Warships stop at Pearl on the way to uncertainty

Two guided missile destroyers stopped in Pearl Harbor as part of a relatively new ship grouping on their way to an increasing U.S. Navy armada — and a good deal of uncertainty — in the Western Pacific.

The command staff of Destroyer Squadron 31 and the USS Sterett and USS Dewey, along with helicopter detachments, deployed from San Diego on March 31 and arrived in Hawaii on Tuesday.

Adm. Scott Swift, head of U.S. Pacific Fleet, answered questions during an “all hands call” with hundreds of Sterett and Dewey sailors aboard the Sterett on Wednesday while it was tied up in Pearl Harbor.

North Korea, China and Russia — although still thousands of miles away — were not far from the minds of the crew members.

One sailor asked Swift whether the results of the meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida held anything for the deploying ships’ future.

Another asked whether Syria ally Russia is expected to have an increased presence in the Pacific. Trump ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Syria on April 6 in response to its use of chemical weapons on civilians.

Swift didn’t answer the China question directly, but did say the Syria missile launch during the meeting with Xi sent a message that has wider implications for the Asia-Pacific region.

“I’m sure it wasn’t lost on either one of them, when in the middle of that dinner, the United States Navy launches 59 (Tomahawks) into Syria, sending the message that that was a red line — using those chemical weapons against those people,” Swift said.

The “big take-away,” Swift said, is, “the responsibility that I think we have is to continue to demonstrate the strength and commitment that the United States has to international norms, standards, rules and laws, and that we may be patient, but there is a sense of lines — that if they are crossed, there will be a response.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the Sterett and Dewey were on their way to meet up with the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group. Following a slew of North Korean ballistic missile tests, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., head of U.S. Pacific Command on Oahu, ordered the Vinson strike group to forgo a visit to Australia and sail north after it departed Singapore on Saturday.

The powerful strike group, which includes the Pearl Harbor-based destroyer USS Michael Murphy, the destroyer Wayne E. Meyer and the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain, is expected to take up station off the Korean Peninsula in the Sea of Japan as a warning to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who may be planning another nuclear test.

The strike group likely would head through the South China Sea — sending another freedom-of-navigation message to China, which claims much of the sea, and resents the U.S. presence there. Trump is seeking to pressure China to take a stronger hand with North Korea to deter its nuclear program.

Trump sent out two tweets at about 2 a.m. Tuesday, including:

“North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.”

And: “I explained to the president of China that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem!”

The deployment of the Sterett and Dewey represents the second iteration of what’s known as a “surface action group” of a small number of ships that train, deploy and operate together.

The first such Pacific surface action group involved three Navy destroyers about a year ago that also swung through Hawaii on their way to the Western Pacific. The smaller ship groupings dovetail with what’s known as “distributed lethality” — a Navy plan to add sophisticated weaponry on ships of all types and to sometimes spread ships out in surface action groups to present a greater logistical challenge to the enemy.

“So we need to be smart about operating in this theater, and part of that is breaking the force into smaller groups,” Swift said.

The two-ship Sterett-Dewey surface action group also will be commanded in the Western Pacific by the 3rd Fleet in San Diego — as is the Carl Vinson strike group. It used to be that once warships crossed the international date line, they left the command of 3rd Fleet and then fell under the Yokosuka, Japan-based 7th Fleet.

Much of the nation’s focus is now west of the date line, and both command staffs are needed to orchestrate the complex set of demands, the Navy has said.

In answer to the sailor’s question about expected Russian presence, Swift said “they certainly have increased the level of operations here in the Pacific,” including moving a “couple of their most modern submarines around to the Pacific from the Atlantic.”

Russia’s focus will remain on Europe and the Atlantic, “but they have a lot of equities at stake here in the Pacific as well and they are clearly looking after them,” Swift said. Swift added that the interactions “have not been tense,” characterizing them as “respectful” during exercises.