"WAR IS BORING" (COLUMN): "Chinese, U.S. Navies Consult on Humanitarian Mission," By David Axe, World Politics Review, 3 June 2009.

Intriguing piece by Axe, who is sort of a free-ranging Michael Yon with an "everything else"-type focus. Axe has done a number of pieces on "smart power" efforts by the US Navy.

This one interests me because of the following bit:

Perhaps most surprisingly, the Chinese navy has requested a consultation during Comfort's upcoming stay in Colombia. A Chinese team will board the 70,000-ton-displacement, converted oil tanker for 10 days of training. "They're putting together a hospital ship, and are interested in how we do our business," explained Navy Capt. James Ware, senior doctor aboard Comfort.

Beijing's interest in Comfort's humanitarian mission seems to answer some questions about the intentions underpinning the rapid growth of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. In October, the PLAN accepted its first purpose-built hospital ship, the so-called "Ship 866."

The PLAN's give-and-take with us is much like the Russian Navy's in the early 1990s: they ask tons of seemingly banal, picayune questions about procedures and reveal nothing about their strategic intentions. We find this dialogue mysterious and alarming, but it really just is the other side wanting to emulate our Microsoft of a navy while avoiding conversations about their lack of operational skill relative to ours.

And no, it's not odd that, as superpower wannabes, their navies naturally gauge themselves against ours when it comes to combat potential. It's as natural as the day is long and we'd definitely do the same if the situation were reversed. It's just that we're of such a high opinion of ourselves in terms of motives that we expect to have the biggest and best gun in the world and expect no one lower on the food chain to dare to plan operations against it!

I don't say that simply as an assertion. I spent a week in Moscow in the mid 1990s talking to all manner of Russian naval officers and simply got an earful (indeed, I wrote a memo outlining how best to talk to Russian naval officers which--yes--did involve afternoon drinking, way too many cigarettes and pictures of family members).

I do see this as a hopeful sign. Rather than spend all our time trying to get the PLAN close to home to cooperate (the hardest part, because we're talking their sense of security + Taiwan), better to draw out the PLAN that has ambitions to "see the world." Whenever I talk cooperation with China's military, I talk places like Latin America, like Africa, etc--places where there is no past rivalry between us like in SE Asia.

Start small and smart, I say,

So--again--a hopeful sign.

Axe's column, by the way, is worth perusing each week on SysAdmin/DoEE-like subjects. It's just his natural beat, it seems.