US unilateral military expansion the real threat: China Daily editorial

The entire world has been speculating about the reason for the United States Navy declaring a "navigation stand down" for its submarine force on Thursday.

The order for submarine crews to review navigational training and safety procedures comes in the wake of the accident involving the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Connecticut.

The cause of the submarine's collision with an undersea mountain in the South China Sea in early October has not been disclosed, but the US Navy command clearly feels there are lessons to be learned, whether in terms of technical problems, procedures or management.

It is said that overdue maintenance on its submarines is partly to blame for the problems. Necessary maintenance is delayed because of the frequency of their missions.

And poor discipline and management have led to a number of collisions involving US naval vessels in the Asia-Pacific that have resulted in fatalities.

The US government and its military need to ask themselves the question: is it really necessary for them to have a constant presence in the South China Sea and other places.

Speaking on Saturday, the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John C. Aquilino, rather bizarrely said: "We are fighting for our values and our ability to be free. Those are the stakes."

But where is this enemy they are supposedly at war with? This simply reveals the US' paranoia.

Aquilino's words show that there are some in the US who inhabit an alternative reality to the rest of us.

Claiming it is a difference between an Indo-Pacific that is "free and open or authoritarian and closed", he was clearly oblivious to the fact that it is the US that is being authoritarian and it is the US military that is actively trying to shut the door on others.

There is not a single country in the world that has the military capability to pose a threat to the US military might, not to mention a military threat to its own territory. Both in terms of military budget and military technologies as well the size of its air and navy forces, no country is its rival. There is no need for the US to flex its military muscles here, there and everywhere in the way it does.

It is the US' own paranoia that has led to its strategic thinking that it must expand its nuclear deterrent capability and spur an arms race to stimulate its economy and break or brake those of others. That thinking has led to the invitation of non-nuclear European countries to take part in tactical nuclear weapon drills this year. The $753 billion defense budget of the Biden administration early this year can also be attributed to such thinking.

It is the US' unilateral military expansion and nuclear proliferation that pose the most serious authoritarian threat to world peace and stability.