Nice organic Aegis and ATSW capabilities which I believe even the Dokdo class LPH doesn’t have.

these are after all helicopter carrying ships only, which severely limits their power projection capacity

As the blog post referenced in #31 points out, these Hyuga-class vessels are of similar displacement to the British Invincible-class, which means they may well be capable of operating STOVL fixed-wing aircraft as well as helicopters. With a very capable STOVL fighter on the not-too-distant horizon (the F-35), it’s not such a stretch to speak about the power projection capabilities that ships like these afford a navy.

Just go here and it will be pretty damn obvious that I’m not communist.

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/.....ment-99397

Japan’s 2 (more later) Hyuga class ships and doesn’t use it as another occassion to wet its panties in public

Korea has yet to order the 2 Dokdo class helicopter carriers that it put on ice a while back. So whatever panty wetting is most probably being done in private.

Of course today the Chinese are expansionistic in a low intensity kind of way and it’s something to watch for… BUT… it shouldn’t be overestimated or overstated.

One hopes that Korea heeds this advice rergarding Japan’s 2 (more later) Hyuga class ships and doesn’t use it as another occassion to wet its panties in public. Japan isn’t even remotely expansionist, and these are after all helicopter carrying ships only, which severely limits their power projection capacity.

http://jgpo-guam-cmtf.blogspot.....riers.html

http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....70007.html

“The Hyuga means that Japan is back in the power projection business.”

Whoopie! Arms race in the Far East! Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, GE, The Carlye Group, etc. must be salivating right about now.

wjk… you keep shifting terms on me. Okie, they were “commie” but they were not “communist?” A little confused, but I’ll go with it (I guess).

“They were facists and imperialistic”… probably just a little more facist and imperialistic then the U.S. was during the Cold War. That was what Russia and the U.S. had to be in that particular bi-polarized world. Both had to cut cards with the devil, although the Russians at the time didn’t believe in the devil and the U.S. kept things at a low intensity level so they can deal with their cognative dissonance better. However, American support of facist governments have the nasty habit of having the chickens come home to roost. Ah, what the CIA calls “blowback,” which happened in Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, and Venezuela, among others.

“Did you ever hear about Chinese nationals talking about breaking the US island chain preventing Chinese might from entering the Pacific Ocean? These guys are nuts.” Yes, about as nuts as the neocons arguing for an invasion of Iraq 4 years ago or currently talking about invading Iraq. Extremists on either ends a dominate government policy does not make.

“Han Chinese is undeniably unbelievably imperialistic.” You have to remember that the Han Chinese were victims of imperialism also. As a matter of fact, it was this very real example of China getting carved up buy the Western powers that shocked the Japanese into modernizing in the late 19th century. Of course today the Chinese are expansionistic in a low intensity kind of way and it’s something to watch for… BUT… it shouldn’t be overestimated or overstated. When the Bush administration came into power in early 2001, they spent WAY too much time talking about and thinking about how much of a threat China might be and didn’t spend nearly as much time as they should of reading the CIA reports about Al Qaeda or the FBI reports that there were an unusually large number of students from the middle east taking flying lessons in the U.S. without taking the landing lessons. America’s current declared enemy, and clear and present danger, is Al Qaeda and radical Islam, not China or Russia. As a matter of fact, China and Russia have their own Al Qaeda problem (Chechnya for Russia and Uyghurs in China). The U.S., Korea and Japan need a plan for keeping China and Russia in check without making them feel threatened. We already have enough problems in the world as it is and DO NOT need anymore enemies.

#9 and # 25,

Sumo… I’m a thinker yes, a communist no. Sorry to disappoint you. I tend to take a middle ground and think of the foreign policy requirements of both parties to come-up with an analysis. Taking various views to come up with a balanced analysis was once called critical thinking. Now it’s misinterpreted as “communist sympathizer.” Wonderful to know how far SOME PEOPLE have come from 50’s era McCarthyism. However, like McCarthyism, it’s equally credible and taxing on the brain cells…