 |
| 22DDH Izumo Helicopter Destroyer (Wiki Info) |
By James R. Holmes
Nifty bit of one-upmanship, Japan. The Naval Diplomat salutes the nonchalance with which the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) "unveiled" the 22DDH, its latest light aircraft carrier— I mean… helicopter destroyer — on Tuesday. It left the impression of a service that's accustomed to accomplishing great things, and thus takes them in stride. Cool beats braggadocio any day.
By "unveiled," incidentally, news reports evidently mean the JMSDF conducted its equivalent to a formal christening ceremony for Izumo. You know, patriotic speeches, bottles of champagne broken across the bow, that sort of thing. Shipwrights laid the flattop's keel in 2011. It has been in the water awhile — that's the launch — but it has a long way to go before being commissioned into the Self-Defense Fleet in 2015. That's when the ship goes on regular duty. So … much remains to be done to make Izumo a working ship.
But I digress. Mature naval powers construct and deploy warships in a matter-of-fact way, without the chest-thumping that's standard fare for a certain big Asian power across the Yellow Sea from Japan. They take care of business rather than monologuing about how feeble competitors are, how inevitable their defeat is, how Asia will soon be theirs, yadda yadda yadda.
Read the full story at The Diplomat