by Craig Hooper on November 3, 2021
Not to be a downer, but the Navy has, in the space of a little less than a year, probably lost a second multi-billion dollar frontline asset. First the Bonhomme Richard, and now, possibly, the USS Connecticut. The last time a sub publicly suffered a controlled flight into terrain was in 2005, and the ONLY […]
by Craig Hooper on August 5, 2021
Last month, I had a piece published in one of the magazines in the MarineLink constellation–the link is here. Please go read it! For the piece, I was charged to discuss the technical and geopolitical drivers of naval shipbuilding, so there was a lot to cram into the essay. It’s a bit dense. At any […]
by Craig Hooper on April 19, 2019
The old movie Wargames reminds us that, sometimes, “the only winning move is not to play.” It looks like the U.S. Navy is doing just that with China’s massive naval review this month, refusing to send ships to celebrate the 70th anniversary of China’s Navy beyond the local attache. From the Japan Times: The United […]
by Craig Hooper on June 30, 2017
The indefatigable Seth Cropsey over at Hudson Institute for American Seapower had me stop by to chat about Taiwan security issues. Despite the heat, it was a good time. Here’s the talk: My fellow panelists and I earned Hudson a little bit of coverage from Seapower Magazine. My takeaway quote there was this: Craig Hooper, […]
by admin on December 2, 2014
When confronted at sea, Americans have an unbroken, century-long record of building new maritime competitors–whomever they are–into ten feet tall, impossible-to-defeat monsters targeted directly at the good ‘ole U.S.A.. Maybe it’s some institutional holdover from America’s early underdog struggles against the British Fleet, but this habit of fearfully over-hyping anything and everything challenging in the […]
by admin on August 7, 2014
A good deal of polite Western snickering met the announcement that China was on the verge of building large seaplanes–an “old technology”, scoffed the haters, whose “heyday came and went with the demise of the Pan Am Trans-Oceanic Clipper”. But at least one Chinese aviation commentator dispensed a bit of wisdom for the doubters: “The […]
by admin on August 5, 2014
The Taipei Times, in a friendly gesture, used my story on China’s recent mine warfare exercises in the South China Sea to advance some wider discussion mine warfare in China’s near seas. Here’s my bit: Craig Hooper, a former teacher at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, has reported that the Chinese navy conducted […]
by admin on July 29, 2014
Less than a month after I highlighted the real potential for mine warfare in the South China Sea (here), the Chinese Navy has, for the first time, publicly announced mine warfare drills in the South China Sea. From Xinhuanet: The Chinese navy has conducted a mine clearance drill in formation in the South China Sea […]
by admin on July 10, 2014
Mine Warfare in the South China Sea is inevitable. Look at the players. On one side, we have China, a country boasting an enormous, sophisticated arsenal of mines with a resurgent Navy holding a set of offensive Mine Warfare doctrines that are simply begging to be tested. On the other, we have Vietnam, the Philippines […]
Here’s a challenge for my friends in the media, my resident China-Watchers, and those passers-by of the high intelligence set: How is China responding–if at all–to the White House’s quiet June 16 imposition of American control over millions of kilometers of strategic seabed? I’m willing to bet that this expansion of American authority in the […]