No. of Recommendations: 2
Well...a bit of an overstatement. But there are a lot of requests for assistance related to Chinese encroachments in the South China Sea. Interesting (to me) that it's the USCG, rather than the USN. An Arleigh-Burke will handle just about anything the CCG can throw at it. The Chinese would have to use their actual navy to counter that.
Not sure why we're playing it "soft". Granted, I am a bit of a hawk. Of course, since it is Philippines' territorial waters, we do have to follow their lead (in the Spratleys). But there have been other incidents involving our ships. As far as I'm concerned, if a vessel gets within some distance (e.g. 200m) of one of our ships, they should be entitled to send it to the bottom (assuming we issued a warning ahead of time that we would do that). USCG is armed, but they aren't really designed to confront a combat navy.
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/08/29/2381...Several countries have been reaching out to the United States Coast Guard for support, including training, as China pursues its sweeping South China Sea claims more aggressively, a USCG official said. 