Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: July 31, 2016 Edition

This month the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that rules governing the U.S. Navy’s use of a specialized low-frequency sonar for tracking submarines violated laws for the protection of marine mammals. The U.S. Navy’s Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar system is deployed on four civilian-crewed naval auxiliary ships to find and track submarines at ultra-long ranges. But because powerful active sonar can severely injure whales and other marine mammals, and has been linked to mass-strandings and beachings around the world, its peacetime use is limited by environmental regulation.

Satellite imagery taken on July 10 by the defense contractor Airbus Defense and Space indicates that China might have withdrawn a HQ-9 long-range air defense system from Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands occupied by China in the South China Sea, IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly reported on July 21.

While a satellite image taken on July 8 shows the various components of the HQ-9 air defense system—including three transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) vehicles and a Type 305A target acquisition radar–dispersed and camouflaged, an image taken a day later shows the components uncovered and concentrated near the radar site.

“On 10 July, subsequent imagery showed a column of vehicles, including probably HQ-9 TELs, parked on a road adjacent to the island’s southern harbor. A Type 072A landing ship berthed in the harbor represented a possible transhipment option for the equipment,” IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly notes.

Tuesday morning, a 26-year-old man went on a killing spree at a center for disabled people in Sagamihara. Satoshi Uematsu killed 19 people and injured 26 more at the center where he had worked until February. The horrific crime is the worst mass murder in Japan since World War II.

Uematsu turned himself into police around 3 am with a bag of bloody knives. According the the Japan Times, he surrendered to police immediately after the killing spree, 15 minutes after staff at the Tsukui Yamayuri En center called police. “I did it,” police quoted Uematsu as saying. “It’s better that the disabled disappear.”

China and Russia will hold a joint naval drill in the South China Sea this September, a spokesperson from China’s Defense Ministry announced on Thursday. Yang Yujun said the drill, dubbed Joint Sea 2016, will be conducted “on both land and sea,” according to Xinhua, and will “enhance the capabilities of the two navies to jointly deal with maritime security threats.”

The official confirmation comes after Chinese media reported that this year’s version of the joint annual naval exercise would take place in the South China Sea. As Franz-Stefan Gady noted for The Diplomat at the time, “given that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) North and East Sea Fleets hosted previous Sino-Russian naval drills, it appears likely that this year’s iteration of the Joint-Sea exercise will be hosted by the Nanhai [South Sea] Fleet, the PLAN fleet responsible for the South China Sea.”

The delivery of the first nuclear-powered Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is being delayed by about a month and a half, the U.S. Navy announced on July 12 citing “first-of-class” problems, military.com reports.

U.S. Navy spokeswoman Captain Thurraya Kent said that “during the ongoing testing of developmental systems onboard the CVN-78, first-of-class issues are continuing to be resolved.” According to Thurraya, the estimated new delivery date is November 16, but additional delays may occur. “If additional issues arise during the remaining shipboard testing, that date may need to be revised,” she said.

On July 27, India’s Ministry of Defense signed a $1 billion deal with U.S. aircraft maker Boeing for the purchase of four additional Poseidon 8I Neptune advanced maritime patrol/anti-submarine warfare aircraft, according to Indian media reports.

The contract was inked during an official visit to New Delhi by U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall, where he, along with representatives of various U.S. defense contractors, met Indian Defense Secretary G. Mohan Kumar.

From: Assessing ASEAN’s South China Sea Position in its Post-Ruling Statement

After a July 12 verdict by an arbitral tribunal on the Philippines’ South China Sea case against China, several close ASEAN observers (myself included) had been calling for the regional grouping to adopt a separate statement on the ruling or at the very least issue a standard joint communique that referenced the principles undergirding the ruling. Instead, what happened at the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) in the Lao capital of Vientiane is that the regional grouping first struggled to even issue a joint communique at all and then finally did adopt one that did not even meet the minimum threshold of what could reasonably be expected.

Two Southeast Asian diplomats told me Sunday that the delay in issuing a joint statement was largely due to intransigence from Cambodia, which did not even want previously agreed language on the South China Sea to be included. Cambodia’s stubbornness was expected going into the ASEAN meeting this week, given both the country’s past role in the regional grouping’s failure to adopt statements (in Phnom Penh in July 2012 and more recently in Yuxi last month) as well as the country’s prime minister Hun Sen’s insistence earlier this month that Phnom Penh would not support an ASEAN statement on the ruling (See: “What Really Happened at the ASEAN-China Special Kunming Meeting“). As a result, ASEAN countries were locked in talks that dragged on into an emergency session before a statement was issued. Asked whether it was fair to characterize Cambodia as being a spoiler on the South China Sea issue at the meeting, one of the diplomats said sternly: “It’s more than spoiling. It’s hostage-taking”.

The United States is finally transferring another warship to the Philippines this week, just days after a landmark ruling on Manila’s case against China on the South China Sea.

The United States has already transferred two Hamilton-class cutters to its Southeast Asian ally over the past few years, with Manila acquiring the BRP Gregorio Del Pilar in 2011 and the BRP Ramon Alcaraz in 2013. Both warships have since been armed and deployed for patrols, including in the South China Sea.

Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are set to sign a new framework agreement to govern trilateral patrols in the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas, a July 14 statement released by the Malaysian defense ministry confirmed.