The academy’s response was in reaction to a Sunday Gazette report about the system of cadet informants who are instructed to deceive classmates, professors and commanders. The academy on Tuesday also questioned the reliability of cadet informant Eric Thomas, who helped bring the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations to light after he was expelled from the academy, despite being promised protection by his handlers.

Honor and Deception: A secretive Air Force program recruits academy students to inform on fellow cadets and disavows them afterward

“The program uses people who confidentially provide vital information about criminal activities that would not otherwise be available,” the academy said in a statement. “AFOSI uses that information to initiate or resolve criminal investigations. This is an Air Force-wide program and is not something unique at the Air Force’s Academy.”

The Gazette report detailed how the Air Force uses the informant program to go after drug use, sexual assault and other misconduct among cadets. Informants are recruited through long interrogations, then sent to gather evidence, snapping photos, wearing recording devices and filing secret reports.

Thomas, who was the focus of the article, was expelled after getting in trouble for misconduct he said was directed by OSI.

In its own statement, OSI said “The AFOSI confidential informant program is an important and time-proven investigative tool.”

See a complete report in Wednesday’s Gazette and on gazette.com.

Click here to view a replay of Tuesday’s Dave Philipps web chat about “Honor and Deception”

The post Air Force Academy defends use of student informants – Colorado Springs Gazette appeared first on Military Nation.

Mohammad Gulab, the Afghan who helped save Luttrell by hiding him in his village, also made an appearance “for the first time in New York City and ever in a movie theater,” Berg noted.

Mark Wahlberg, who plays Luttrell, called him “such a remarkable guy.” On the red carpet outside the Ziegfeld, the cast talked about how they trained to portray Navy SEALS, which included attending a three-week bootcamp in New Mexico.

“We each had a SEAL assigned to us,” Emile Hirsch said. “We were probably going through 1,000 rounds of M4 bullets a day. There was a huge insurance problem, because we’re running around with these loaded weapons. You learn to trust the other actors really quickly.”

Added Taylor Kitsch, “It was more about the mindset, how they fight, how they work together and what you see in the film — the brotherhood.”

Wahlberg said he found the role challenging because it was his fourth movie in a 12-month period. “I went from ‘Broken City,’ where I had to get as skinny as possible, to ‘Pain and Gain,’ where I had to go as big as possible, then lose all my weight for ’2 Guns’ and then go to SEAL training.”

“I’m old, man,” he confessed. “I’m the oldest of the bunch. I’m 42. I feel 52. I just had a lot of bumps and bruises along the way.”

Hirsch said that he was “really out of shape” when he started to campaign Berg for his part in the film. He only convinced the director by showing up at 4 a.m. to a local Gold’s gym, a regimen that he continued for 3.5 months.

“I would do my 90-minute weight program,” Hirsch said. “And it would be two hours of cardio right after.”

“I had spies who were monitoring how hard he was working out,” Berg later said. “I pretended not to know, because I didn’t want him to know I was impressed.”

The post ‘Lone Survivor’ Premiere Honors Marcus Luttrell and Navy SEALs – Variety appeared first on Military Nation.

The museum, a treasure trove of pharaonic antiquities, has long been one of the centerpieces of tourism to Egypt. But the constant instability since the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak has dried up tourism to the country, slashing a key source of revenue. Moreover, political backbiting and attempts to stop corruption have had a knock-on effect of bringing a de facto ban on sending antiquities on tours to museums abroad, cutting off what was once a major source of funding for the state.

The repeated eruption of protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where the museum is located, has also scared away visitors. Over the summer there were the giant rallies that led to the July 3 military coup ousting Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. In recent weeks, protesters have returned to Tahrir, now venting their anger at the military-backed government that took its place.

“Tahrir Square is considered as the birthplace of the Egyptian revolution, and the museum is like a thermometer. It gets affected by the political situation at the square,” said Sayed Amer, the director of the Egyptian Museum, in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

The antiquities minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, tried to put a brave face, saying at least the museum remains open.

“Sometimes the square is closed but we keep the museum open,” he said.

On recent visits to the museum by the AP, there were only a handful of foreign visitors, and none at its most prized exhibits of mummies and King Tut’s treasures.

The museum is trying to make the most of the dry times. It has launched an extensive renovation for the palatial, 111-year-old salmon-colored building. The décor will get a makeover, and lighting and security systems will be upgraded in an overhaul, in cooperation with Germany, costing more than $4.3 million.

Plans are also being drawn up to demolish the neighboring former headquarters of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, which was burned during the uprising, to create an open-air, Nile-side exhibition garden for the museum.

