On Thursday, the US Navy said a US nuclear attacks submarine was damaged in the South China Sea on October 2nd after hitting an unknown “object,” injuring about a dozen sailors.
It’s not clear what the USS Connecticut hit, and one US Navy official told The Associated Press that it could have been a sunken ship, sunken container, or some other uncharted object. The submarine is expected to arrive at the US port in Guam soon.
The incident highlights the risk of the US operating such vessels in the South China Sea. The submarine was likely spying on Chinese submarines and boats and operating close to the seafloor to stay hidden.
China has questions about the accident and wants the US to disclose more information. “The United States should clarify more details of the occurrence, including the specific location, the intention of its navigation, what kind of object the sub had struck, whether it caused a nuclear leak that would contaminate marine environment,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday.
Zhao added that the US military presence in the region is the “root cause” of the accident. He said US operations in the South China Sea “poses a serious threat and major risk to regional peace and stability.”
Since 2020, the US has significantly stepped up its military presence in the South China Sea. This increases the chance of a US warship or warplane getting involved in an accident with the Chinese military. And with US-China relations at their lowest point in decades, an accident could quickly spiral into a full-blown conflict.
No one has been fired over this?
The captain of the sub will likely be relieved of duty once the sub makes it into port, and never command a significant vessel again.
If it had been a surface ship operating as part of e.g. a carrier group, the relief would probably have happened more quickly, simply because it would be possible to bring in a new commander on a moment’s notice.
Subs aren’t so easy to get to “in the field,” and replacing the captain with a member of the current crew before a thorough investigation risks replacing the captain with an officer who’s also culpable in the particular incident.
Or games of chicken were being played.
This would be a political knee-jerk reaction, but I would not be surprised.
Hasty acts like that would only indicate that it is more important to lay blame for China related incident, then to determine the real cause.
To avoid detection submarines stay close to the sea floor, and if instruments do not detect an obstacle, damage is unavoidable. Entirely different question is — why provoke China by such reckless acts. Sneaking a potentially nuclear armed US submarine close to Chinese coast is also a wake up call to China.
Many lessons there.
What if it’s a “false flag” of sorts? Maybe the incident never even happened, and the whole point is to tell China (truthfully or not) “we snuck a potentially nuclear armed submarine close to your coast?”
It’s time to stop thinking of US provocations as necessarily either accidental, or incidental to other things. Goading Beijing may be their sole actual purpose.
It may have run into a prepositioned SAPD – Sound Activated Passive Drone. They are buoyant and the newer models are more maneuverable than the first versions in my latest story.
Sounds like Chinese disinformation: “Zhao added that the US military presence in the region is the ‘root cause’ of the accident. He said US operations in the South China Sea ‘poses a serious threat and major risk to regional peace and stability.'” There is no way that is the absolute truth and nothing but the truth–correct? (sarcasm)