China's Plan to Beat U.S.: Missiles, Missiles and More Mis

China's Plan to Beat U.S.: Missiles, Missiles and More Missiles

By David Axe
July 27, 2011 7:00 am


http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/da...1S-660x430.jpg

China is militarily weaker than many people think, especially compared to the United States. This, despite lots of showy jet prototypes and plenty of other factory-fresh equipment.

But Beijing has a brutally simple — if risky — plan to compensate for this relative weakness: buy missiles. And then, buy more of them. All kinds of missiles: short-range and long-range; land-based, air-launched and sea-launched; ballistic and cruise; guided and “dumb.”

Those are the two striking themes that emerge from Chinese Aerospace Power, a new collection of essays edited by Andrew Erickson, an influential China analyst with the U.S. Naval War College.

Today, the PLA possesses as many as 2,000 non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles, according to Chinese Aerospace Power. This “growing arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal conventional ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles has rapidly emerged as a cornerstone of PLA warfighting capability,” Mark Stokes and Ian Easton wrote. For every category of weaponry where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lags behind the Pentagon, there’s a Chinese missile to help make up the difference.

The need is clear. Despite introducing a wide range of new hardware in recent years, including jet fighters, helicopters, destroyers, submarines and a refurbished Russian aircraft carrier, China still lacks many of the basic systems, organizations and procedures necessary to defeat a determined, well-equipped foe.

Take, for example, aerial refueling. To deploy large numbers of effective aerial tankers requires the ability to build and support large jet engines — something China cannot yet do. In-air refueling also demands planning and coordination beyond anything the PLA has ever pulled off. As a result, “tanker aircraft are in short supply” in the PLA, Wayne Ulman explained.

That’s putting it lightly. According to Chinese Aerospace Power, the entire PLA operates just 14 H-6U tankers, each carrying 17,000 kilograms of off-loadable fuel. (The U.S. Air Force alone possesses more than 500 tankers, each off-loading around 100,000 kilograms of fuel.) So while the PLA in theory boasts more than 1,500 jet fighters, in reality it can refuel only 50 or 60 at a time, assuming all the H-6 tankers are working perfectly.

In an air war over Taiwan, hundreds of miles from most Chinese bases, only those 50 fighters would be able to spend more than a few minutes’ flight time over the battlefield. Factoring in tankers, China’s 4–1 advantage in jet fighters compared to Taiwan actually shrinks to a roughly 7&ndash1 disadvantage. The gap only grows when you add U.S. fighters to the mix.

The PLA’s solution? Missiles, of course. Up to a thousand ballistic and cruise missiles, most of them fired by land-based launchers, “would likely comprise the initial strike” against Taiwan or U.S. Pacific bases, Ulman wrote. The goal would be to take out as many of an opponent’s aircraft as possible before the dogfighting even begins.

The PLA could take a similar approach to leveling its current disadvantage at sea. Submarines have always been the most potent ship-killers in any nation’s inventory, but China’s subs are too few, too noisy and their crews too inexperienced to take on the U.S. Navy. Once the shooting started, the “Chinese submarine force would be highly vulnerable,” Jeff Hagen predicted.

And forget using jet fighters armed with short-range weapons to attack the American navy. One Chinese analyst referenced in Chinese Aerospace Power estimated it would take between 150 and 200 Su-27-class fighters to destroy one U.S. Ticonderoga-class cruiser. The entire PLA operates only around 300 Su-27s and derivatives. The U.S. Navy has 22 Ticonderoga cruisers.

Again, missiles would compensate. A “supersaturation” attack by scores or hundreds of ballistic missiles has the potential of “instantly rendering the Ticonderoga‘s air defenses useless,” Toshi Yoshihara wrote. Close to shore, China could use the older, less-precise, shorter-range missiles it already possesses in abundance. For longer-range strikes, the PLA is developing the DF-21D “carrier-killer” missile that uses satellites and aerial drones for precision targeting.

The downside to China’s missile-centric strategy is that it could represent a “single point of failure.” Over-relying on one weapon could render the PLA highly vulnerable to one kind of countermeasure. In this case, that’s the Pentagon’s anti-ballistic-missile systems, including warships carrying SM-3 missiles and land-based U.S. Army Patriot and Terminal High-Altitude Air-Defense batteries.

Plus, missiles are one-shot weapons. You don’t get to reuse them the way you would a jet fighter or a destroyer. That means, in wartime, China has to win fast — or lose.

“China’s entire inventory of conventional ballistic missiles, for example, could deliver about a thousand tons of high explosives on their targets,” Roger Cliff explained. “The U.S. Air Force’s aircraft, by comparison, could deliver several times that amount of high explosives every day for an indefinite period.”

