The last time there were so many US super-carriers in the Pacific was three years ago because of North Korea.
Editorial Staff
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Chinese military power and strategic attention is overwhelmingly directed towards the Pacific Ocean. Which is why Beijing’s military planners are presently dividing their attention between troop face-offs in Ladakh and three US carrier groups in the Pacific Ocean.
The last time there were so many US super-carriers in the Pacific was three years ago because of North Korea. The US Indo-Pacific Command last month added that all its forward-deployed submarines were at sea.
The US naval deployment, while not originally motivated by events along the Sino-Indian border, has inevitably become part of China’s larger strategic calculus.
Explains Vice-Admiral Anil Chopra, who just completed a term as the maritime expert on the National Security Advisory Board, the “movement of naval forces escalates things. Whenever you move them into an area of confrontation it serves to send a message.
The Chinese will worry about what the carriers can do, not what they necessarily will do.” Chopra says, “It…