King Tut’s treasures will be moved to a new Grand Egyptian Museum under construction near the Giza pyramids, due to be finished in 2015. The plan reflects in part the embarrassment of riches Egypt enjoys in pharaonic artifacts: The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir is so overflowing with objects that more than half its collection sits in storage in its basement — in less than ideal conditions — meaning there’s plenty to draw visitors to both museums.

Amid the budget crunch, staffers are trying to find other sources of revenue.

Yasmin El-Shazly, the head of the Documentation Department that tracks the museum’s 200,000 items, set up a fundraising mechanism to bring in donations for the museum independently of the government.

Donations collected by the Friends of the Egyptian Museum group will help fund academic research in the museum, raise awareness of its projects and empower Egyptian experts and museum’s staff, who have gone without salaries for months.

“We don’t even have the money to buy office supplies like paper clips and pens, and pay for computer maintenance,” El-Shazly said. “It’s always been difficult because the money generated by the museum went to the government and rarely came back to us. But now, with no money coming from tourism, it’s worse than ever.”

Ibrahim said the ministry’s revenues, including the entrance fees from tourist sites, fell from 111 million Egyptian pounds ($16 million) in October 2010 to 7 million Egyptian pounds ($1.14 million) in October 2013.

Even more detrimental, few if any of Egypt’s precious antiquities are touring abroad.

A visit in October by a team of experts from the British Museum resulted only in words of hope for a renewed cooperation in the future and some training opportunities for Egyptian staff in London. Japanese exhibition organizers interested in a tour exhibit for objects from the King Tut collection left Egypt with no deal.

Such foreign tours were a lucrative revenue source, but virtually ground to a halt after Egypt’s chief archaeologist during Mubarak’s rule, Zahi Hawass, was forced to resign in 2011 on corruption allegations. Hawass denied the allegations, and he was not charged.

Last year, Morsi’s government cut short a Cleopatra-themed exhibit on tour in the United States after a Cairo court ruled that some of its pieces are too unique to allow out of the country and had to return immediately.

Antiquities officials are now reluctant to sign any deals with exhibitions abroad for fear of being accused of corruption — or worse, of being unpatriotic for sending away Egypt’s patrimony, amid the nationalist wave sweeping Egypt following the July coup.

The Cleopatra exhibit toured four U.S. cities, starting with Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute in June 2010. It included artifacts ranging from tiny gold coins to a pair of towering eight-ton granite figures, raised by French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio from submerged ruins off the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.

Ordering it home lost Egypt millions of dollars, said Lotfi Gazy, the museum’s antiquities affairs director.

Egypt was earning $450,000 dollars from each city the exhibit traveled to, plus $1 million for every 100,000 visitors and a 10 percent cut from merchandizing sales, Gazy said.

“It was a disaster for us,” Gazy said. No new contract has been signed since then.

———

The post Egypt’s Antiquities Fall Victim to Political Chaos – ABC News appeared first on Military Nation.

Designed to enhance the Navy’s long-range maritime patrol capability, the P-8A Poseidon’s specialty is submarine detection, the Navy said. The planes flew from Norfolk, Virginia, to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, in recent days.

The P-8A Poseidon also is part of the Navy’s effort to phase out the P-3C Orion. It is more technologically advanced than its predecessor and can fly higher with a crew of up to nine. It also can carry torpedoes, cruise missiles, bombs and mines.

While the Navy rebalances resources in the Pacific, the arrival of the aircraft comes at a time of heightened tension in the region with China’s imposition of an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have recently operated their own military flights through the zone to test the Chinese, and the new planes add additional monitoring ability in a busy region.

The Navy said the new deployment was not based on any specific threat.

Massive naval power remains at heart of America’s look eastwards

“The P-8 is a true multi-mission platform, which will continue to provide us invaluable capabilities,” said Rear Adm. Matt Carter, commander of patrol and reconnaissance, said in statement.

“The number of submarines in the world is increasing rapidly,” Carter also said. “Other countries are either building or purchasing advanced, quiet, and extremely hard to find submarines and we need to be able to match that technology to be able to detect them.”

New U.S. aircraft at Kadena coincided with Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival in Japan to start a trip that includes stops in China and South Korea.

Official: U.S. B-52s flew over China’s controversial new air defense zone

The post US Navy deploys new reconnaissance planes to Japan – CNN (blog) appeared first on Military Nation.

(Reuters) – About 30,000 protesters launched a “people’s coup” on Thailand’s government on Sunday, swarming multiple state agencies in violent clashes, taking control of a broadcaster and forcing the prime minister to flee a police compound.

