How the US Lost the South China Sea Standoff
China won the Cowpens/Liaoning encounter in the South China Sea. What lessons should the US draw?
By James R. Holmes
December 19, 2013
So who won the December 5 encounter between the Aegis cruiser USS Cowpens and the ships escorting aircraft carrier Liaoning? Sad to say, methinks this round goes to China’s navy. So, evidently, does Beijing, which has struck an upbeat note since the press disclosed the near-collision last week. Magnanimity bespeaks comfort with the outcome.
Think about it. PLA Navy vessels barred Cowpens, one of the U.S. Navy’s premier surface combatants, from what Chinese spokesmen call an “inner defense layer” centered on Liaoning. Inner defense layer? Forsooth. This exclusion zone was a circle with a diameter at least 60 miles across. It spanned over 2,800 square miles. To use a yardstick wearisomely familiar to us Rhode Islanders, that’s over twice the area of our beloved Ocean State. After the American warship maneuvered radically to avoid colliding with a PLA Navy amphibious transport that crossed her bow at close quarters, officers on board the two ships reportedly conferred by radio. Cowpens then left the proscribed area.
https://thediplomat.com/2013/12/how-the-us-lost-the-south-china-sea-standoff/
