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| USS Freedom (File Photo) |
By Franz-Stefan Gady
The controversial naval vessel will also participate in a military exercise off the coast of South Korea next month.
By 2018 at the latest, the United States Navy plans to rotationally station four – one at a time – Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in Singapore as part of Washington’s pivot to Asia. According to Rear Admiral Charles Williams, commander of the Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 73: “We will soon see up to four LCS here in Singapore as we rotationally deploy Seventh Fleet ships. We envision four ships here by late 2017 to sometime in 2018… By 2018, four LCS ships will be rotationally deployed here to Singapore.”
The LCS USS Fort Worth recently returned to Singapore for maintenance and refitting and will replace another LCS, the USS Freedom, which had been operating in Southeast Asia for the past 8 months. The 389-foot (119 meter) USS Fort Worth, only the second LCS to be deployed to the region, will remain in Southeast Asian waters for a duration of 16 months. “The role of the US navy in both Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia is about presence. It’s about being where it matters when it matters,” Rear Admiral Williams underscored.
The U.S. Navy plans to acquire 52 LCS vessels at a total cost of $37 billion. Specifically tailored for shallow coastal waters, the 3000-plus tons LCS, which can customize around 40 percent of its volume to adapt to different mission sets (minesweeping, anti-submarine warfare, surface combat, ect.), has been a controversial naval acquisition due to cost inflation and numerous design and construction issues.
Read the full story at The Diplomat