In the Indo-Pacific region, one can see the formation of two main allied power blocs, as evidenced by recent naval exercises, writes the American magazine Popular Mechanics.
The publication writes that in October, the United States, Great Britain, Japan and Australia took part in the Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX) 2021 in the Bay of Bengal. The United States took part in them, in particular, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, the missile cruiser Lake Champlain and the destroyer Stockdale. From the UK side — the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, the destroyers Defender and The Sullivans and the frigates Kent and Richmond. Japan's contribution is the ships Kaga and Murasame. Australia — the frigate Ballarat.
The magazine notes that almost at the same time the ships of Russia and China made a joint passage through the Tsugaru Strait to the North Pacific Ocean. "The Indo-Pacific region is united into two power blocks, as these two parallel exercises clearly show. On the one hand, the naval forces of the main democracies of the world, including regional ones. On the other hand, authoritarian Russia and China," the publication said.
In October, the US Navy's Seawolf-type nuclear submarine Connecticut, damaged in the South China Sea, hit on a picture of the Planet Labs spacecraft.
In the same month, Izvestia, citing a source in the Ministry of Defense, reported that Russian Su-30SM fighters prevented the B-1B Lancer strategic bombers of the US Air Force from fully working out the entire algorithm of actions involving training strikes on the Crimea.
Ivan Potapov
