The sighting of a Chinese Song-class attack submarine within five miles of the Navy’s Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group in late October raised plenty of unpleasant questions.
How close was the sub to the carrier itself? Was the carrier totally surprised? Since the Navy says the sighting occurred southeast of Okinawa in the Philippine Sea, is that a sign that Beijing wants to build a power-projection navy that can compete with the U.S. fleet?
Given that Navy officials confirmed little else about the incident, answers about what actually happened are in short supply.
But according to one Pentagon source, the Chinese diesel-electric sub came within five miles of the carrier itself. And it was identified not by a shipboard radar operator but by an aviator in an F/A-18 Hornet who was flying a strike exercise from the carrier, the source said.
Such reports raise concerns about whether the sub surprised the carrier group, or whether it might have been spotted but misidentified, possibly pointing to problems with the overall quality of situational awareness and intelligence sharing being practiced at the time.
If the Chinese sub was running on diesel power, its electronic and acoustic signatures would have been similar to any diesel-driven surface ship, experts say.
Washington-based naval analyst Scott Truver said he’s heard both tales — surprised, not surprised.
“But everybody’s kind of close-mouthed,” he said. “Which leads me to believe that they were surprised that the submarine was there.”
Two U.S. submarines were normally assigned to the Kitty Hawk group. But a former Navy nuclear submarine commanding officer said it’s not uncommon for a group’s subs to be called away for other duties.
“Battle group commanders have always complained that the submarines are siphoned off to do more higher-priority national missions,” said the former CO, who retired within the past five years.
According to the Pentagon source, there was no submarine with the carrier at the time of the sighting. And since the carrier was moving at speed during flight operations, it was likely making too much noise in the water for a passive sonar operator or an escort ship to isolate.
Still, how did the Song, like other diesels far slower than U.S. Navy ships and subs, manage to get itself within five miles of the group?
“Could have been lucky,” said Norman Friedman, an independent New York-based naval analyst and author. “But the ocean’s pretty big, and luck tends not to be very common.”
Defense analyst Ron O’Rourke, of the Congressional Research Service, agreed, saying the Chinese sub might have been lurking in a likely U.S. operating area — possibly directed by a friendly source.
“I’m inclined to think the submarine was there as the battle group came to it,” he said.
Moreover, what happened aboard the Kitty Hawk ships? The former sub CO said there are plenty of possibilities.
“Was it a policy failure, in that people were steaming in peacetime and they were focused on doing drills because they have an ‘ops’ coming up and they want to be really good at rigging fire hoses, and were caught with their pants down?” he said. “Or ... were they insufficiently trained, or didn’t have enough of the right guys there, from the air or submarine perspective?”
Whatever the reasons, the former skipper thinks it was no accident that the Song surfaced where it did.
“I think he probably surfaced there very specifically to indicate to others, ‘Look, I am within five miles — 10,000 yards to the carrier,’” he said. “What that means is I can bring my weapons systems to bear on that ship and the ships that are in company with her.”
An Earlier Brush
It wouldn’t be the first time the Chinese had made a show of submarine force. In 2004, a Han-class sub apparently cruised all the way to Guam, circled the island and then deliberately surfaced in Japanese territorial waters on the way back home, according to a Nov. 22 Jamestown Foundation brief, “Beijing’s Strategy of Sea Denial,” by retired Capt. Bud Cole, an expert on the Chinese Navy at the National Defense University.
While China’s sub force may be growing in technical and operational capability, it could be developing an “unjustified level of confidence” in its submariners’ abilities, Cole wrote.
“I hope the Chinese didn’t learn the wrong lesson here,” Cole says. “If they deliberately did this to try to tell us how good they were, they may not understand.” But, he added, “The bottom line is that they’ve got better submarines and they’re deploying them further and more frequently.”
Navy officials and others point out that the Kitty Hawk strike group and the Chinese sub were operating in international waters. The U.S. and China are at peace. And while the Chinese military is modernizing, no one believes the Chinese have any plans to try to match the U.S. fleet, ship-for-ship, for an eventual blue-water showdown.