Police fired teargas on protesters who hurled stones and petrol bombs in demonstrations that paralyzed parts of Bangkok and followed a night of gun and knife battles in which two people were killed and at least 54 wounded.

A group of protesters forced Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to evacuate to an undisclosed location from a building where she had planned to give media interviews, while hundreds seized control of state broadcaster Thai PBS, waving flags and tooting whistles.

Declaring Sunday “V-Day” in a week-long bid to topple Yingluck and end her family’s more than decade-long influence over Thai politics, protest leaders urged supporters to seize 10 government offices, six television stations, police headquarters and the prime minister’s offices in what they are calling a “people’s coup”.

Police said the protesters had gathered in at least eight locations. In at least three of them, police used teargas and water canons.

National police spokesman Piya Utayo said troops were being sent to a government complex occupied by protesters since Thursday and the Finance Ministry, occupied since Monday. “We have sent forces to these places to take back government property,” he said on national television.

It is the latest dramatic turn in a conflict pitting Bangkok’s urban middle class and royalist elite against the mostly rural poor supporters of Yingluck and her billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup.

Reuters journalists waiting to interview Yingluck inside the police Narcotics Suppression Bureau were told by Natthriya Thaweevong, an aide for the prime minister, that she had left after protesters made it inside the outer part of the compound, the Police Sports Club, where the bureau is located.

In the early afternoon, protesters massed in front of a police barricade outside Wat Benjamabhopit, also known as the Marble Temple. Police fired teargas as some protesters tried to heave aside the heavy concrete barriers.

The deep detonation of stun grenades, followed by the jeers of protesters, echoed across the historic quarter.

“I just want the people named Shinawatra to get on a plane and go somewhere – and please, don’t come back to our country again,” said Chatuporn Tirawongkusol, 33, whose family runs a Bangkok restaurant.

PETROL BOMBS

Outside the Metropolitan Police Bureau, about 3,000 protesters rallied, accusing riot-clad police of being manipulated by Thaksin, a former policeman who rose to become a telecommunications magnate before entering politics and winning back-to-back elections in 2001 and 2005.

Chamai Maruchet Bridge, north of Government House, the prime minister’s offices, was a scene of nearly non-sop skirmishes, as police repeatedly fired teargas into the stone-throwing crowd, Reuters witnesses said. Protesters gathered near barricades spray-painted with the words “Failed State”.

A Reuters photographer saw protesters hurl at least a dozen petrol bombs into police positions from a college campus across a canal from Government House.

In one of the most dramatic events, state broadcaster Thai PBS was taken over by protesters, according to PBS and police. More than 250 mostly black-shirted protesters gathered in the parking lot, as others streamed in.

The executive producer at Thai PBS, Surachai Pannoi, told Reuters the management of the station would share its broadcast line with Blue Sky, a broadcaster controlled by the opposition Democrat Party, starting this afternoon.

STREET BATTLES

Yingluck, who won a 2011 election by a landslide to become Thailand’s first female prime minister, has called for talks with the protesters, saying the economy was at risk after demonstrators occupied the Finance Ministry on Monday.

Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a deputy prime minister under the previous Democrat-led government that Yingluck’s party routed 2011, has ignored her and told demonstrators that laws must be broken to achieve their goals.

The Democrats, Thailand’s oldest political party, have not won an election in more than two decades and have lost every national vote for the past 13 years to Thaksin or his allies.

Suthep has called for a “people’s council”, which would select “good people” to lead, effectively suspending Thailand’s democratic system. Yingluck has rejected that step as unconstitutional and has ruled out a snap election.

Thailand faces its worst political crisis since April-May 2010, a period of unrest that ended with a military crackdown. In all, 91 people were killed then, mostly Thaksin’s supporters trying to oust the then-Democrat government.

Suthep faces murder charges for his alleged role in the ordering crackdown.

Police tightened security after clashes on Saturday between supporters and opponents of Yingluck near a sports stadium where about 70,000 red-shirted government supporters had gathered. Five big shopping malls closed their doors in Bangkok, underscoring the economic impact of the protests.

One “red shirt” government supporter was shot and killed outside the stadium early on Sunday, after a 21-year-old student was fatally shot several hours earlier.

A red-shirt leader, Jatuporn Promphan, said four red shirts had been killed but Reuters only confirmed one, 43-year-old Viroj Kemnak. Fifty-four people were wounded, according to the government’s Erawan emergency center.

Thousands of government supporters began to disperse, returning on buses to their homes in the north after their rally was called off in a bid to defuse tensions.

