PLAN invited to participate in RIMPAC for first the time (2014)

A few more pictures from RIMPAC 2014...lots more at my Flickr album:

Blackstone said:

More intel is better than less.

Because we want find out what TV shows they're pirating through the Yagi?

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As a Chinese I think I'm more entitled to worry about being spied on....more so than our American friends..

After all there's so many US ships and aircrafts, and its at Hawaii.

Jeff Head said:

People are people,. Geo.

A lot of folks think that sailors and soldiers generally have some kind of huge antipathy for potential adversaries.

Generally they do not,. They want to do their job, serve their country, learn some good things in the process and get home. I have worked with such people most of my life...have family members who are such people, and know many people who have made a career of what I just described, Ask people like Popeye, or Kwaig, or others on this board about it.

It is not until people are wounded or killed...and particularly of atrocities are committed...that those types of feeling come into play.

This does not mean they will not follow orders, or particularly that they will not do whatever they must to defend their county and win should fighting start...but it does mean that they are thinking people, with families of their own, and that they are a lot more than rage-filled robots or something.

The more opportunity sailors and personnel in peace time have to rub shoulders, the more chance there is for them to continue realizing that their counterparts are people just like themselves.

Are there some who are filled with complete nationalistic fervor from the getgo? Of course there are. And thy may, despite the circumstance continue to have antipathy. But their officers and leaders are going to be trying to quell any such emotions because they all want to have their best foot forward.

But the vast majority of them will not have that problem anyway.

So, when their officers and staffs and line personnel get to participate in exercises like this, for the vast majority it is going to engender better relationships...which is precisely why the US invites nations other than only close allies to participate each year.

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What he said!

Believe it or not most folks who are/were in the military and especially those who have been in actual wars are ones who would try to avoid it most.

Not sure about the grunts or those infantry on the front lines but in the high seas after we sink the enemy's ship the very next thing we do is to look for survivors and rescue them.

Blackstone said:

More intel is better than less.

Because we want find out what TV shows they're pirating through the Yagi?

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-The only intel both sides going to get is minor differences in operations at something they both sides have already done and are familiar with.


-All he's getting is the Kardashians and some reality t.v. trash shows that's dotting all over America, I don't think he'll be missing anything worth pirating.

Good points, Jeff. Nevertheless, I remain skeptical of the relationships developed during the meeting. How much social time is there? There'll be a strong language barrier among most of the different crews. And more importantly, wouldn't a country's military police frown on one of their officers having a personal friendship with a foreigner officer, especially if it's a potential adversary? For the all public stations of friendship, cooperation, etc., if an American naval officer befriended a Chinese naval officer and started contacting them frequently, wouldn't both countries' intelligence services be concerned?

During the Cold War, was it normal for American and Soviet military officers to be friends? How would that affect their careers?

The military is not like college where people have a lot of freedom to meet others. The military is a tightly controlled environment in which the military police are always interested in you. I don't know about enlisted soldiers and sailors but I'm sure officers have to maintain a security clearance and report all their foreign contacts. The U.S. knows how foreign intelligence agencies have used personal relationships, especially honey pot schemes for married men to blackmail them into giving intelligence, and will actively try to prevent such a plot from occurring with Americans.

Geographer said:

And more importantly, wouldn't a country's military police frown on one of their officers having a personal friendship with a foreigner officer, especially if it's a potential adversary?

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Not at all. There was plenty of stories in modern times when two officers faced each other on the battlefield after developing a real friendship during the times of peace. And I must admit that some of them ended up in a really sad way with one of friends being killed in the battle when they had to stand on the opposing sides... Those contacts mainly developed when officers serve on various staff posts abroad.

Geographer said:

During the Cold War, was it normal for American and Soviet military officers to be friends? How would that affect their careers?

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Geo, there is nothing wrong with a good does of skepticism.

Having said that, the Soviets were never invited to RIMPAC. The confrontation between the Soviets and the US was called a Cold "War" for a reason. We are not currently involved with such confrontations with the Chinese.

We would far rather develop friendly relations. With the Soviets at the time that was not possible.

But Reagan and Thatcher saw that condition through to a resolution that did not involve a hot war, thank God. And in fact, last year was Russia's inaugural visit to RIMPAC. Now, Putin is aggressively pushing the US...and we all know why...so in that case the relationships that may have developed could well be overcome by events. That would be too bad...but, oh well, stuff happens.

Geographer said:

The military is not like college where people have a lot of freedom to meet others. The military is a tightly controlled environment in which the military police are always interested in you. I don't know about enlisted soldiers and sailors but I'm sure officers have to maintain a security clearance and report all their foreign contacts.

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I know precisely what the military is like. I also know exactly what the requirements for those clearances are...personally.

You will probably not find a person more dedicated to defending the US constitution and the operational security that goes along with it.

That does not change the fact that the people in the military, or those working within the US government in security or critical areas, would far rather have friends they can go out and drink with, than enemies they would have to kill, or be killed by.

Believe it or not...you can have friends and still maintain operational security.

RIMPAC is an EXCELLENT opportunity to foster those types of relations...both at the operational level and the command level. You have career officers and sr. enlisted people who spent decades in the US military telling you this on this thread, Geo.

As I said, it does not mean that they would not follow orders and win wars if called upon to do so...it does mean that they would all rather find ways to avoid that.

Jeff, thanks again for your perspective. I'm just trying to think through the alleged benefits of an exchange. If a U.S. naval officer had a close relationship with a Chinese citizen, especially Chinese military or intelligence individual, that would raise some serious eyebrows among the U.S. government, would it not? Of course it's possible to maintain close relationships with foreigners without disclosing confidential information but neither the U.S. nor Chinese governments are going to trust all their millions of defense personnel to do that. As a result, they monitor and put restrictions on the level of international contact between their military personnel and foreigners, right?

More RIMPAC 2014 pictures. See more at my

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. we should see a lot of neat stuff start happening at sea this next week.

kwaigonegin said:

Not sure about the grunts or those infantry on the front lines but in the high seas after we sink the enemy's ship the very next thing we do is to look for survivors and rescue them.

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People are less psychologically affected on a personal level with increase in distance to enemy and abstraction, and directness of combat method employed. The grunts would feel much stronger personal emotions against opponents who were trying to shoot at him personally or in close contact combat than a personnel on a ship, who would be inclined to think of the action as more ship against ship rather than men on ship against men on ship.

On Killing by Dave Grossman was an interesting read.