Sub Force Commanders Meet At PG School

It appears that all the Submarine Force bigwigs met with the CNO late last month in Monterey at the Naval Post-Graduate School (normally called "NPS", but that stands for Nuclear Power School for us nukes, so we call it "PG school") for a "submarine flag officer's training symposium":

"The specter of a war with China over Taiwan was one of several global security issues that drew U.S. submarine officers from around the world to a top-secret meeting at the Naval Postgraduate School this month.
"The fact that more than two dozen Navy leaders met under the highest security in Monterey puts the Navy school on the front line of a developing Cold War-type scenario in the Pacific. In recent months, military exercises there have been marked by tense diplomacy and saber-rattling between the U.S. and China.
"Under security conditions that one Pentagon insider described as "impenetrable," Chief of Naval Operations Mike Mullen was quietly whisked in and out of town Sept. 28 and Sept. 29 to address the admirals on undisclosed military and security topics, said Mullen's spokesman, Cmdr. John Kirby. He said Mullen, the Navy's top officer, was invited by the admirals. During his quick trip to the Peninsula, Mullen visited Fleet Numerical Laboratories.
"Kirby said he could not comment on whether Mullen discussed China and the Pacific with the submarine commanders, but he said Mullen talked about the future direction of the Navy and "the crucial role of the submarine forces." In 2006, the Navy plans to rapidly develop its anti-submarine warfare technology, according to a report released Friday by Mullen."

I'm glad they're discussing this. While I've said before that I don't think war with China is inevitable, or even likely, it's good to have plans in place to counteract your potential adversary's capabilities, not their probable actions. The water around the Taiwan Straits is a very challenging ASW environment (or so I've heard) so any high-level planning for operations in this potential war zone is a good thing.

The article is fairly good (although a little simplistic -- not sure if the author is not too familiar with subs, or is just writing to an audience who isn't), and it has some decent background information, so it's worth a read.

The same writer also had an article on a topic that Eagle1 normally blogs about: Piracy in the Malacca Straits. I went over to his blog to see if he'd commented about it already, but instead, I found that he'd posted about the same thing I did. Even used the same excerpt from the article as I have above... darn lawyers!

Going deep...

Bell ringer 1024 17 Oct: Eagle1 now has his Malacca Straits piracy post up.