As Grady noted in the report earlier today, “Oh-Oh- CARRIERS!” this sent a small chill up my spine toward the base of brain because of a dream that I had earlier this week.
It wasn’t just any dream. If was one of those rock ‘em – sock ‘em blow your eyes out in dreamland IMAX which comes as close to “being there” as you can imagine.
When I saw that Grady’s run had come up with “carriers” off I went on a Google search to see what was triggering it.
To be sure, going back through the data of my own run, I found a few [expected] references to things like “common carriers” and “air carriers” and things that are usually in the background.
But (remember the Monday write up of my Carrier dream over in the “Winds of Noumenon” post on the UrbanSurvival site, this quick elevation in “carriers” of the aircraft take off and landing type is more than slightly disconcerting, so I thought I would put a note up on the UrbanSurvival site, the Nostracodeus.com site and even Peoplenomics, since this arrival of ‘carriers” is troubling.
As the story is “getting legs” with reports like NBC’s “China deploys only aircraft carrier after US sends B-52s over disputed islands.” beginning to get some traction now.
The carrier involved is what the US would like to characterize as a museum piece. The Liaoning is described by Wikipedia as:
“…the first aircraft carrier commissioned into the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).[3] Originally laid down as the Admiral Kuznetsov class multirole aircraft carrier Riga for the Soviet Navy, she was launched on December 4, 1988 and renamed Varyag in 1990. The stripped hulk was purchased in 1998 by the People’s Republic of China and towed to Dalian Shipyard in north eastern China. After being completely rebuilt and undergoing sea trials, the ship was commissioned into the PLAN as Liaoning on September 25, 2012.
Of a more pressing nature is the fact that while officially the US pictures this as a “lone ship” it has two destroyers in escort, say some reports.
Oh, and while the “sting” of its aircraft may not be what the Big E might pack for the US Fleet, we nevertheless note that the ship is hardly a museum piece and is, according to this note, staging up towards more efficient operations:
In June 2013, a second round of flight tests began on board the Liaoning, with personnel from the fleet air arm of the Brazilian Navy providing carrier training support to the Chinese Navy.[49] Five Chinese pilots were certified the next month for carrier operations.[50]
In September 2013, SMN reported that the Liaoning was still unable to operate J-15s with a heavy weapons/fuel load because of the ship’s limited size and lack of catapults.[51] The U.S. Department of Defense notes that the J-15 will have below normal range and armament when operating from the carrier, due to limits imposed by the ski-jump takeoff and arrested carrier landings.
The Philippines government is quick to point out this could “aggravate tensions” in the region, and since the Japanese believe it is they who hold title to the Sendaku Islands, the risk of misstep is fairly high.
The strategic differences between US and Chinese military thinking is outlined for subscribers to our www.peoplenomics.com site in today’s report. But subscriber, or not, it’s a fine line between “Oh-oh, Carriers Arrive” and something much worse.
The likely timeline for a Second Depression-ending war is still five to seven years from the long wave economic perspective, as we should have another major “down” to the US recession (stand by for budget battles galore and currency concerns, too). That should be akin to the secondary Depression from 1935-1941.
Which ended (also) with a war in the Pacific theater.