Seventeen battalions of 150 soldiers each, along with 180 military police, all unarmed, were called in to boost security ahead of the demonstrators’ Sunday deadline for ousting the government.

Thaksin, who won over poor rural and urban voters with populist policies, was convicted of graft in 2008. He dismisses the charges as politically motivated and remains in close touch with the government from his self-imposed exile, sometimes holding meetings with Yingluck’s cabinet by webcam.

(This story was refiled to add dropped word in headline)

(Additional reporting by Martin Petty, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Damir Sagolj and Andrew R.C. Marshall; Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Alan Raybould and Robert Birsel)

The post Thai protesters step up action, PM forced to leave building – Reuters appeared first on Military Nation.

After I delivered some Veterans Day remarks at Boonsboro High School the other week, Retired 1st Sgt. Starlene Hamilton invited me to attend the Marine Corps Ball scheduled for Nov. 15 at Hager Hall to celebrate the 238th birthday (Nov. 10) of the United States Marines Corps.

When a boy from Dargan gets an invite to a Marines Ball, there is only one “honorable” thing to do. I went.

The Marine Corps history is filled with stories of honor, courage and commitment. Its birth laid the very cornerstone for the life of freedoms in America.

On Nov. 10, 1775, two battalions of Marines were recruited in the Tun Tavern of Philadelphia. Samuel Nicholas was the first commandant.

The Marine Corps motto, “Semper Fidelis” (Always Faithful), was adopted in 1883.

Sgt. Paul Woyshner, during a little disagreement in a bar, shouted the current motto of the Marine Corps League: “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

In Germany, during World War I, the Germans referred to the attacking marines as “teufel-hunden.” Teufel-hunden was the wild, vicious mountain dog of Bavarian folklore, thus, the mascot of the marines became the English bulldog (aka “Devil Dog”).

In 1921, Gen. John A. Lejeune issued Order No. 47, which defined the Marine Corps history, and he directed that on Nov. 10 of each year, all Marines should pause to honor their military heritage.

Real leadership, I thought. Lejeune created a lasting memory of sorts for all living Marines.

At the event in Hagerstown, I was very much privileged to be in the presence of our Marines to help celebrate their 238th birthday.

Capt. Robert Glausier was the senior Marine (by rank) at the event, Jesse Engelhart was the oldest Marine present and Zachary Myers was the youngest.

Capt. James Warner was the guest speaker.

As a young Marine lieutenant, Warner flew F-4B Phantom jets and volunteered for duty in Vietnam. In October 1967, after flying more than 100 missions, his plane was shot down in North Vietnam and he became a prisoner of war.

For the next five years and five months, he remained in captivity.

Capt. Warner’s remarks detailed some of those difficult days of his confinement.

He spoke of the tortures, the pathetic meals, sicknesses and mistreatment at the hands of his Vietnamese guards. He told of his fellow soldiers’ bravery, the codes they used to communicate with each other and the importance of faith throughout his ordeal.

He shared how the North Vietnamese forbade them to worship, but they worshipped anyway. Because of their defiance, one day 36 prisoners were taken outside with hands tied behind their backs and blindfolded. They thought they were going to be shot.

Warner told a story about one of his guards who caught a rat, broke its leg, doused it with lighter fluid, set it on fire and laughed as the animal burned.

After Warner was suspected of plotting an escape, the North Vietnamese placed him under the scorching sun in a small concrete box with a steel door. He could neither stand nor sit comfortably in this box, remained there for months, lost 30 pounds and suffered some serious medical problems.

He was deprived of sleep for weeks.

Warner, throughout his ordeals as a prisoner of war, exemplified the highest standards and tenacity of a United States Marine.

When he was asked why he made the sacrifices he did as a Marine, his response was simple: “I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and your freedoms.”

Indeed he did, I reflected, as the audience stood to applaud him.

As the night of festivities was coming to an end, I remembered an old Ronald Reagan observation of the Marines.

Reagan once remarked: “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.”

Happy Birthday, Marines. Live long.

Lloyd “Pete” Waters is a Sharpsburg resident who writes for The Herald-Mail.

The post Lloyd Waters: Marine Corps celebrates 238th birthday – Herald-Mail Media appeared first on Military Nation.

Returning to garrison after 12 years of combat, Marines are vulnerable to a new enemy, one within their ranks — reckless or criminal behavior, poor discipline and shoddy attention to standards by a small percentage of Marines who were first to fight but failed to follow the rest of the Marine hymn, to keep their honor clean.

