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and Maddox radioed she was under attack from the three boats, closing to within 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi), while located 28 nautical miles (52 km; 32 mi) away from the North Vietnamese coast in international waters.[18] Maddox stated she had evaded a torpedo attack and opened fire with its five-inch (127 mm) guns, forcing the torpedo boats away. Two of the torpedo boats had come as close as 5 nautical miles (9.3 km; 5.8 mi) and released one torpedo each, but neither one was effective, coming no closer than about 100 yards (91 m) after Maddox evaded them.[1
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
That was the excuse used to start the escalation of the Vietnam War.
Repeating past mistakes is very dumb.
The Chinese have not closed international shipping routes in the South China Sea.
What is the point of pissing them off and maybe provoking open warfare -- that is is no ones best interests and has no reason. Just gunboat diplomacy like that that failed in the last century. Show the Chinese who is BOSS. China's yesterday atolls are now today's trolls.