> There was nothing about the deployment of the three Chinese vessels — a cruiser, a frigate and a replenishment tanker — that was technically impressive or strategically significant.
As the article stresses, it'd be far more accurate to say that Australia (which is a continent of almost 3,000,000 sq. miles, with a GDP a bit under $2 trillion) was circumnavigated by the tiny Chinese force. And the only thing impressive about that force was just how meager Australia's own Navy looked by comparison.
TBD: Whether Australia's leadership can be bothered to get their sh*t together, and shift the balance of power a bit more in their own favor.
Old Geezer Perspective: The modern-day US Navy was effectively founded in 1880. Post-Civil War, the US had let its respectable-in-1865 Navy dwindle to little more than a few half-rotten hulks. Vs. Europe had a naval arms race, with warship technology leaping ahead every year. For their own reasons, Britain's Royal Navy discouraged other European powers from taking advantage of American impotence. But Europe's shipyards were happy to build (for profit) modern warships for various South American nations. One of those warships visited New York Harbor in 1880, resulting in a national oh shit moment - as America realized that just that one modern warship, from some South American navy or other, could take on the entire US Navy - and easily win. Very suddenly, building up a serious modern US Navy was a top national priority.
Poking around Wikipedia a bit more (I've no good naval history book of the period handy), I'd say you're right about that incident. But serious rebuilding of the USN only started under President Arthur - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Arthur#Naval_resurge... - who only came to office in 1881. And things still moved quite slowly for most of a decade after that.
So, obviously: My notion that the US quickly got its ship together, after the initial oh shit moment, was 99.97% wrong. TBD if Australia can do less poorly.
I could rave on a lot about when this bit of news first started to gain traction here in Australia was in reality a zombie sheep grooming effort by a certain crowd here in Australia.
But instead:
(a) Spy satellites exist, the US in fact has (I suppose it's not been defunded ...) a branch of intelligence that pours over their live satellite images all day long for defence and security purposes
(b) There has been an agreement to share intelligence data (obviously limited in some cases) in place between the US and Australia
(c) It's a fair bet those monitoring the satellite data have a good idea where a large fleet of naval ships are at any given moment.
(d) Data would have been shared with Australian Intelligence community in a timely fashion.
I was saddened to hear the meowing by one particular Australian tv media outlet, once most people here would have understood the govt can't say much until they've been officially advised, this instance it was an airline pilot prior to any communication from China.
By and large it was a non event, just some people have an interest to sabre rattle, groom the susceptible part of the population to their own ends (indirect prod ensure people should elect a new govt that would prostrate themselves and hail King Trump,) as well as trying to convince the greater population that their govt should be spending their budget on better - eh expensive weapons as that is more important. Better biosecurity, food security, more small naval ships makes a heck of a lot more sense than a few very very expensive submarines that (sitting still) at the moment can sort of hide from spy satellites.
P.S. Almost the first thing the PM here when asked about it was to downplay the histrionic questions, was to point out the fact Australian Navy had just participated in war games close to China.
Yeah zombie / sheep grooming - it's a personal term I like to use, being blunt and to the point of what some media areas (including social media) are doing / attempting to do ... and not by accident. Yes there's brain washing, and then there's the same at a subtle level. More often what I see here, the grooming is sophisticated but most importantly constant in regard to the news feed. The sophisticated efforts flies under the radar for most ordinary folk, any irregularity dismissed by rational thinkers as just poorly researched or just biased for whatever reason. Sometimes efforts do not rely on craftiness, and the news source relies on just loudly trumpeting the cheery picked facts that sit well with the agenda - or simply omit facts or entire news items that stomps on or contradicts their most recent campaign.
The folks who have already latched onto a baseless idea which is being contradicted by science or merely a simple thought exercise seem to be most prone to grooming. The end point seem to be shutting down any questioning of the agenda they, by way of the media in their pocket, are pushing.
In Australia this story got quite unimportant once the same grooming areas, found their privates caught up in new reporting on the biggest bomb plot ever that to a critical thinker about ten seconds in seemed just a bit too contrived ... alas it gave them a very good platform and they'd been loudly drumming it up as real big bad and super important ... oops total hoax.
I probably miss some of it, but for a some of the subtle grooming efforts, I have a couple of family members more often on different ends of the political spectrum that are best described as barometers. BTW they're not that whacked -- for instance both happy to acknowledge climate change is happening. [Mind notable climate change in my locale is due more to the very big heat bubble that has recently (last 2 or 3 decades) formed from the mid to eastern edges of the large expanse of open pit coal mines inland - the 100 years plus history of summer inland storms that used to just travel west to east, is now at odds with current local storm movement with most instead diverting north and south to the coast.]
Australian warships have sailed near China, through the Taiwan Strait, and participated in joint exercises in the South China Sea. (And a Chinese defense ministry spokesman asked if Australia would notify Beijing of its own exercises near China.) But those are heavily trafficked corridors where multiple countries’ interests intersect, whereas the only reason to be south of Australia or in the Tasman Sea would be to send a message, said Ray Powell, the director of the maritime transparency project SeaLight, who previously served as a U.S. defense attaché in Canberra. “That particular message is, we are able to hold you at risk,” he said.
Victoria Kim is the Australia correspondent for The New York Times, based in Sydney, covering Australia, New Zealand and the broader Pacific region.
> There was nothing about the deployment of the three Chinese vessels — a cruiser, a frigate and a replenishment tanker — that was technically impressive or strategically significant.