Commandant Amos and Sgt. Maj. Michael Barrett, the service’s senior enlisted Marine, are worried about serious problems like alcohol and drug abuse, sexual misconduct, domestic violence, hazing and suicide.

Sloppiness like failure to wear uniforms correctly or maintain fitness levels is also a concern, indicative they say of a breakdown in order leading to tactical mistakes.

“We can tighten these things up. The fabric itself is not fraying, but some of the edges on the fabric are fraying,” Amos said in an interview.

After fighting hard in Fallujah, Ramadi, Marjah and Sangin, among other battles, invading Iraq in tanks and Afghanistan by ships far from shore, Marine Corps stock is high among the American public.

But “this insurgency of wrong doing is invading our homes and destroying our credibility,” Amos and Barrett said in a letter to all corporals and sergeants, the non-commissioned officers and “backbone” of the Corps leading 83 percent of Marines.

To rein in those who harm themselves and fellow Marines, civilians and the Corps they pledged to serve, Amos said: “We just need our NCOs to stand up and lead. … I just need you to go back to the soul of the Corps, which is that discipline, and standards and caring for one another.”

Reawakening

The hour and a half presentation at Camp Pendleton, like one in October at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, is the centerpiece of the “Reawakening” campaign Amos and Barrett launched this fall.

The kneecap-to-kneecap pep talk and lecture from the “two dads of the institution” at Marine bases worldwide is accompanied by a reading assignment on leadership as well as controversial new procedures to make barracks safer.

To enlist the support of corporals and sergeants in policing their ranks, the Marine leaders stressed their pride in their performance.

“No other time in our nation’s history have we been engaged in continuous combat like now. Twelve years we’ve been at war. … and we are doing it as an all-volunteer force,” Barrett said.

“There is no more honorable or noble a profession than to serve people, to wear this cloth and do our nation’s bidding,” he said. “You could have done anything in your life but this is what you chose, and that’s humbling.”

Then the spanking began, so to speak.

A huge slide projected before them showed a collage of pictures and words about incidents in recent years that shamed the Corps.

The post Marines get refresher in values, discipline – U-T San Diego appeared first on Military Nation.

The post Navy veteran’s service to others lasted a lifetime – Tribune-Review appeared first on Military Nation.

Troy Calhoun (Denver Post file)

Discussions are being held within the Air Force Academy that could lead to expanding the basic four-year classroom program for graduation to a five-year program for some cadets in order to enhance academic achievements. Such a plan, if adopted, could have a huge effect on the athletic program, thereby allowing an extra year of competition.

Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun has expressed frustration this season about the competitive disadvantage of not being allowed to have cadets play a fifth year. The Falcons are 2-9 and winless in Mountain West play. Their season finale is Saturday at Colorado State.

Athletic director Hans Mueh said no final decision has been made, but academy officials are seriously looking at the possibility in order to keep up with the academic achievements at the top universities around the country.

“We’ll keep talking,” Mueh said. “At most universities, the average years to graduate is something over five years. For the service academies to hang tough on four years, it may be time to seriously discuss other options. “

Mueh pointed out that a program exists that potentially could add a ninth semester to a cadet’s time at the academy, but it is rarely used. The additional semester is usually granted to make up for time lost for illness or injury.

“If there’s a way we can help our students reach their academic potential and become leaders in the Air Force and that means talking about a five-year program, I’m all for it,” Mueh said. “We won’t change our academic requirements, the physical fitness requirements, or the active duty commitment after graduation. The one we might adjust is the time they spend here at the academy.

“It’s going to take some doing. This basically always will be a four-year institution, but we bring in students from a widely diversified population and it may be time to expand our program in order to meet the different needs.”

As for the football program, Mueh said: “I have great confidence that we’ll be better in football next year. How much better, I don’t know. Sports are like that. We’ve had a tough year. There are no excuses. We just got beat.”

The Denver Post’s sports reporters add analysis and notes to this blog focusing on college sports.

Air Force had been to six consecutive bowl games before this season.

Irv Moss: 303-954-1296, [email protected] or twitter.com/irvmoss

The post Air Force considering changing degree in 4 years requirement – Denver Post appeared first on Military Nation.

The drills, pitting a “red force” against a “blue force,” were the first in this area, combining ships from China’s main south, east and north fleets, according to the Chinese military. Land-based bombers and surveillance aircraft also flew missions past Japan to support the navy units.

In official commentaries, senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers boasted their navy had “dismembered” the so-called first island chain – the arc of islands enclosing China’s coastal waters, stretching from the Kuril Islands southward through the Japanese archipelago, Taiwan, the Northern Philippines and down to Borneo.