Photo: Via Air Power Australia

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...n-to-beat-u-s/

U.S. Can't Stop Chinese Missile; No Tests Til 2014

By Noah Shachtman
April 4, 2008 9:39 am

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The U.S. Navy can’t stop China’s most sophisticated anti-ship missile — and won’t even start testing a defense until 2014.

"Most anti-ship cruise missiles fly below the speed of sound and on a straight path, making them easier to track and target," notes Bloomberg News‘ Tony Capaccio. Not China’s so-called "Sizzler" missile, already aboard eight Kilo-class submarines.

The Sizzler starts at subsonic speeds. Within 10 nautical miles of its target, a rocket-propelled warhead separates and accelerates to three times the speed of sound, flying no more than 10 meters (33 feet) above sea level. On final approach, the missile ‘has the potential to perform very high defensive maneuvers,’ including sharp-angled dodges, the Office of Naval Intelligence said in a manual on worldwide maritime threats.

The Navy doesn’t have a test target that can mimic how the Sizzler flies. They haven’t even "picked a contractor to develop the test target," Capaccio notes. Industry proposals for building the target missile were received in February and a contract valued at about $107 million will be awarded by Oct. 1 for a 54-month development phase and first fielding by 2014."

Admiral Timothy Keating, who heads the U.S. Pacific Command, told the House Armed Services Committee last month that “we are currently not as capable of defending against that missile as I would like.”

(Illustration: Air Power Australia)

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008...-cant-stop-ch/

Digging into China's nuclear tunnels

By William Wan
The Washington Post 13 hrs ago

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Georgetown University's Professor Phillip A. Karber spent the Cold War as a top strategist reporting directly to the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (The Washington Post)

The Chinese have called it their “Underground Great Wall” — a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal.
For the past three years, a small band of obsessively dedicated students at Georgetown University has called it something else: homework.

Led by their hard-charging professor, a former top Pentagon official, they have translated hundreds of documents, combed through satellite imagery, obtained restricted Chinese military documents and waded through hundreds of gigabytes of online data.

The result of their effort? The largest body of public knowledge about thousands of miles of tunnels dug by the Second Artillery Corps, a secretive branch of the Chinese military in charge of protecting and deploying its ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads.

The study is yet to be released, but already it has sparked a congressional hearing and been circulated among top officials in the Pentagon, including the Air Force vice chief of staff.

Most of the attention has focused on the 363-page study’s provocative conclusion — that China’s nuclear arsenal could be many times larger than the well-established estimates of arms-control experts.

(Graphic: Evidence of China’s nuclear storage system)

“It’s not quite a bombshell, but those thoughts and estimates are being checked against what people think they know based on classified information,” said a Defense Department strategist who would discuss the study only on the condition of anonymity.

The study’s critics, however, have questioned the unorthodox Internet-based research of the students, who drew from sources as disparate as Google Earth, blogs, military journals and, perhaps most startlingly, a fictionalized TV docudrama about Chinese artillery soldiers — the rough equivalent of watching Fox’s TV show “24” for insights into U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

But the strongest condemnation has come from nonproliferation experts who worry that the study could fuel arguments for maintaining nuclear weapons in an era when efforts are being made to reduce the world’s post-Cold War stockpiles.

Beyond its impact in the policy world, the project has made a profound mark on the students — including some who have since graduated and taken research jobs with the Defense Department and Congress.

“I don’t even want to know how many hours I spent on it,” said Nick Yarosh, 22, an international politics senior at Georgetown. “But you ask people what they did in college, most just say I took this class, I was in this club. I can say I spent it reading Chinese nuclear strategy and Second Artillery manuals. For a nerd like me, that really means something.”

For students, an obsession

The students’ professor, Phillip A. Karber, 65, had spent the Cold War as a top strategist reporting directly to the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But it was his early work in defense that cemented his reputation, when he led an elite research team created by Henry Kissinger, who was then the national security adviser, to probe the weaknesses of Soviet forces.

Karber prided himself on recruiting the best intelligence analysts in the government. “You didn’t just want the highest-ranking or brightest guys, you wanted the ones who were hungry,” he said.

In 2008, Karber was volunteering on a committee for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Pentagon agency charged with countering weapons of mass destruction.

After a devastating earthquake struck Sichuan province, the chairman of Karber’s committee noticed Chinese news accounts reporting that thousands of radiation technicians were rushing to the region. Then came pictures of strangely collapsed hills and speculation that the caved-in tunnels in the area had held nuclear weapons.

