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10/27/15

Destroyer in the Spratlys: Backing up tough talk in the South China Sea

Last night, the USS Lassen, a guided missile destroyer, transited within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, a low-tide elevation upon which China has built an artificial island.

The patrol, which came after months of deliberations within the Obama administration, marked the Navy’s first freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in the Spratly islands since 2012.

The US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen sails in the Pacific Ocean in a November 2009 photo provided by the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea on October 27, 2015, REUTERS/US Navy/CPO John Hageman.

The US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen sails in the Pacific Ocean in a November 2009 photo provided by the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands built by China in the South China Sea on October 27, 2015, REUTERS/US Navy/CPO John Hageman.

The Good

The Obama administration has, unfortunately, already taught Beijing that defending freedom of the seas is no longer automatic for the United States. That damage cannot be easily undone.

Unnamed Pentagon officials, however, have indicated that the transit was not a one-off. If that is the case, the Lassen patrol will mark the first step in demonstrating to a global audience that the United States will exercise the rights allowed it under both customary maritime law and under the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea. Allies and adversaries alike, in all regions, must know that the United States, as Ashton Carter has put it, “will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.”

The Bad

The first of what will hopefully be repeated FONOPs in the South China Sea conveys, finally, a US commitment to defending the prevailing maritime order.

But China has already rejected that order. And American FONOPs near Subi indicate a rejection of Chinese claims of sovereignty there. On issues of world order and of sovereignty over at least some features in the South China Sea, it’s difficult to see the middle ground.

Essentially, the United States and China have engaged in a contest over what Asia’s future will look like: where its borders are drawn, the rules of the international system, accepted norms of behavior, how states interact and solve disputes.

Beijing likely views the Lassen transit as a setback, not a defeat. But does the United States recognize that it is involved in a long-term strategic competition with China? Is it prepared—materially, intellectually, physically—to compete for the long haul?



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