Originally Posted by
etudiant
Truly a long corridor beyond that 'gateway'.
The few hulls that can be sent far from home have no local Indo-Pacific sustaining infrastructure, so they come to the fight late and exhausted from a very long patrol.
At best they serve as tripwires, something that will surely impact morale.
I honestly don't understand how such as disjointed policy can pass muster. Admittedly, coherence is apparently not a requirement in the Pacific Theater either.
This is a peacetime deployment, with diplomatic objectives as well as contributing to NATO and other alliances.
You also seem to assume that the Atlantic, Medditeranean, etc will not be contested by Russia or China. The PLA Navy is increasingly present in waters West of Suez. Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran are allies.