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19 octobre 2011 3 19 /10 /octobre /2011 05:55

http://www.aviationweek.com/media/images/defense_images/UAVs/UCAS-D-NorthropGrumman.jpg 

Photo: Northrop Grumman

 

Oct 18, 2011 By Michael Fabey - aerospace daily and defense report

 

For the first time since U.S. Navy ships and submarines played cat and mouse with Soviet counterparts, America is finding it much more difficult for its forces to roam the seas at will and project forward presence where and when it wants.

 

While the most obvious example of the shorter naval operations leash is U.S. wariness of venturing too far into Chinese territorial waters, the restraints are becoming more global. And it is not the vessels that have many defense analysts concerned, but the missiles and related systems that pose the greatest risk for the Navy.

 

Speaking about anti-access concerns around a month ago — shortly before he stepped down as U.S. chief of naval operations — Adm. Gary Roughead said, “When systems and capabilities can proliferate the way they proliferate today, it’s not all about China.”

 

For example, he said, if he had been asked to conduct certain operations in Middle Eastern waters 10 years ago, “We would have mustered up all the amphibs without batting an eye.”

 

But, he noted, an Israeli ship was almost sunk by an anti-ship missile fired by terrorists in that region. Access can no longer be taken for granted.

 

Long-range strike, he said, is important for the Navy. “You do want that forward presence, you do want to put pressure on.” Such weapons will help U.S. carrier groups and other naval forces defend against coastal missile systems, he said.

 

“There is great fixation on aircraft carriers,” he said, “with little discussion on fixed land-based systems, whose GPS coordinates will never change. The GPS coordinates of an aircraft carrier at this minute will be different than it will be an hour from now.”

 

The Chinese certainly became fixated on aircraft carriers in 1996, when the U.S. parked two carrier groups in the Taiwan Straits to protect Taiwan.

 

“The 1996 crisis embarrassed the PLA (People’s Liberation Army,” says David Shlapak, one of the authors of the Rand Corp. report, “Conflict with China, Prospects, Consequences, and Strategies for Deterrence,” released earlier this month.

 

The central maritime focus for PLA after that moment, Shlapak says, became defending against a threatening carrier group. China has developed a significant shield against carrier groups, combining submarines, sub torpedoes, ballistic missiles and state-of-the art anti-ship missiles.

 

“The question for the U.S. Navy becomes this: How much risk am I willing to take?” Shlapak says.

 

The U.S. has to decide now whether it is worth the gamble to move its vessels close to those types of threats or whether it is better to pull back to a safer distance. “The U.S. has not had to deal with something like this since the Cold War,” Shlapak says.

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