Named Manoeuvre 5, these were no ordinary exercises. They were the latest in a series of increasingly complex and powerful thrusts through the first island chain into the Pacific. For the first time in centuries, China is building a navy that can break out of its confined coastal waters to protect distant sea lanes and counter regional rivals.

Beijing’s military strategists argue this naval punch is vital if China is to avoid being bottled up behind a barrier of U.S. allies, vulnerable to a repeat of the humiliation suffered at the hands of seafaring Europeans and Japanese through the colonial period. “It tells Japan and the United States that they are not able to contain China within the first island chain,” says Shen Dingli, a security expert and professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University. “So don’t bet on their chances to do so at a time of crisis.”

In the process, the rapidly expanding PLA navy (PLAN) is driving a seismic shift in Asia’s military balance. China, traditionally an inwardly focused continental power, is becoming a seagoing giant with a powerful navy to complement its huge ship-borne trade.

“As China grows, China’s maritime power also grows,” says Ren Xiao, director of the Centre for the Study of Chinese Foreign Policy at Fudan University and a former Chinese diplomat posted to Japan. “China’s neighboring countries should be prepared and become accustomed to this.”

China’s strongly nationalistic Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, has thrown his personal weight behind the maritime strategy. In a speech to the Politburo in the summer, Xi said the oceans would play an increasingly important role this century in China’s economic development, according to accounts of his remarks published in the state-controlled media.

“We love peace and will remain on a path of peaceful development but that doesn’t mean giving up our rights, especially involving the nation’s core interests,” he was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

BLUE WATER AMBITIONS

China is also making waves in the South China Sea, where it has territorial disputes with a number of littoral states. But it is the pace and tempo of its deployments and exercises around Japan that provide the clearest evidence of Beijing’s “blue water” ambitions. Fleets of pale grey, PLA warships are a now a permanent presence near or passing through the Japanese islands.

An acrimonious standoff over a rocky jumble of disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkakus in Japan and Diaoyu in China, has given China an opportunity to flex its new maritime muscle. Beijing has deployed paramilitary flotillas and surveillance aircraft to this zone for more than a year, where they jostle with Japanese counterparts.

Tension flared dangerously last week when China imposed a new air defense zone over the islands, demanding that foreign aircraft lodge flight plans with Beijing before entering this area. In defiance of the zone on Tuesday, two unarmed U.S. B-52 bombers on a training mission flew over the islands without informing Beijing. The flight did not prompt a response from China.

“The policy announced by the Chinese over the weekend is unnecessarily inflammatory,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in California, where President Barack Obama is traveling.

Washington and Tokyo immediately signaled they would ignore the restriction. The Obama administration also reminded China that the treaty obliging the United States to defend Japan if it came under attack also covered the disputed islands.

Particularly unnerving for Tokyo are the increasingly common transits of powerful Chinese naval squadrons through the narrowest straits of the Japanese archipelago, sometimes within sight of land.

This puts East Asia’s two economic giants, both with potent navies, in direct military competition for the first time since the 1945 surrender of Japan’s two million-strong invasion force in China. Drawing on a reservoir of bitterness over that earlier conflict, the demeanor of both sides signals this is a dangerous moment as U.S. naval dominance in Asia wanes. Even if both sides exercise restraint, the risk of an accidental clash or conflict is ever present.

“China and Japan have to come to terms with the fact that their militaries will operate in close proximity to each other,” says James Holmes, a maritime strategist at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and a former U.S. Navy surface warfare officer. “Geography compels them to do so.”

COORDINATED CROSSING

As the Manoeuvre 5 drills got under way, PLA Senior Colonel Du Wenlong said he was looking forward to units from the three regional Chinese fleets simultaneously crossing three key chokepoints – two through the Japanese islands, and one between Taiwan and the Philippines, according to reports in the official Chinese military media. It is unclear if the warships performed a coordinated transit. But the exercises and the response of the Japanese military contributed to a spike in tension.

“The PLAN has cut up the whole island chain into multiple sections so that the so-called island chains are no longer existent,” Colonel Du was quoted as saying.

In this and earlier exercises, the PLA provided daily commentaries and details of the ships, courses and drills, with pointed mention of transit points past Japan.

PLA officers or military commentators, in typical communiqués, say China has “demolished” or “fragmented” the island chain in a “breakthrough” into the Pacific – language that suggests the crossings are somehow opposed rather than legal transits through international waters.