Rather, experts say, the desire appears to be to show strength close to home — particularly around Taiwan, where President Clinton sent two carrier battle groups in 1996 in response to heightened tensions caused by Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
The U.S.-Taiwan relationship has “deteriorated over the years,” Aaron L. Friedberg, of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, told Congress in a September hearing. In addition, the U.S. acknowledged in 1979 that Taiwan is part of China. Still, the U.S. continues selling arms to Taiwan and insists on the peaceful resolution of differences, according to the State Department.
China wants Taiwan “back in the fold,” but wants it back peacefully, despite the 1996 standoff, experts say.
“China doesn’t want to use military force against Taiwan,” Cole said. In the event that happened, however, “Taiwan is banking almost completely on U.S. intervention,” he said. “So that if the Chinese can delay that U.S. intervention — which means, to my way of thinking, can hold off the aircraft carriers through the use of their submarines — then I think they feel they can successfully pressure Taiwan with relatively low-level pressure.”
One prime method of delay would be using submarines to lay mines, which the Chinese believe is a way to “achieve exceptional combat results,” according to a translated 1998 Chinese military brief, “Submarine Minelaying.”
While the Pentagon source said the sub was on the surface when the carrier became aware it was there, the issue still raised questions about the effectiveness about Navy anti-submarine warfare, following years of post-Cold War neglect. The Navy took steps to revive it in 2005, establishing a Fleet ASW Command, creating a task force and a new program executive office at Naval Sea Systems Command to study, develop and procure new anti-sub systems.
“So the question that might arise is, ‘How far back have we recovered our capability?’” O’Rourke said. “I don’t have an answer to that.”
Norman Polmar, an independent Virginia-based naval analyst who worked on a 2005 Navy ASW study with Truver, thinks he does.
“We’ve lost ASW,” he said. “We can barely do it. Blue water, against nuclear subs, we’re probably good,” Polmar said. “Probably. But in blue water against non-nukes, we’re not good.”
Threefold Plan
The way to improve the problem is threefold, retired admiral and submariner Al Konetzni said. The Navy needs more submarines — about 55, not the 40-ish number that will prevail over the next 15 to 25 years, he said.
Next, those crews need to be well-trained, which means they must “operate where your potential enemy operates,” Konetzni said. Third, he said: “Make sure all your efforts are coordinated. And that is all the different services.”
To many, China and its gradually improving military are a major threat to U.S. interests.
“But tell me what kind of threat?” Polmar said. “They’re a threat because they want more oil. They’re a threat because they’re our biggest trading partner. They’re a threat because they don’t want Taiwan to announce its independence — and right now, Taiwan has a government that won’t do that.”
But China, Polmar said, serves as a convenient boogeyman, the big-power bad guy the Soviet Union once represented. “Part of it is, we’ve got to find enemies,” he said. “It’s hard to tell Congress you need a new battleship when nobody else in the world has battleships.”
A cynic might even say the Navy had the budget in mind when it confirmed the sighting, first reported in The Washington Times. Not impossible, most observers agreed.
“I can look at this and say, ‘Hmm — timing is interesting,” the former sub CO said. “And oh, by the way, only the Navy knew this. It wasn’t a CNN airplane that found the Song. So how’d the story get out?”
The bottom line, he and others agreed, is whatever happened, it took place in a part of the ocean where both nations are free to sail. The Navy, while calling the encounter an issue “of concern,” doesn’t believe the Chinese sub was a threat. But the Chinese are beginning to use their improving submarine capabilities to extend their reach, at least ever-so-slightly.
“I think it is the [People’s Republic of China] navy kind of flexing its muscle,” Truver said. “And it’s not in the sense of any kind of a power projection, but what I would call a regional naval hegemony. [Like saying,] ‘This is our home waters.’
“I just think this is a navy doing what navies do,” Truver said. “Get familiar with potential operating areas and look at potential adversaries.”
China sub secretly stalked U.S. fleet
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