How the world has changed

As if further evidence was needed about how profoundly the world has changed, this week’s 68th anniversary of D-Day comes with confirmation, in chapter and verse, that Germany has built four nuclear-weapons-capable submarines for Israel. A fifth is under construction near the old U-boat works in the Baltic port of Kiel. A contract for a sixth was signed this spring. Several more are under consideration.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is winding up an eight-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. Earlier this week, Mr. Panetta visited a U.S. supply ship berthed in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. He was working on a deal that someday could see U.S. warships use Vietnamese harbors as they counterbalance China’s dominance in the region.

Germany and Israel working together. Vietnam looking to the United States for protection against Chinese influence. How things do change.

The German magazine Der Spiegel this week confirmed details of the long-reported German-Israeli submarine deal. Reporters interviewed officials of both countries and toured the submarine Tekumah in the Israeli port of Haifa.

There was no official confirmation that the Dolphin-class diesel-propelled boats carry nuclear warheads. Reporters were not allowed to visit weapons decks. But former German officials said there was never any doubt that the subs would be capable of launching small cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

Today’s submarines can fire cruise missiles from torpedo tubes, the missiles then emerging from the sea to fly to their targets. Each German-made sub has standard 533-millimeter torpedo tubes, capable of firing the Israeli-made "Popeye" cruise missile. But in response to a special Israeli request, the magazine reported, German engineers designed four additional tubes large enough to accommodate U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles should the United States ever agree to sell them.

Even the Popeyes, with their 900-mile range, could rain havoc across Iran, particularly if an Israeli sub slipped into the Persian Gulf. In the Cold War argot of "mutually assured destruction," the subs provide Israel with a ‘second-strike" deterrent.

"In the end, it’s very simple," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Der Spiegel. "Germany is helping to defend Israel’s security. The Germans can be proud of the fact that they have secured the existence of the State of Israel for many years to come."

In the South China Sea, things are a little more nuanced. China has asserted its maritime rights throughout 1.4 million square miles from the Straits of Taiwan south to the Malacca Straits and Singapore. This concerns its southeast Asian neighbors and opens an opportunity for the United States.

A third of the world’s shipping operates in the South China Sea; the United States is determined to exert a greater security presence there.

Panetta told a regional security conference in Singapore last weekend that the United States gradually would redeploy its defense forces around the globe so that 60 percent of them, instead of the current 50 percent, were in the Pacific basin. This is in keeping with President Barack Obama’s pledge last year to "pivot" toward the Pacific because of its increasing economic and trade importance.

China, of course, holds more than $1.2 trillion of U.S. debt. But the United States imported nearly $400 billion worth of Chinese goods last year. The two nations’ interests are far more aligned than they are opposed. History suggests it’s wise to remember that.