Song Class Submarine Resurfaces Again

The British newspaper Daily Mail has a story out about a Song class submarine surfacing near the USS Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group. Sound familiar? It should, without giving any dates or providing much at all in terms of details, the Daily Mail apparently attempts to resurface a story that is over a year old. With a dateline of November 10th, the headline reads "The uninvited guest: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced."

So is this a new event or a rehash of last years event? We will all eventually find out, but my guess this is an old story told a new way to generate discussion. It appears new, with the new dateline and all, new enough to generate a new discussion over at Hot Air who treats it as a new event, although they should have realized their screwup when Hot Air decided to link to a second story from last year and treat it as new information.

Assuming for a minute that this is the same Song class submarine incident from last year, I think there are a number of things worthy of discussion coming from today's Sunday story.

First, the timing of rehashing the Song class surfacing story is interesting. Gates just returned from China, and the overwhelming majority of opinions regarding the results of his visit outside this administration is one of failure. You cannot read anything in the discussions and find an example of tangible cooperation between the US and China in these talks, which means we either choose to believe that the Bush administration is really making gains and isn't telling us, or that it is what it looks like it is, a dog and pony PR show on the good feelings between the US and China on strategic issues.

The Daily Mail though is the far right news organization over in the UK, so why bring the story out now? Well, one reason might be to embarrass the Bush administration in its strange policy with China. There are a lot of people in strategic circles ready to start treating China like we did the Soviet Union, and ready to start doing so yesterday already. The maritime strategy gives a ton of rhetoric to irregular challenges facing the Navy, but brushes broadly with a summery of China's Navy, and provides no guidance at all. Could it be the Daily Mail article is a hit job on the current US strategy with China, and designed to send the subtle message of a dangerous PLAN back into public discourse? Maybe. I'd even say probably.

But the other aspect of the discussion with this article is discouraging, and potentially dangerous. Too many people came out with statements that implied one or both of two dangerous ideals. The infallibility of the US Navy due to superior technology, and the limited capability of the PLAN due to inferior technology. These tendencies to compare the capabilities of adversaries on the basis of technology is dangerous, and is contrary in my opinion to the theory of war itself, where strategy and tactics matter more than the tools, of which is only one small part of the foundation from which tactics and strategy is formed.

In WWII the US Navy operated diesel submarines in every part of the Pacific, but there is a growing expectation that the PLAN will operate submarines only within the confines of littoral water, and somehow wouldn't dare challenge the US Navy in blue water. In WWII it is noteworthy the German's had superior tanks, but somehow the Sherman's were deployed against them despite their clear inferiority. If technology alone is the sole basis for competitive balance, how did that damn Yankee General Patton ever win a battle? Probably the same way the US Navy won the battle of Midway in 1942, despite having overwhelmingly inferior numbers of ships and aircraft barely competitive to the Japanese Zero. In 1942 the battle of Midway was a route in favor of Japan just waiting to happen based solely on the naval technology available to each side. Ironically, it was a piece of intelligence technology, outside the naval technology discussion, that partially contributed to a different outcome completely.

I think it is becoming increasingly clear that the United States and its regional allies do not have good information on the capabilities of the PLAN submarine forces, and are struggling with even the basics of PLAN underwater strategy. We continue to see events that do not add up in our conventional wisdom that should illustrate by now, that conventional wisdom doesn't apply. For example, how many more PLAN SSBNs will the public be alerted to by the bloggers at FAS?

Another example, in the west we tend to focus on the various accidents of Chinese submarines, focusing on the failures rather than paying attention to the details. For example, that Forbes story talks about the fire incident happening "in international waters about halfway between Taiwan and Hainan." Uhm, that would be in the heart of shipping lanes in the South China Sea, or did you not consult the map and fail to realize that?

If you actually clicked those links and read them, you might walk away thinking "those silly Chinese, they can't keep their subs from smoking." However, when I read read that Forbes article I walked away thinking "the Chinese are exercising multiple conventional submarines in the heart of shipping routes in the South China Sea." China would love for us to stay focused on the fire, but smart observers noted the location of the smoke.

There is a major disconnect between the expectations of the PLAN and the capabilities of the PLAN, and I see the tendency to believe or propagate diminished PLAN capabilities solely on an expected level of technology as dangerous. To me this mindset contributes directly to the larger Chinese strategy of deception, and doesn't account for the other factors that are beginning to play directly to the PLAN submarine services advantage, specifically the art of the strategic defense and superiority of numbers. While we would be wise not to overstate the capabilities of the PLAN submarine force, we would also be wise not to understate it, or weigh heavily our estimations of capability on technological factors alone.

Updated: To illustrate my point, for those who got caught up in the technology aspect of the discussion, contrast that to how a professional approached the same story. Molten Eagle noticed the article as well, and if you notice he quoted his initial reaction last year to the original story. That reaction focuses in precisely to the conditions of the reported details, which makes my point.

"Amateurs talk technology, professionals talk conditions." Given proper planning to exploit the conditions of any situation the level of technology sophistication of an adversary can be negated tactically. It is true of any type of warfare; land, sea, and air.

Why is it beyond possible that the PLAN would be incapable of intercepting the Kitty Hawk in waters so near their own country? It seems to me that the opinion it couldn't happen would require more support than the opinion it could when you consider the conditions includes a nation operating close to home apparently prepared to intercept an unsuspecting target along a planned route of travel. Molten Eagle correctly challenges the conditions behind the reported details, which would also lend itself to a completely different series of events than the one outlined by the media.