I enjoyed drifting back in to ASW yesterday on my homeblog and thought it would be fun to keep the conversation going here on a not unrelated subject; how the “ASW now” is not that different than the ASW a quarter century ago. Technology is a tad improved here and there … but was still is.

The collective ASW consciousness for those under, say, 45 years old, especially for the natsec general public, may be a bit more excitable than others as challenge at sea regresses to the mean. The rest of us have been here before.

While my earlier post focused on Russia, let’s look at the latest news about China’s efforts;

A few things to consider. Whether they buy it or steal it, the Chinese specialize in reverse engineering whatever others invested the R&D to develop. They refine it and improve it in spots – but they don’t have the greatest track record for innovation (apologies to August Cole). The odds of something shockingly new out of China is small.

As such, what to make of this?

China is planning to build a massive underwater observation system across the disputed East and South China seas, that experts say could be used to detect the movement of foreign ships and diminish the stealth capabilities of US submarines.

According to state-run broadcaster CCTV, the monitoring networks will cost two billion yuan ($290 million) and “serve as a platform to provide long-term observation data and support experiments in the research of the maritime environments of the two seas.”
…
“An ocean power must be able to go to the high seas and go global,” he said. His colleague Zhou Huaiyang added the system could provide benefits to “national defense.”
Thayer said China “could use the cover story for this undersea network to lay sensors designed to detect the movement of surface warships and submarines in particular.”
Such a system, said Thayer, “mitigates the stealth advantage that submarines have. This would be of direct concern to the United States and other regional states that operate submarines.”

Smart money is that they have all the technical information they need to build an updated and refined model of our SOSUS system, but with a little twist.

As we saw with the Chinese response to our THAAD deployment to South Korea, the Chinese are sensitive about their rather thin nuclear deterrence. As they build their SSBN fleet, they know they don’t have the best path towards a bastion where they can hide safely, so they will have to do what they can with what geography they have.

My bet is their near term goal is to create a bastion with as detailed a picture possible to protect their SSBN. Something for us to worry too much about? No. Just another challenge to plan against.