Find out what’s going on, the chairman asked Karber, who began looking for analysts again — this time among his students at Georgetown.

The first inductees came from his arms-control classes. Each semester, he set aside a day to show them tantalizing videos and documents he had begun gathering on the tunnels. Then he concluded with a simple question: What do you think it means?

“The fact that there were no answers to that really got to me,” said former student Dustin Walker, 22. “It started out like any other class, tests on this day or that, but people kept coming back, even after graduation. . . . We spent hours on our own outside of class on this stuff.”

The students worked in their dorms translating military texts. They skipped movie nights for marathon sessions reviewing TV clips of missiles being moved from one tunnel structure to another. While their friends read Shakespeare, they gathered in the library to war-game worst-case scenarios of a Chinese nuclear strike on the United States.

Over time, the team grew from a handful of contributors to roughly two dozen. Most spent their time studying the subterranean activities of the Second Artillery Corps.
While the tunnels’ existence was something of an open secret among the handful of experts studying China’s nuclear arms, almost no papers or public reports on the structures existed.

So the students turned to publicly available Chinese sources — military journals, local news reports and online photos posted by Chinese citizens. It helped that China’s famously secretive military was beginning to release more information, driven by its leaders’ eagerness to show off China’s growing power to its citizens.

The Internet also generated a raft of leads: new military forums, blogs and once-obscure local TV reports now posted on the Chinese equivalents of YouTube. Strategic string searches even allowed the students to get behind some military Web sites and download documents such as syllabuses taught at China’s military academies.

Drudgery and discoveries

The main problem was the sheer amount of translation required.

Each semester, Karber managed to recruit only one or two Chinese-speaking students. So the team assembled a makeshift system to scan images of the books and documents they found. Using text-capture software, they converted those pictures into Chinese characters, which were fed into translation software to produce crude English versions. From those, they highlighted key passages for finer translation by the Chinese speakers.

The downside was the drudgery — hours feeding pages into the scanner. The upside was that after three years, the students had compiled a searchable database of more than 1.4 million words on the Second Artillery and its tunnels.

By combining everything they found in the journals, video clips, satellite imagery and photos, they were able to triangulate the location of several tunnel structures, with a rough idea of what types of missiles were stored in each.

Their work also yielded smaller revelations: how the missiles were kept mobile and transported from structure to structure, as well as tantalizing images and accounts of a “missile train” and disguised passenger rail cars to move China’s long-range missiles.

To facilitate the work, Karber set up research rooms for the students at his home in Great Falls. He bought Apple computers and large flat-screen monitors for their video work and obtained small research grants for those who wanted to work through the summer. When work ran late, many crashed in his basement’s spare room.

“I got fat working on this thing because I didn’t go to the gym anymore. It was that intense,” said Yarosh, who has continued on the project this year not for credit but purely as a hobby. “It’s not the typical college course. Dr. Karber just tells you the objective and gives you total freedom to figure out how to get there. That level of trust can be liberating.”

Some of the biggest breakthroughs came after members of Karber’s team used personal connections in China to obtain a 400-page manual produced by the Second Artillery and usually available only to China’s military personnel.

Another source of insight was a pair of semi-fictionalized TV series chronicling the lives of Second Artillery soldiers.

The plots were often overwrought with melodrama — one series centers on a brigade commander who struggles to whip his slipshod unit into shape while juggling relationship problems with his glamorous Olympic-swim-coach girlfriend. But they also included surprisingly accurate depictions of artillery units’ procedures that lined up perfectly with the military manual and other documents.

“Until someone showed us on screen how exactly these missile deployments were done from the tunnels, we only had disparate pieces. The TV shows gave us the big picture of how it all worked together,” Karber said.

A bigger Chinese arsenal?

In December 2009, just as the students began making progress, the Chinese military admitted for the first time that the Second Artillery had indeed been building a network of tunnels. According to a report by state-run CCTV, China had more than 3,000 miles of tunnels — roughly the distance between Boston and San Francisco — including deep underground bases that could withstand multiple nuclear attacks.

The news shocked Karber and his team. It confirmed the direction of their research, but it also highlighted how little attention the tunnels were garnering outside East Asia.
The lack of interest, particularly in the U.S. media, demonstrated China’s unique position in the world of nuclear arms.

For decades, the focus has been on the two powers with the largest nuclear stockpiles by far — the United States, with 5,000 warheads available for deployment, and Russia, which has 8,000.

But of the five nuclear weapons states recognized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, China has been the most secretive. While the United States and Russia are bound by bilateral treaties that require on-site inspections, disclosure of forces and bans on certain missiles, China is not.

