 100 commandos onto hostile beaches.
Concluded a US official: "Once again, the value of stealth is being recognized."
Richard Halloran is a freelance journalist based in Hawaii.
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
RSS