Trade Imbalance

China was clearly willing to trade damage to one of their cheap amphibious ships to damage one of our missile cruisers.

Secretary of Defense Hagel has this right, about that incident in the South China Sea with our missile cruiser Cowpens:

China acted in an "irresponsible" way in a stand-off with a US naval ship this month in the South China Sea, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday.

US officials have said that the USS Cowpens, a guided missile cruiser, had to take evasive action to avoid a collision with a Chinese vessel that had come dangerously close in the December 5 incident.

"That action by the Chinese, cutting in front ...100 yards out in front of the Cowpens, was not a responsible action," Hagel told a news conference.

Remember, even the Chinese admit that at the closest to their carrier that our ship came was still over the horizon. The Chinese vessel that intercepted our cruiser attempted to engineer a collision.

Hagel said--as I have--that we need rules of the road to keep these Chinese provocations from happening or from escalating to shooting matches.

And if the Chinese want to play games trying to wage a war of attrition by damaging our big ships at the cost of their cheap ships, maybe we should send in modularized auxiliary cruisers to play chicken with the Chinese.