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As tensions rise between Beijing and Washington over the Chinese high-altitude balloon that the Air Force shot down last week, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are conducting exercises in the South China Sea.
According to a statement from the Navy's Seventh Fleet, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its strike group conducted drills on February 11 with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The statement did not say when the exercises started or when they would conclude.
In recent years, the U.S. military has increased its activity in the South China Sea and has formally rejected most of China's claims to the waters. Beijing shares a claim to the South China Sea along with the Phillippines and numerous other Southeast Asian countries.
The U.S. involved itself in the dispute over the waters and, under the Obama administration, began sailing warships near islands in the South China Sea that are controlled by Beijing.
The U.S. has been looking to expand its presence in the region under the Biden administration, and Washington recently signed a deal with the Phillippines, which will give the U.S. access to 4 more military sites in the country.
The current drills come after Beijing declined a call from U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, following the U.S. military shooting down a Chinese balloon in U.S. airspace. The Chinese government maintains that the balloon was a weather balloon, while Washington has claimed that it was a spy device.
While Beijing refused to take Austin's call, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, canceled a planned trip to China when the balloon was first discovered in U.S. airspace. Since shooting down the Chinese spy balloon, the U.S. military has downed at least two unidentified objects in U.S. airspace, but the White House does not believe the other objects are Chinese balloons.
The former head of the Electromagnetic Defense Task Force Major David Stuckenberg, USAF declared yesterday the Chinese balloon incident was likely a dry run for an EMP attack, which would devastate America.
Major Stuckenberg's Air University bio reads, Prior to assignment in Washington, DC, Stuckenberg served as aide-de-camp to the commander of Air Education & Training Command (AETC). In this capacity, he also served as AETC’s lead strategist and subject matter expert on technology. During his tenure as aide-de-camp, the major founded the Electromagnetic Defense Task Force (EDTF) for the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The culmination of his EDTF research and wargaming allowed him to next establish the San Antonio Electromagnetic Defense Initiative (EDI) in concert with the Texas Military Department. EDTF-EDI was benchmarked by The White House as the first strategy to demonstrate how to holistically protect a US population center from electromagnetic and cyber threats. The EDTF culminated with Presidential Executive Order 13865, on which Major Stuckenberg advised during his tenure in Washington. The EDTF research reports authored by Major Stuckenberg and Ambassador R. James Woolsey, sixteenth director of Central Intelligence, are the most downloaded documents in Air University Press’s history.
The DoD now says China may recover the device before the United States military does, even though it was shot down 6 miles off the coast of South Carolina.
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