As India looks to act East in response to China’s rise, investment in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands might make more sense than expensive floating status symbols.
Non-state actors using drones that cost a couple of grand to build are now pitted against some of the world’s most expensive and sophisticated weaponry.
The US Navy’s mastery of engineering has long been a strength for the navy, but the requirement for all its line officers to spend time as platform engineers at sea may be at the expense of seamanship and navigation.
The White House seems to regard FONOPs as a means to induce Chinese concessions on the North Korean nuclear issue. This is not what these patrols are designed for.
The North Korean ballistic missile threat is both more intractable, but also less dramatic, than calls for an Australian national missile defence suggest.
The upcoming China-Russia naval exercise suggests an emerging alignment on China’s behaviour in the South China Sea and Russia’s approach to security in the Baltic.