Fighter jets roared off the aircraft carrier’s flat top into the night, their afterburners glowing.
The scene aboard the USS Carl Vinson – visited recently by Radio Free Asia journalists – came during recent joint exercises by American and Japanese naval vessels in the Philippine Sea that included two U.S. aircraft carriers and one Japanese helicopter carrier.
It was a show of force in a patch of ocean where Chinese provocations have increased, including a collision last month between Philippine fishing boats and a Chinese coast guard ship.
Naval officers aboard the ships said the exercises were simply meant to maintain freedom of the seas and improve cooperation between their navies, not send a warning signal to China or North Korea – at least overtly.
Source : Eurasia