In the turbulent South China Sea, the US Navy bets on a troubled warship
When US Vice President Kamala Harris stepped aboard the littoral combat ship USS Tulsa in Singapore on Monday, it put a fresh spotlight on arguably one of the most divisive vessels in the US Navy's fleet.
Depending on who you talk to, littoral combat ships (LCS) are either a naval threat capable of "blowing up every Chinese operation in the South China Sea," or a floating symbol of all the US Navy's most pernicious problems. And while US naval leaders tout the LCS' speed and agility in shallower coastal areas, critics point to its limited armaments and history of mechanical breakdowns.
"The reason we are here is important," Harris told the crew of the Tulsa on Monday night. "Our presence in the Indo-Pacific has a long, long history, including now, of helping to guarantee peace and security, freedom of trade and commerce, freedom of navigation ... and open waterways, and the rules-based international order that has brought so much safety and prosperity to so many."
US Navy leaders say the LCS, which is comparable in size to the more standard corvette class of ships, has an integral role in making that happen.
And they expect the LCS to play an even bigger part as the US faces a more robust Chinese presence in the South China Sea, emphasized by its growing fleet and fortified military installations built by Beijing on manmade islands.
"Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate, and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea," Harris said in Singapore on Tuesday. She called China's action's "unlawful."
'Distributed lethality tactics'
China claims almost all of the 1.3 million square mile South China Sea as its sovereign territory and says the presence of US warships there are the cause of tensions and instability.
That has not stopped the US Navy from asserting itself in the waterway, where it regularly sends its ships for exercises and so-called Freedom of Navigation operations, which challenge Beijing's claims to disputed islands.
Vice Adm. Bill Merz, who commanded the US Navy's 7th Fleet until June, told an online defense conference earlier this year the Navy has plans to deploy up to eight LCS in the Western Pacific by the end of 2022, including having four operating out of a base in Singapore -- where two are based now -- by the end of this year.
Merz's comments came after one LCS, the USS Gabrielle Giffords, "pretty much owned the southern South China Sea" during operations last year, he said.
"She kept out there pounding away, blowing up every Chinese operation in the South China Sea. It was pretty impressive work," Merz said.
A 7th Fleet spokesperson later clarified the Giffords' effectiveness in the South China Sea, telling CNN in an email that "nothing was actually 'blown up.'"
"It is
a trade term for influence," Cmdr. Reann Mommsen said. "Without going into specifics, USS Gabrielle Giffords presence influenced operations throughout the South China Sea."
edition.cnn.com/2021/08/25/asia/us-navy-littoral-combat-ships-pacific-south-china-sea-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html
