The US Navy’s top officer yesterday said that vessels from eastern Pacific could be brought forward to reinforce US naval power in Asia, as Washington contends with increased threats in the region and accidents that have weakened its maritime force.
“We will continue to assure that we meet all of our missions here in the Asia-Pacific area. It could be something coming forward from Third Fleet or something like that to meet those requirements,” Chief of US Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said at a briefing aboard the USS Ronald Reagan carrier in Japan.
He declined to say when or how many ships could be transferred.
Photo: AFP
The growing threat posed by North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapon advances, coupled with operations to counter China’s increasing military might in the South China Sea and other parts of Asia, is putting an increased burden on the US Seventh Fleet.
That added pressure on crews has been blamed for contributing to a series of accidents involving naval vessels this year, including collisions by two destroyers with merchant ships that killed 17 US sailors.
In August the USS John S. McCain guided missile destroyer was struck by a merchant ship near Singapore, while its sister ship, the Fitzgerald, almost sank off the coast of Japan in June after colliding with a Philippine container ship.
Richardson spoke after US President Donald Trump unveiled a new national security strategy based on his “America First” vision that singled out China and Russia as “revisionist powers.”
For its part, China is attempting to revise the global status quo by its aggression in the South China Sea, a US official said.
Beijing is building military bases there on artificial islands in waters claimed by other nations.
“One can only draw certain conclusion about what are the intentions of the Chinese with respect to those islands. We will respond as we have always done, which is that we are going to continue to be present down there,” Richardson said.
For now, North Korea was the “most urgent” task for the US Navy in Asia, as it became “more and more capable” with every new missile test, he said.
The latest ballistic missile tested on Nov. 29 reached an altitude of more than 4,000km, giving it enough-range, Pyongyang claims, to hit major US cities, including Washington.
Richardson said his task next year is to build a navy “more lethal” and “dangerous” to potential US foes.
“There is a near unanimous consensus that we need more naval power than we have now,” he said.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
RSS