The U.S., Canada, India, Japan and South Korea are staging joint anti-submarine warfare drills amid talks between Japanese and South Korean leaders geared toward strengthening their alliance with Washington in opposition to threats from China and North Korea
TOKYO — The US, Canada, India, Japan and South Korea are staging joint anti-submarine warfare drills amid talks between Japanese and South Korean leaders geared toward strengthening their alliance with Washington in opposition to threats from China and North Korea.
The Sea Dragon 23 workout routines that began on Wednesday will culminate in additional than 270 hours of in-flight coaching “starting from monitoring simulated targets to the ultimate drawback of monitoring a U.S. Navy submarine,” the U.S. seventh Fleet mentioned in a information launch.
Pilots and flight officers from all collaborating nations may even maintain classroom coaching periods to “construct plans and focus on techniques incorporating the capabilities and gear of their respective nations,” The seventh Fleet mentioned.
The drills are being held as a contest, with the nation profitable essentially the most factors taking dwelling the “Dragon Belt.”
The U.S. Navy is being represented by two P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Plane, at present based mostly in Guam. It didn’t say the place the workout routines could be held or how lengthy they might final.
With 50 to 70 ships and submarines, 150 plane and greater than 27,000 sailors and marines able to deploy at any given time, the seventh Fleet “routinely interacts and operates with Allies and companions in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific area,” it mentioned.
That features working within the South China Sea, the place it routinely attracts Beijing’s anger by crusing and flying close to islands held and fortified by China, which claims the strategic waterway nearly in its entirety.
The workout routines additionally come as China’s navy is collaborating in joint search and rescue workout routines within the Gulf of Oman with Iran and Russia, three of the nations most at odds with the US.
Different nations, as but unidentified, are additionally collaborating within the “Safety Bond-2023” workout routines, which China’s Protection Ministry says will “assist deepen sensible cooperation between the collaborating nations’ navies … and inject optimistic vitality into regional peace and stability.”
U.S. Nationwide Safety Council spokesperson John Kirby mentioned Wednesday that the White Home was not involved by the joint coaching train.
China’s dispute with Japan over tiny islands within the East China Sea has additionally heated up, with each side accusing the opposite of violating their maritime territory.
