[BartSimpson]

$1:

And he said the defence of the Falklands now relied on "deterrence" rather than putting together a task force to rescue the islands from any invasion.

That's a polite way of the Brits reminding the Argies that, "We have nukes."

[EyeBrock]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

$1:

And he said the defence of the Falklands now relied on "deterrence" rather than putting together a task force to rescue the islands from any invasion.

That's a polite way of the Brits reminding the Argies that, "We have nukes."

Nah, the deterrence is the RAF QRA flight, the resident Pongo battalion and the on station RN sub/frigate. The buckets of instant sunshine are for our friends in Russia, Iran and China.

[saturn_656]

Judging by the expansionist, belligerent tone coming out of Beijing these days, I predict this:

Somewhere out in the vast legion of MK. 48 heavyweight torpedoes in service with navies across the globe, there is one that will have a blind date with this thing.

"Lube" will not be attending the get-together.

[BartSimpson]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

Judging by the expansionist, belligerent tone coming out of Beijing these days, I predict this:

Somewhere out in the vast legion of MK. 48 heavyweight torpedoes in service with navies across the globe, there is one that will have a blind date with this thing.

"Lube" will not be attending the get-together.

Too true. And the list of suspects will be pretty long.

One thing that's nice coming out of this thing is that China's neighbors are starting to get ideas about being friendlier to each other.

[saturn_656]

$1:

One thing that's nice coming out of this thing is that China's neighbors are starting to get ideas about being friendlier to each other.

There is a reason why China wants one-on-one negotiations with the countries they are in conflict with over the South China Sea and not multilateral negotiations with all parties in the same room.

Too much risk the other countries will come to agreement amongst each other and pack up on China.

[martin14]

QBall QBall:

That's one bloody expensive training ship. Without planes to do flight deck ops what kind of training are they going to do? Navigational?

Given the lies the spouted when they bought the thing, no one can seriously
believe they don't plan to put planes on it sometime soon.

[saturn_656]

martin14 martin14:

Given the lies the spouted when they bought the thing, no one can seriously
believe they don't plan to put planes on it sometime soon.

That's right, Ukraine stipulated that the ship was not to be returned to active service.

So much for that.

[QBall]

martin14 martin14:

QBall QBall:

That's one bloody expensive training ship. Without planes to do flight deck ops what kind of training are they going to do? Navigational?

Given the lies the spouted when they bought the thing, no one can seriously
believe they don't plan to put planes on it sometime soon.

Oh I have no doubt an air wing will eventually be assigned. I'm surprised that they didn't have all their ducks in a row and had them ready now. The carrier has been in refit for years, so I'm surprised carrier capable aircraft haven't already been built (after reverse engineering existing planes of course) and are good to go. Apparently they're still years away from this. Plus in my opinion several carriers is having the ability of force projection. A single aircraft carrier, even heavily escorted, is just a target (easier to track, target and destroy a single carrier group then having to do three or four simultaneously).

[Prof_Chomsky]

I love how this insignificant military story turns heads (And let’s be honest here, it is very insignificant. A cold war era aircraft carrier with no aircraft), but the one that really matters is as usual disregarded.
It’s not that China is trying to build a world class navy, it’s that the west has put them in a position where they have the money and booming economy to do so. All because some billionaires wanted a couple extra billion to add to the pile and lobbied the government until it was legal to outsource EVERYTHING and remove all the usual tariffs and trade barriers while ignoring China’s manipulation of their markets, currency and every other dirty economic trick in the book.

You don’t worry about China’s military. You worry about their economy. Or better yet, you should be worried about the western economies that are slowly eroding.

[Xort]

I wonder how much China would cry if someone sunk their casino but no one fessed up to doing it.

[EyeBrock]

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

I love how this insignificant military story turns heads (And let’s be honest here, it is very insignificant. A cold war era aircraft carrier with no aircraft), but the one that really matters is as usual disregarded.
It’s not that China is trying to build a world class navy, it’s that the west has put them in a position where they have the money and booming economy to do so. All because some billionaires wanted a couple extra billion to add to the pile and lobbied the government until it was legal to outsource EVERYTHING and remove all the usual tariffs and trade barriers while ignoring China’s manipulation of their markets, currency and every other dirty economic trick in the book.

You don’t worry about China’s military. You worry about their economy. Or better yet, you should be worried about the western economies that are slowly eroding.

I disagree. Those not worrying about the Chinese military need to give their head a very big shake.

[BartSimpson]

Xort Xort:

I wonder how much China would cry if someone sunk their casino but no one fessed up to doing it.

This will probably be the case but I expect that the ones not fessing up will also be Chinese. I figure the Chinese will FUBAR the thing or kill it during one of their live fire exercises and then, like Russia did with the Kursk, turn around and blame someone else for their own incompetence.

[BartSimpson]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

I love how this insignificant military story turns heads (And let’s be honest here, it is very insignificant. A cold war era aircraft carrier with no aircraft), but the one that really matters is as usual disregarded.
It’s not that China is trying to build a world class navy, it’s that the west has put them in a position where they have the money and booming economy to do so. All because some billionaires wanted a couple extra billion to add to the pile and lobbied the government until it was legal to outsource EVERYTHING and remove all the usual tariffs and trade barriers while ignoring China’s manipulation of their markets, currency and every other dirty economic trick in the book.

You don’t worry about China’s military. You worry about their economy. Or better yet, you should be worried about the western economies that are slowly eroding.

I disagree. Those not worrying about the Chinese military need to give their head a very big shake.

Concur. This is about developing a capability for China's future and I suspect that the designation of the ship as a training vessel is probably it's permanent designation and the chatter about it going into deployment is just intended to cause some sleepless nights in Tokyo, Manila, Taipei, and Hanoi.

[EyeBrock]

The Chinese are a growing threat. Nothing I've seen diplomatically, politically, economically and militarily makes me feel jolly about these guys.

They are the full bad guy package. Growing in wealth, military ability and oppressiveness.

Our countries are thoroughly infiltrated by Chinese citizens and there are numerous incidents in the recent media which allude to instances where honey-traps etc have been discovered.

We in the West are going to have to spend a load of cash on our militaries and counter-intelligence units just to counter this threat, which is quite annoying.

[Shadow_Flanker]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Liaoning does stay as a training ship, especially when one considers their navy's future goals. The Chinese are fully commited to building their own carriers, and construction is set to begin early 2013. Once the first carrier is finished and launched, the PLAN would already have a carrier crew and air wing trained and ready to transfer over.