https://news.usni.org/2024/07/25/uss-ronald-reagan-uss-george-washington-begin-carrier-hull-swap-in-san-diegoFive days ago, it was reported that the USS Ronald Reagan, which not long ago replaced USS George Washington in the 7th Fleet, is being switched once again. Now it will be the USS George Washington which is based in Yokosuka and not Reagan. The key difference between these two ships is that the Washington has the F-35C and the Reagan does not. Perhaps what I find most interesting about this is not so much that they're moving a ship with F-35s into proximity with China at this time, but that the U.S Navy has been ambivalent for years as to whether carriers featuring the F/A-18E Super Hornet or the F-35 were deployed. Given what happened with the hijacked F-35 in 2022, perhaps they do not have much faith in this platform.
I am reminded of an incident in 2008 in which China's first ballistic missile submarine mysteriously caught fire in its home port shortly before its first deployment. Two weeks after the deployment of what would have been their second ballistic missile submarine in 2010, just enough time for them to reach the U.S. West Coast, an ICBM was fired from a half mile off the coast of Los Angeles in a westward direction, away from the city. When the 2010 incident happened, the Pentagon was asked if the plume of smoke was associated with anything the Navy or Air Force was doing. The plume clearly had its origins in the water. The Pentagon revealed that it was not a U.S. Military asset which generated the plume but refused to speculate at to the source. China was sending a message.
On 10 July 2020, the USS Bonhomme Richard caught fire at home port. It was undergoing a Refueling and Complex Overhaul. The Navy claimed that the fire was caused by oily rags and paper and yet it took the U.S. Navy, which is expert in extinguishing fires six days to put out the blaze. Despite the ship being made from non-flammable materials, so much damage was done that the ship had to be scrapped. A single enlistedman in the U.S. Navy was charged with starting the fire as a scapegoat was being sought, but the supervisor of the overhaul operation boarded a flight after the fire began and has not been seen in the United States since. Although charges were brought in 2021, at court martial, the sailor was acquitted of all charges, including the arson charge. What Wikipedia isn't going to tell you, of course, is that the supervisor of the overhaul fled the country and is unofficially a wanted man. It's unlikely he's going to return to the United States.
This is just one example of the United States' policy of concealing its losses out of a fear of embarrassment or out of a fear of the consequences of being internally forced to respond militarily to acts of war. Another good example of this sort of the abdication of a responsibility to respond was the October 7, 2020 incident in which eleven missiles each carrying 1000-lb. warheads were detonated at an Iraqi military base housing U.S. troops. Donald Trump had, not long prior to this incident, claimed that he would directly attack Iran if a single American was killed by Iranian action. The Pentagon reported in the immediate aftermath that there were no injuries. A revised report stated that there were about a dozen injuries. A third revision had the number at 50. A fourth revision brought this number to over 120, all of which had severe traumatic brain injury. In such a scenario, it is highly unlikely, with ten of the eleven warheads hitting their mark, that there were no fatalities. Trump had sworn to attack Iran if a single American was killed. The reality of course, was that seven Americans had been killed. Trump improperly classified this information in order to evade a responsibility to retaliate.
Another good example: In November 2010, North Korea attacked South Korea, shelling of an island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Yeonpyeong_bombardment Despite 20 people being killed and despite it coming just months after the sinking of a South Korean vessel, Obama personally called the President of South Korea and requested that they not respond militarily. Why? Because Obama didn't want to endanger the economic recovery in 2010 and war afraid that economic ripples would hurt his re-election chances. The South Korean public wanted to respond and was so furious with their government for this failure that they installed a right-wing President shortly thereafter.
