During the meeting, Ng and Panetta discussed the proposal for the United States to forward deploy up to four littoral combat ships (LCS) to Singapore. The LCS will be deployed on a rotational basis and will not be based in Singapore.
The news release also notes other US-Singapore defense initiatives regarding exercises and training, showing deeper ties.
These ships can't do much more than show the flag and potentially require the Chinese to go through them to achieve military objectives in the South China Sea. So just don't name any of the LCS sent there Repulse or Prince of Wales. Never forget that those ships can't stop the PLAN if war starts and should not be sent into the South China Sea until a lot more support can come up.
Of course, we'd have air support in the south China Sea from Singapore and potentially from the Cocos Islands and the Philippines. Or from carriers operating east of the shield of Taiwan's mountains (unless I'm way off about whether the mountains provide a significant shield, of course--and I could be since being right requires conditions several decades old to be relevant today). We'd be in a much better position than Britain in 1941.
I wonder where their home base will be? Northwest Australia? Guam? Japan? Bahrain?
Notwithstanding the dangers the ships would face in war time, it is good to deploy them to Singapore so China doesn't get the idea that the South China Sea is their territory. The LCS will be a tougher customer than unarmed vessels that China likes to harass to make their point.
