Limping back
Incident shows lapse in US Navy’s internal management: experts
The guided- missile destroyer USS John S. McCain heads for Singapore with a hole on its portside after a collision with an oil tanker, outside Changi naval base in Singapore on Monday. It was the second accident involving an American warship in two months
Ten sailors are missing after a US warship collided with an oil tanker east of Singapore before dawn on Monday, tearing a hole beneath the waterline and flooding compartments that include a crew sleeping area, the US Navy said.
The collision between the guided- missile destroyer USS John S. McCain and the tanker Alnic MC was the second involving US Navy destroyers and merchant vessels in Asian waters in little more than two months.
Chinese experts said the recent collisions between US warships and civilian ships showed a lapse in the US Navy’s internal management, as the country is obsessed with playing the role of world’s police and spreads its forces across the globe.
The collision took place while the US warship was heading to Singapore for a routine port call, the Navy said in a statement.
“Initial reports indicate the USS John S. McCain sustained damage to her port side aft,” the Navy said, adding that “there are currently 10 sailors missing and five injured.”
The destroyer had made its way to Changi Naval Base by Monday afternoon. Significant damage to the hull had resulted in flooding to nearby compartments, including crew berthing, machinery and communications rooms, the Navy said.
Four of the injured were evacuated by helicopter to a hospital in Singapore with nonlife threatening injuries, while the fifth one needed no further treatment.
The USS John S. McCain’s sister ship, the USS Fitzgerald, almost sank off the coast of Ja- pan after it was struck by a Philippine container ship on June 17. The bodies of seven USS Fitzgerald sailors were found in a flooded berthing area.
Collisions between warships and large vessels are extremely rare, with naval historians going back more than 50 years to find a similar previous incident.
Zhao Xiaozhuo, a research fellow at the Academy of Military Sciences of the People’s Liberation Army ( PLA), said that the collisions on Monday showed a decline in combat readiness and a lapse in the US navy’s internal management.
“The US military has the most advanced weapons in the world but the incidents tell us that weapons are not the sole benchmark for measuring military’s strength,” Zhao said.
Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute, said that as the US spreads its military forces around the globe and is obsessed with playing the role of the world’s police, the chances of such inci
dents naturally rise.
US Navy guided- missile destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with a merchant vessel east of Singapore early Monday, resulting in 10 US Navy sailors missing and five injured. On June 17, the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan, leaving seven US sailors dead.
The two severe collisions within two months show that the US Navy’s combat readiness level and military management level have both declined.
The USS John S. McCain passed close to the Meiji Reef of the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea earlier this month. The USS Fitzgerald often conducted “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea.
On China’s Internet sphere, there is applause from Chinese netizens about the latest accident. This refl ects the sentiment of Chinese society toward the activities of the US Navy in the South China Sea. The missing and injured US sailors deserve sympathy. The humanitarian care between the Chinese and American people is often aff ected by frictions between the two navies in China’s peripheral areas, which is worth attention from the strategic elites of the two sides.
The US Navy and US destroyers which patrol in the South China Sea are not China’s enemy. China and the US are engaged in a rivalry in the South China Sea. There is a possibility that the two navies will come to a showdown, but it is more likely that the two countries can avoid such a scenario. Both should work on avoiding clashes, while obviously the US Pacifi c Com- mand did not do that. Its activities only aim at putting China in check.
US warships are constantly involved in accidents around the South China Sea. On the one hand, the US Navy has behaved arrogantly in the Asia- Pacifi c region. It lacks respect for huge merchant ships and fails to take evasive action in time, thus resulting in serious accidents.
On the other hand, US warships patrol too frequently in the Asia- Pacifi c. A large number of merchant vessels, of many types and fl agged from many nations, use Asian sea lanes. If the US Navy wants to keep its frequent presence in the waters, it needs to get familiar and interact with these merchant ships, which requires huge expenditure.
But still the US Navy conducts many risky military activities without full preparation.
The frequent collisions of US warships with merchant vessels off er a warning to the Americans that they should restrain themselves.
The South China Sea is not the US Navy’s Bermuda Triangle, but the inability of the US Navy to adapt to this region requires research by Washington. The geopolitical pattern in the South China Sea keeps changing, and the US should be aware of it.
The South China Sea should become a sea of peace. Its sea lanes should be the safest. All the countries should contribute to peace rather than being an agent of destabilization. It is hoped that the US Navy can play a constructive role. We would like to see all the US warships and their sailors remain safe.