An excellent thread reporting on the latest developments in the SCS. Two missiles were fired from mainland into the maritime theatre. Details about the missiles are still limited. A full reflection will have to wait. So just a couple of preliminary thoughts here. https://twitter.com/jljzen/status/1298889844857245698

1. Things that go bang. As details of this come out it will be interesting to have an idea of the balance land-Sea in this maritime theatre. How land based air power affect the operational environment is a crucial question and examining this will be helpful;

2. Do Carrier killers kill? According to some sources, one of the missiles was one of the carrier killers. Depending on whether information becomes available on the target, this might be helpful just as political messaging to DC, more as a genuine contribution to performance;

3. Missile signalling. This is perhaps the one takeaway so far. Given the timing, it’s seems consistent with Chinese behaviour to use exes to convey political messages. Noted - but pretty consistent - so nothing groundbreaking here;

4. The China seas. Interestingly, Chief Cabinet Suga made a point about Japan’s monitoring this closely. Given Japan’s own debate on how to meet missile challenges, this matters. The case for counter strike capabilities gets traction with something like this;

5. There is also something of a growing sense for Japan that S and E China Sea are strategically entwined and therefore Japanese strategy needs to adjust accordingly to put the Chinese game slightly off balance. See my own take back in 2013: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03071847.2013.869723

As ever, thank you kindly for reading this thread - and share it of you find it useful!