US Navy Warships Transit Narrow Taiwan Strait .. Suggesting “We Will Defend Taiwan”
The US Navy’s USS Ralph Johnson, a DDG 51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, and a Royal Canadian Navy Halifax-class Frigate transited through the Taiwan strait
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By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
The US Navy is sending warship through the Taiwan Strait in a visible effort to demonstrate the power to freely sail anywhere international law allows and send China a signal that the Pentagon and its Pacific allies are prepared to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
The US Navy’s USS Ralph Johnson, a DDG 51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, and a Royal Canadian Navy Halifax-class Frigate transited through the Taiwan strait in what a US Navy statement says was in “accordance with international law.”
“The ships transited through a corridor in the strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state,” a Navy essay says.
The Navy’s published language uses the term “high-seas freedoms of navigation” in a manner that seems to align its Taiwan Strait excursion in a manner entirely consistent with its long-standing FONOPS or Freedom of Navigation Patrols in and around the South China Sea.
US Navy “Forward Presence” & 5th-Generation Air Power
Pentagon Wargaming results of Pacific scenarios, coupled with multi-national training and war preparation exercises near Taiwan, consistently indicate the deterrence value of US Navy “forward presence” which places drones, warships. submarines and warship-launched aircraft within striking distance of Chinese forces and Taiwan. Certainly response time would be paramount to any effort to prevent a rapid Chinese annexation of Taiwan, something the Pentagon report cautions about and calls a “fait accompli” in which the PLA occupies Taiwan faster than its defenders can respond, making it too costly for any allied coalition to “extricate” an occupying Chinese force.