Alone, the troop ship "Red Dragon" at Discovery Reef was little more than a rest stop for marines between approaches to the beach in air cushioned landing craft. But the submarines and destroyers, all of which carried ballistic missiles, were now racing south on a course to join the troops. Together, they comprised a potent task force ...
Let's hope the American skipper and crew on USS Houston, a Los Angeles Class submarine, are skilled enough to figure out what China's emerging navy is up to. If they can't, the balance of power in the Western Pacific could be upset. Why? Because Chinese strategists have uneasily measured the distance to their oil tanker routes through the Strait of Malacca near Singapore and are looking for a new naval base.
USS Houston "starred" in the motion picture "The Hunt for Red October," playing its sister submarine USS Dallas.
A bit of history: The U.S. was not the first foreign power to use Cam Ranh Bay as a naval base. The Russian fleet stopped there in1905 enroute to its disastrous defeat by the Japanese Navy at the battle of Tsushima Strait southeast of the Korean mainland. The Russians used the port facilities again but left in 2002, choosing not to pay the $200 million annual rent.