Tokyo dispatched warships and aircraft to track and monitor the Chinese fleet in response to the latest drills. Japanese fighters also scrambled to meet Chinese bombers and patrol aircraft as they flew out to the exercises and back. Japan’s defense ministry later released surveillance photographs of a Chinese H6 bomber flying between Okinawa and Miyako Island on October 26.

All this attention clearly irritated the PLA leadership. Beijing accused Japan of a “dangerous provocation” and lodged a formal diplomatic protest, complaining that a Japanese warship and aircraft disrupted a live fire exercise.

While the drills were under way, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned that his country would not be bullied. “We will express our intention as a state not to tolerate a change in the status quo by force,” he told a military audience on October 27. “We must conduct all sorts of activities such as surveillance and intelligence for that purpose.”

Naval commentators suggest the bellicose rhetoric shows that both sides are struggling to adjust to their new rivalry. “Chinese hardliners do regional tranquility no service by talking about splitting Japan and so forth,” says American naval strategist Holmes, co-author of an influential book on China’s maritime rise, “Red Star Over the Pacific,” with colleague Toshi Yoshihara. “And, the Japanese do regional tranquility no service by being alarmed when China’s navy transits international straits in a perfectly lawful manner.”

Part of the problem for Japan is that it has been slow to adjust to China’s rise, according to some Chinese foreign policy analysts, and is now excessively anxious. “For so many years they looked down upon China which was big but weak,” says Ren, the former Chinese diplomat. “Now the situation is different and they have to face up to the new reality.”

Some senior Japanese officers accept that China is within its rights to traverse international waters between the Japanese islands. Likewise, they say, the Japanese are entitled to track and monitor these movements and exercises.

“The Japanese Self Defense Force’s reaction is also in full compliance with international laws, regulations and customs,” says retired Vice Admiral Yoji Koda, a former top Japanese naval commander. Koda adds that the Japanese military routinely monitors Russian naval operations around Japan without friction or protest.

RISE OF SEAFARING POWERS

The ideological keel of Beijing’s modern bid to become a maritime power was laid down as China’s economic revival in the early 1980s flowed through into sharply increased military budgets. The starting point for China’s leading maritime thinkers is the trauma of European and Japanese colonization.

“The Qing Dynasty was badly defeated in naval warfare by overseas imperialist powers, leading to the decline and fall of the dynasty,” wrote Zhang Wenmu, a professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in a 2010 article published in China’s official state media.

Another premier Chinese maritime strategist is Ni Lexiong, a professor at Shanghai’s University of Political Science and Law. He has documented how China’s failure to properly fund its navy was a factor in its 1895 defeat in the first Sino-Japanese war and the subsequent loss of Taiwan.

Zhang and Ni are regarded as China’s leading advocates of the theories of the American naval officer, strategist and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan. Both subscribe to one of Mahan’s principal ideas: A truly powerful nation must have thriving international trade, a merchant fleet to carry these goods and a strong navy to protect its sea lanes. Mahan’s works, considered visionary in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, are still avidly read and absorbed in Chinese naval schools, Chinese military analysts say.

The rise of earlier seafaring and trading powers – Portugal, Spain, Holland, Great Britain, the United States and Japan – have also provided important lessons for strategic thinkers. The vision and influence of the late Admiral Liu Huaqing, known as the father of the modern Chinese navy, also remains strong.

Liu, who died in 2011, rose to become overall commander of the PLA and a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo standing committee, the country’s supreme ruling body. While Liu was head of the navy in the 1980s, it was an obsolete, coastal fleet. But Liu was determined that China needed a blue-water fleet and aircraft carriers if it was to match the power of the United States and its allies.

Fundamental to the thinking of many Chinese strategists and military and political leaders is the conviction that China would be foolish to rely on the United States to protect its shipping. They acknowledge that the U.S. Navy has guaranteed freedom of navigation since the end of World War Two, underwriting an explosion in global trade to the benefit of most other countries, including China.

The figures bear this out. China last year overtook the United States as the world’s biggest trader, according to official data from both countries. Up to 90 percent of Chinese trade is carried by sea, including most of its vital imports of energy and raw materials, shipping experts estimate. But Beijing’s strategists fear the U.S. could interrupt this trade at a time of crisis or conflict.

Almost all of China’s naval thinkers also agree that recovering Taiwan is crucial to realizing the dream of maritime power. Restoring “national unity” is a longstanding goal of the ruling Communist Party. But the self-governing island itself has immense strategic value, sitting astride sea lanes that are also vital for Japan and South Korea.

