Useless armaments

By Teddy Locsin Jr. / Free Fire

THERE is a rush of submarine purchases in the region. Malaysia got one. Hainan Island is a submarine pen for the Chinese navy. Singapore can sure afford one but shouldn’t say it got one. One sub is not a deterrent but you can surprise the foe with it as it sails for you.

Indonesia got one decades ago. Now Vietnam gets one too. Why don’t we get one also? For one, unless you are clean like Americans the sub is sure to stink.

Clearly this rush to submarine warfare is a reaction to the resurgence of Chinese assertiveness in the region. It is a way of saying…what? For every Vietnamese or Malaysian sub there will be 10 Chinese submarines and more sub-killing destroyers.

What do all these submarine seeking countries have in common? And what do we not have in common with them?

The first is the misconception that a couple of submarines constitute a credible threat to surface vessels; forgetting what destroyers were invented for and they are very, very good at it. Unless you have a nuclear sub that can stay underwater for months in depths that crush regular subs.

The second is that none of them has a mutual defense pact with the United States of America whose 7th fleet alone can end all life on half the planet; whose flotilla includes sub-killers, both sea and airborne. In short, getting a sub, even for the Chinese themselves, saves America the trouble of sinking their vessels because they are already underwater.

Finally, what we all have in common is that none of us can afford a submarine let alone a fleet, least of all Vietnam and Malaysia, described, in the case of Vietnam as on the edge of financial destruction and, in the case of Malaysia, deeper in economic contraction since the 1997 Asian crisis that we survived so well. This according to economist Ruchir Shamar who praised Noynoy for something Noynoy has no intention of doing: taking on the big conglomerates that account for a lot of our gross domestic product and who butter the bread of politicians like he and me. Noy will stick to kicking GMA now that she is down.

So what can we conclude from this? Nothing except that small countries need only a token vessel that will be sunk in the first second of hostilities and trigger a devastating response from the American 7th Fleet—if they have a mutual defense pact with America.

We don’t have to buy submarines; we have Uncle Sam. Now when North and South Korea unite and Japan rearms, that will be a serious proposition that can change the balance of power in the region. These are countries with deep industrial bases and a sustainable war-making industrial capability and the ethos of fighting. We should just weave baskets or dance tinikling.