As the article stresses, it'd be far more accurate to say that Australia (which is a continent of almost 3,000,000 sq. miles, with a GDP a bit under $2 trillion) was circumnavigated by the tiny Chinese force. And the only thing impressive about that force was just how meager Australia's own Navy looked by comparison.
TBD: Whether Australia's leadership can be bothered to get their sh*t together, and shift the balance of power a bit more in their own favor.
Old Geezer Perspective: The modern-day US Navy was effectively founded in 1880. Post-Civil War, the US had let its respectable-in-1865 Navy dwindle to little more than a few half-rotten hulks. Vs. Europe had a naval arms race, with warship technology leaping ahead every year. For their own reasons, Britain's Royal Navy discouraged other European powers from taking advantage of American impotence. But Europe's shipyards were happy to build (for profit) modern warships for various South American nations. One of those warships visited New York Harbor in 1880, resulting in a national oh shit moment - as America realized that just that one modern warship, from some South American navy or other, could take on the entire US Navy - and easily win. Very suddenly, building up a serious modern US Navy was a top national priority.
The oh shit moment ship was apparently the Spanish Arapiles in 1873. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginius_Affair#Aftermath
Poking around Wikipedia a bit more (I've no good naval history book of the period handy), I'd say you're right about that incident. But serious rebuilding of the USN only started under President Arthur - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Arthur#Naval_resurge... - who only came to office in 1881. And things still moved quite slowly for most of a decade after that.
Here's the best overview I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_U.S._foreign_policy...
So, obviously: My notion that the US quickly got its ship together, after the initial oh shit moment, was 99.97% wrong. TBD if Australia can do less poorly.
I could rave on a lot about when this bit of news first started to gain traction here in Australia was in reality a zombie sheep grooming effort by a certain crowd here in Australia.
But instead: (a) Spy satellites exist, the US in fact has (I suppose it's not been defunded ...) a branch of intelligence that pours over their live satellite images all day long for defence and security purposes (b) There has been an agreement to share intelligence data (obviously limited in some cases) in place between the US and Australia (c) It's a fair bet those monitoring the satellite data have a good idea where a large fleet of naval ships are at any given moment. (d) Data would have been shared with Australian Intelligence community in a timely fashion.
I was saddened to hear the meowing by one particular Australian tv media outlet, once most people here would have understood the govt can't say much until they've been officially advised, this instance it was an airline pilot prior to any communication from China.
By and large it was a non event, just some people have an interest to sabre rattle, groom the susceptible part of the population to their own ends (indirect prod ensure people should elect a new govt that would prostrate themselves and hail King Trump,) as well as trying to convince the greater population that their govt should be spending their budget on better - eh expensive weapons as that is more important. Better biosecurity, food security, more small naval ships makes a heck of a lot more sense than a few very very expensive submarines that (sitting still) at the moment can sort of hide from spy satellites.
P.S. Almost the first thing the PM here when asked about it was to downplay the histrionic questions, was to point out the fact Australian Navy had just participated in war games close to China.
Zombie sheep grooming?
Yeah zombie / sheep grooming - it's a personal term I like to use, being blunt and to the point of what some media areas (including social media) are doing / attempting to do ... and not by accident. Yes there's brain washing, and then there's the same at a subtle level. More often what I see here, the grooming is sophisticated but most importantly constant in regard to the news feed. The sophisticated efforts flies under the radar for most ordinary folk, any irregularity dismissed by rational thinkers as just poorly researched or just biased for whatever reason. Sometimes efforts do not rely on craftiness, and the news source relies on just loudly trumpeting the cheery picked facts that sit well with the agenda - or simply omit facts or entire news items that stomps on or contradicts their most recent campaign.
The folks who have already latched onto a baseless idea which is being contradicted by science or merely a simple thought exercise seem to be most prone to grooming. The end point seem to be shutting down any questioning of the agenda they, by way of the media in their pocket, are pushing.
In Australia this story got quite unimportant once the same grooming areas, found their privates caught up in new reporting on the biggest bomb plot ever that to a critical thinker about ten seconds in seemed just a bit too contrived ... alas it gave them a very good platform and they'd been loudly drumming it up as real big bad and super important ... oops total hoax.
I probably miss some of it, but for a some of the subtle grooming efforts, I have a couple of family members more often on different ends of the political spectrum that are best described as barometers. BTW they're not that whacked -- for instance both happy to acknowledge climate change is happening. [Mind notable climate change in my locale is due more to the very big heat bubble that has recently (last 2 or 3 decades) formed from the mid to eastern edges of the large expanse of open pit coal mines inland - the 100 years plus history of summer inland storms that used to just travel west to east, is now at odds with current local storm movement with most instead diverting north and south to the coast.]
https://archive.ph/TIOay
Australian warships have sailed near China, through the Taiwan Strait, and participated in joint exercises in the South China Sea. (And a Chinese defense ministry spokesman asked if Australia would notify Beijing of its own exercises near China.) But those are heavily trafficked corridors where multiple countries’ interests intersect, whereas the only reason to be south of Australia or in the Tasman Sea would be to send a message, said Ray Powell, the director of the maritime transparency project SeaLight, who previously served as a U.S. defense attaché in Canberra. “That particular message is, we are able to hold you at risk,” he said.
Victoria Kim is the Australia correspondent for The New York Times, based in Sydney, covering Australia, New Zealand and the broader Pacific region.
Doesn't America do this to everybody all the time?
Chinese warships are protecting the trade routes between Australia and China from Chinese warships