Update:Marine Corps" Lightning Carriers" On Watch as China Surrounds Taiwan

Two US Navy America-class amphibious assault ships,which are testing the small aircraft carrier role,are among the naval forces on watch as China encircles Taiwan with "military operations,"as they put it,in response to the arrival of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Songshan Airport in Taipei,Taiwan.Having begun her mission in Singapore,the Speaker had been escorted by US Air Force F-15 Eagle fighters on her flight from Malaysia.The flight took the long route over Southeast Asia,rather than the short cut over the tense South China Sea where China has been engaged in bullying activities.The other maritime forces involved are in the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group.So the two Marine Corps aviation carriers,which have embarked F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters (the Marine Corps variant of the F-35 featuring short takeoff/vertical landing) are to the north of Taiwan,with the USS America (LHA 6) in its homeport of Sasebo,Japan and the USS Tripoli (LHA 7) just off the Okinawa Prefecture coast;while the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is on watch to the south of Taiwan in the South China Sea.It is impossible to say just how far Beijing will go with these operations.Best case,they will just lob a few missiles into the sea,make some low passes near Taiwan and go home.Yet the Pentagon has prepared for the worst case scenario as well.* Mrs.Pelosi's US Air Force C-40 VIP transport may have taken the long route;but it landed at Songshan as fast as a bat out of hell.She and her Congressional delegation then stayed the night at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei.Speaker Pelosi,a longtime critic of Red China,addressed the Taiwan legislature in the morning and had a meeting scheduled with the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen,planning to depart in the afternoon and head for Japan and South Korea.Russian and Chinese warships have nearly encircled the main island of Japan in recent days.The flotilla of ten warships was just "ensuring stability in a volatile region,"the two rogue nations stated.* Future iterations of the America-class are to have the well-deck restored so they can truly be amphibious landing ships again.The well decks had been removed from the first two ships of the class,the America and the Tripoli,to make room for more hangar and aviation-related storage space.*