Serious geopolitical change -- China's submarine shadowed the U.S. fleet

Reasons why this may not be such a big deal:

1. Diesel-electric submarines from various countries (including, I think, Germany and Australia) have been known to lurk near US aircraft carriers before. It's not that surprising that a Chinese one managed it too.

2. We don't know whether the submarine actually managed to sneak up on the carrier, or whether it just lurked at the bottom and waited for it to approach.

3. The Kittyhawk is an old carrier and doesn't have all the anti-submarine warfare capabilities of the newer ones.

4. For all we know, the carrier might have detected the submarine anyway and decided to pretend it didn't, so they can avoid giving away how good their sonar actually is.

Regardless of what the British tabloids might think, I don't necessarily think this represents a "serious geopolitical change".

A diesel-electric submarine based on 50+ year old technology (i.e., small and quiet) sneaks up on America's high tech fleet in the middle of a war game.

Serious geopolitical change? I'm sorry, no. (Please don't sensationalize such headlines ala reddit.)

Problems in the high tech detection systems of the American military? Yes, that's the ticket.

Are we going to need a politics.ycombinator.com too?

Please, tell me this isn't so!

Other Navies have apparently routinely snapped periscope-depth/range pictures of US warships. This isn't news. It's not even evidence that the Chinese were undetected.

Wonder why they are building a deep water navy and starting up this cold war kind of gamesmanship? I don't see them in a lot of peacekeeping or international aide missions. They certainly make a lot of threats towards Taiwan, though.