USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group “On Watch” Steaming Through Philippine Sea

By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior

US Navy F-35Cs, F/A-18 Super Hornets helicopters, drones and deck fired warship missiles such as Tomahawks are all steaming through the Philippine Sea with intensity … well within reach to defend both Taiwan and the Philippines. 

While US Navy aircraft carrier forward presence is pretty routine for the Navy in recent months and years, a Carrier Strike Group presence just East of Taiwan and the Philippines takes seems to take on an extra urgency in light of recent tensions.  Not only has the People’s Liberation Army – Navy and Air Force encircled Taiwan as a threatening “punishment” for a US delegation’s visit to Taiwan, but hostilities between China and the Philippines are escalating as well.  There clearly seems to be a heightened sense of trepidation at the Pentagon that China may indeed move rapidly to “seize” Taiwan faster than the West could respond. 

A forward-positioned Carrier Strike Group, however, such as the USS Ronald Reagan and its supporting DDG 51 destroyers and cruisers now operating in the Philippine Sea, would be in a position to decimate any Chinese amphibious attack on Taiwan for several reasons.  Of course initially one is likely to think of the US 5th-generation aircraft advantage, which would seem to be significant, yet Navy destroyers and cruisers are now not only armed with ballistic missile defense interceptors such as SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6, but they also now fire Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles. These ship-launched weapons have a range of 900 nautical miles, yet of greater significance, technological upgrades in recent years now enable the Tomahawk to track and destroy moving ship targets at sea.  This technology, emerging in recent years, means that Tomahawk cruise missiles can not only be used to destroy “fixed” land targets such as infrastructure, command and control and troops and supplies, but could also destroy PLA-Navy amphibs, destroyers and carriers moving on the ocean. 

“Fait Accompli”

The possibility of a sudden, rapid surprise Chinese attack on Taiwan, referred to by Pentagon China reports as a “Fait Accompli” describes a scenario wherein the PLA seeks to surround and annex the island from close proximity quickly to entrench an occupying force upon Taiwan. In this kind of scenario, the PLA thinking may be that the West may consider it too costly in terms of lives and assets to try to “extricate” an occupying Chinese force from Taiwan, even if it were possible. 

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