Control of Taiwan would open a huge breach in the first island chain around China. PLA warships and aircraft based on the island could extend China’s military reach far into the Pacific and much closer to Japan, without the need to first pass through potential choke points or channels in the chain.

“Taiwan is a part of the first island chain,” says Fudan University’s Shen. “Instead of being integrated into mainland China, it has been used as a part of the U.S. first island chain strategy.”

ABANDONING THE MAOIST STRATEGY

China’s turn to the sea has boosted the status of the navy, long the poor relation of the armed forces. The PLA, traditionally a massive ground force, was built around the Maoist strategy of drawing an invading enemy deep into the hinterland, where it could be destroyed through attrition.

Military strategists say this was thinkable before the country industrialized. Now that the eastern seaboard is the throbbing engine of the world’s second-ranked economy, fighting a war here would be catastrophic for China, win or lose, they say. Far better to meet challenges at sea or on the territory of a hostile nation.

The late Admiral Liu is credited with sharply increasing the navy’s share of the defense budget, outlays that have paid for a rapidly expanding fleet. In its annual assessment of the Chinese military published earlier this year, the Pentagon said the Chinese navy, now the biggest in Asia, deployed 79 major surface warships and more than 55 submarines, among other vessels. And the PLAN last year commissioned its first aircraft carrier.

Wu Shengli, the powerful admiral who now leads this force, is widely regarded as the most influential naval officer since Admiral Liu. Wu is also a member of the Central Military Commission, China’s top military council.

PLAN warships are now highly visible in all major oceans, with an active schedule of ship visits to foreign ports. The Chinese navy is part of the international anti-piracy force in the Gulf of Aden. These deployments are heavily publicized in the state-controlled media as the navy becomes a symbol of China’s growing international prestige.

This openness also applies to combat exercises. The U.S. and other major powers routinely chastise China for a lack of transparency surrounding its three-decade military build-up. But it is difficult to accuse Beijing of secrecy when it comes to recent naval operations near Japan. The state-run media and a stable of specialist military newspapers, journals, web-sites and television channels devote blanket coverage to the deployment of warships, submarines, aircraft and patrol vessels on missions near China’s neighbor.

Some military commentators say Japan shouldn’t overreact to these messages, as they are primarily aimed at a domestic Chinese audience.

“The PLAN is a relatively young organization building up their capabilities and certainly not the ‘senior service’ in China,” says Alessio Patalano, a specialist on the Japanese military at King’s College in London. “It’s important for its leadership and its members to establish their credentials and increase their profile.”

For exercise Manoeuvre 5, the Chinese navy followed the U.S. practice of embedding journalists. Regular television reports from the Type-052 guided missile destroyer Guangzhou showed the 6,500 ton warship ploughing through heavy seas on route to the exercises. Officers and sailors were interviewed at battle stations while they tracked targets and prepared missile launches.

Tokyo is keeping careful score. In its latest Defense White Paper, published in July, the Japanese military charted steadily expanding PLA deployments near Japan since 2008, documenting bigger visiting fleets, more powerful warships and increasingly complex exercises involving helicopters, support vessels and land-based aircraft.

ENCIRCLEMENT

After decades confined to its coastal seas, the PLAN began regular voyages from the East China Sea into the Pacific early last decade. At first, Chinese warships mostly used the wide Miyako Strait between Okinawa and Miyako Island, according to statements from the Chinese and Japanese militaries. Since then, in a series of firsts, they have transited all the other important channels between the Japanese islands, according to Japan’s White Paper.

Then came encirclement.

In July, five PLA warships steamed out of the Sea of Japan through the Soya Strait, known as the La Perouse Strait in Russia, which divides the Russian island of Sakhalin and Hokkaido. The Chinese fleet continued on around the Japanese islands and back to China.

“The move marks the first trip by the Chinese navy circumnavigating the Japanese archipelago,” said a report on China’s official military website.

Some Chinese strategists reject fears that deploying a powerful navy increases the odds of conflict. “I am more confident than many outside observers that China will behave out of the nation’s fundamental interests, namely, to take a path of peaceful development,” says Ren. “There is no reason to change this option.”

For Japan, there might even be an upside. Chinese warships used to be mostly confined to home waters, and thus hidden. Now, they can now be monitored.

“The more exercises the PLAN conducts on the high seas around Japan, the better for the JMSDF to judge and collect the PLAN’s warfare capabilities and intents,” says Koda, the retired Japanese admiral. “The PLAN cannot intimidate Japan by these types of exercises.”

(Reporting By David Lague. Editing by Bill Tarrant)

The post Special Report: China’s navy breaks out to the high seas – Reuters appeared first on Military Nation.