China and Russia organize a very large joint exercise on the doorstep of the USA
A large joint military exercise between Russia and China, described as of unprecedented scale, has raised alarm from the Pentagon, for the place where it has turned: off the coast of Alaska. The United States
The exercises of Washington's most powerful nuclear rivals have been called by the Wall Street Journal "the largest fleet of its kind to approach American shores " in recent history, but they have never entered American territorial waters.
This was revealed by US defense officials in an article in the WSJ on Sunday morning, which reads that "eleven Russian and Chinese ships have approached the Aleutian Islands " and that " the ships, which have never entered US territorial waters and which meanwhile left, were followed by four US destroyers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft .”
An analyst and retired Navy captain quoted in the report said it was a "historic first " and " highly provocative ," especially in light of the raging war in Ukraine and rising tensions in Taiwan. The flotilla approached Alaska last week but has since moved away, US officials have indicated.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) said in a Sunday interview with Fox News that congressional leaders were notified by the Pentagon last week when Chinese and Russian vessels were patrolling.
He explained: “Whether you live in Alaska, like me, or on the east coast of the United States, a very large surface action task force between our two main adversaries, probing the coasts of the United States very closely, is worrying ".
“ This reinforces the idea that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by dictators in Beijing and Moscow, who are increasingly aggressive ,” he added, hawkishly. However, he failed to mention regular US naval and air patrols not far from mainland China, as well as in the Taiwan Strait – somewhat paralleling the moves China and Russia are making near Alaska. Beijing likely sees itself as just a "response" to previous US naval provocations in places like the South China Sea.
Both sides of the rivalry, in conducting these "menacing" joint exercises and flotillas, tend to emphasize that such patrols only take place in international waters. The Pentagon regularly brags about its “free navigation” operations in China's backyard.
But the Pentagon's response to this Sino-Russian provocation was described by Senator Sullivan as equally unprecedented, as several US warships were quickly dispatched to Alaskan waters:
“ We have significantly increased the number of vessels. Four US destroyers and P-8 aircraft that closely tracked and monitored this large-scale Russian-Chinese task force. So this is a significant improvement ,” said Sullivan. " It's a great naval power that demonstrates American determination ."
In recent years, even long before Russia's " special operation " in Ukraine, which brought NATO and Moscow to the brink of direct war, the Chinese and Russian navies had already stepped up coordinated activity in places like the Sea of Japan and near the Japanese islands, which Tokyo protested as an unwarranted intrusion.
There were joint Russian-Chinese naval maneuvers in the Bearing Sea near Alaska in 2021 and 2022 as well, but never on a scale like that described in this new incident. This appears to be a sign of Putin's and Xi's promise of "friendship without limits", first formulated at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Both countries are deploying their military forces right next to the North American continent.
It is not excluded that an escalation of this type of exercises can be expected, with a response from the US and its allies on a scale that makes these Russian-Chinese demonstrations of force almost minimal.
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The article China and Russia organize a very large joint exercise on the threshold of the USA comes from Scenari Economics .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/cina-e-russia-organizzano-unesercitazione-congiunta-di-grandissime-dimensioni-alla-soglia-degli-usa/ on Mon, 07 Aug 2023 07:00:35 +0000.