This South China Morning Post article by Mark. J. Valencia is very informative about the larger perspective surrounding the US “Connecticut” submarine that hit and was damaged by something “unidentified” in the South China Sea on October 2, 2021 – a story that the US Navy cared about to tell the world only five days later. You should read also this article and this one.
This incident – whatever it really was – is an integral part of the ongoing China Cold War Agenda of the US that TFF has issued a large report about – Behind The Smokescreen.
Perhaps naturally, our media – as well as virtually everybody else – focus on conflicts and wars on land. It is systematically forgotten that conflicts and, to some extent, wars are permanently fought in the world’s oceans, the main weapons being submarines, including nuclear weapons-armed submarines. There is submarine warfare capabilities and there is Anti-Submarine Warfare, ASW. And it is part of the – MAD – Mutually-Assured Destruction – based nuclear deterrence – nuclearism.
And we all know how important it is in peacetime that sea-based transport can bring goods around the world without disturbances. Controlling the seas and various straits and chokepoints will also be essential in times of war.
This article starts out with a fine thought-provocation:
“US demands details of Chinese nuclear sub accident off California” screamed the headline. No, that has not happened – not yet. But just imagine the US reaction if it did.
The public would immediately want to know if there was any radiation leakage from the reactor or its nuclear weapons, if it was carrying them. What caused the accident? Where did it happen? What was it doing there in the first place?
On October 7, the US Navy announced that its fast attack nuclear submarine USS Connecticut had hit an unidentified object in the South China Sea five days earlier. According to the announcement, the submarine “remained in a safe and stable condition” and its “nuclear propulsion plant and spaces were not affected and remain fully operational”.
Dr Mark J. Valencia is an internationally known maritime policy analyst, political commentator and consultant focused on Asia. He is the author or editor of some 15 books and more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles. Currently, he is an adjunct senior scholar at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Haikou, China.
