Not some swashbuckling movie from the 50’s…I am talking about the events unfolding in the South China Sea…..more accurately the Spratley Islands….it seems that several Asian countries are claiming the islands as part of the their territorial boundaries…..

For 40 years there has been a back and forth between countries in the region…..

• In 1974 the Chinese seized the Paracels from Vietnam, killing more than 70 Vietnamese troops.
• In 1988 the two sides clashed in the Spratlys, with Vietnam again coming off worse, losing about 60 sailors.
• In early 2012, China and the Philippines engaged in a lengthy maritime stand-off, accusing each other of intrusions in the Scarborough Shoal.
• In July 2012 China angered Vietnam and the Philippines when it formally created Sansha city, an administrative body with its headquarters in the Paracels which it says oversees Chinese territory in the South China Sea.
• Unverified claims that the Chinese navy sabotaged two Vietnamese exploration operations in late 2012 led to large anti-China protests on Vietnam’s streets.
• In January 2013, Manila said it was taking China to a UN tribunal under the auspices of the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea, to challenge its claims.
• In May 2014, the introduction by China of a drilling rig into waters near the Paracel Islands led to multiple collisions between Vietnamese and Chinese ships.
• In April 2015, satellite images showed China building an airstrip on reclaimed land in the Spratlys.
• In October 2015, the US sailed a guided-missile destroyer within 12-nautical miles of the artificial islands – the first in a series of actions planned to assert freedom of navigation in the region. China warned that the US should “not act blindly or make trouble out of nothing”.

I bring this up because the Us has decided that it does not have enough intervention and has decided to wade into the territorial disputes…….

The South China Sea has become one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world as China continues to aggressively expand its influence and capabilities there. One year ago, we proposed several ways in which the United States could try to deter further Chinese encroachments. But, as the recent Shangri-La Dialogue demonstrated, tensions in the region have only risen since then. The Chinese have only accelerated their bellicose behavior, and nothing the United States has done has seemed to have any effect. The United States and its partners now have no choice but to consider a wider range of more assertive responses.

We are not seeking a conflict with China, nor do we advocate a war. We do not believe that China is an inevitable adversary of the United States.  But we are increasingly concerned that Chinese actions in the South China Sea, if left unopposed, will give it de facto dominance of an area that is a vital strategic interest to the United States. More direct U.S. actions would involve significant risks — but so would failing to act, and those risks are far less appreciated.

Source: A Guide to Stepping it Up in the South China Sea

Once again the US has positioned itself to be the major player in an international conflict….can the country afford yet another conflict to manage?

But it seems inevitable that the US gets involved in everyone’s dispute….why is that?  This report explains a lot about our obsession with intrusion…..

Unnamed US officials are quoted in Reuters as saying that the Navy intends to send more surface ships to the Third Fleet’s deployment in East Asia, with an eye toward further confrontation of China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

The South China Sea is broadly claimed by China, though they are one of seven nations with competing claims in the region. The US has made it a matter of policy to back every other nation’s claims where they conflict with China’s, and to urge them to work it out if they conflict with one another.

In recent months, the Pentagon has made a habit of conducting naval patrols extremely close to Chinese claimed islands, on the grounds that they legally can. They have made it a point to hype these patrols as being deliberately confrontational to China