. . . or how I learned to stop worrying, and embrace a reimagining of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface fleet.
This essay was highly commended in the military division of the Chief of Navy’s 2019 Essay Competition. Details of the competition are here.
By Michael Copland*
In March of 1996, the United States Navy (USN) conducted a demonstration of combat power, centred on two Carrier Battle Groups (CBG), which was designed to humble the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and force the communist government of the People’s Republic of China to back down from its efforts to coerce and threaten Taiwan. Although it faded quickly in the minds of policy-makers in the West, the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis was a watershed moment for Beijing.