The assumption for years has been that the Chinese arsenal is relatively small — anywhere from 80 to 400 warheads.

China has encouraged that perception. As the only one of the five original nuclear states with a no-first-use policy, it insists that it keeps a small stockpile only for “minimum deterrence.”

Given China’s lack of transparency, Karber argues, all the experts have to work with are assumptions, which can often be dead wrong. As an example, Karber often recounts to his students his experience of going to Russia with former defense secretary Frank C. Carlucci to discuss U.S. help in securing the Russian nuclear arsenal.

The United States had offered Russia about 20,000 canisters designed to safeguard warheads — a number based on U.S. estimates at the time.

The generals told Karber they needed 40,000.

Skepticism among analysts

At the end of the tunnel study, Karber cautions that the same could happen with China. Based on the number of tunnels the Second Artillery is digging and its increasing deployment of missiles, he argues, China’s nuclear warheads could number as many as 3,000.

It is an assertion that has provoked heated responses from the arms-control community.

Gregory Kulacki, a China nuclear analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, publicly condemned Karber’s report at a recent lecture in Washington. In an interview afterward, he called the 3,000 figure “ridiculous” and said the study’s methodology — especially its inclusion of posts from Chinese bloggers — was “incompetent and lazy.”

“The fact that they’re building tunnels could actually reinforce the exact opposite point,” he argued. “With more tunnels and a better chance of survivability, they may think they don’t need as many warheads to strike back.”

Reaction from others has been more moderate.

“Their research has value, but it also shows the danger of the Internet,” said Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. Kristensen faulted some of the students’ interpretation of the satellite images.

“One thing his report accomplishes, I think, is it highlights the uncertainty about what China has,” said Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank. “There’s no question China’s been investing in tunnels, and to look at those efforts and pose this question is worthwhile.”

This year, the Defense Department’s annual report on China’s military highlighted for the first time the Second Artillery’s work on new tunnels, partly a result of Karber’s report, according to some Pentagon officials. And in the spring, shortly before a visit to China, some in the office of then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates were briefed on the study.

“I think it’s fair to say senior officials here have keyed upon the importance of this work,” said one Pentagon officer who was not authorized to speak on the record.
For Karber, provoking such debate means that he and his small army of undergrads have succeeded.

“I don’t have the slightest idea how many nuclear weapons China really has, but neither does anyone else in the arms-control community,” he said. “That’s the problem with China — no one really knows except them.”

http://news.yahoo.com/digging-china-...013008319.html

U.S. Can’t Stop Chinese Missile; No Tests ‘Til 2014 <--- LINK

China May Turn Missiles into Carrier-Killers <--- LINK

China Testing Ballistic Missile ‘Carrier-Killer’ <--- LINK

Hey China: U.S. is Prepping New Ship-Killing Missiles, Too … <--- LINK

Navy Intel Chief Yawns at China’s New Jet, Missile <--- LINK

related News from The Associated Press

China May Turn Missiles into Carrier-Killers (Corrected)

• By Noah Shachtman
• Email Author
• March 31, 2009 |
• 7:13 pm |
• Categories: China, Navy, Weapons and Ammo

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Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the Military Times magazines. This is his first post for Danger Room.

Ballistic missiles as ship-busters? For years, China has reportedly been working on modifying land-based DF-21 ballistic missiles into long-range carrier killers. The idea is to have People’s Liberation Missiles — guided by satellite, over-the-horizon radar, or drones — zooming up sub-orbitally, and then slamming down into the USS Nimitz at Mach 10.

The estimated 2,000-kilometer range of the modified DF-21 would enable China to strike U.S. carriers in the western and central Pacific.

The U.S. Navy is taking the threat seriously, according to the U.S.

Naval Institute. Naval blog Information Dissemination has just posted an excellent analysis of China’s ballistic missile ship-killers, including a translation of a recent Chinese blog on this capability.

The technical challenges still seem daunting, including the fact that ballistic aren’t designed for tactical precision strikes of relatively small (in oceanic terms) targets speeding at 30
knots. But the really troubling issue is this: ballistic missiles are strategic weapons (the DF-21 has roughly the same range as a Pershing 2). They’re designed to carry nuclear weapons. Everyone knows they’re designed to carry nukes, and to hurl them long distances. So if the U.S. detects missiles hurtling over the Pacific, and NORAD has 15 minutes to decide whether it’s a tactical strike on the Nimitz, or if some city is going to be vaporized… Of course, in the rational world of deterrence theory and defense planning, U.S. decision-makers would know these were tactical weapons and wouldn’t overreact.

Or maybe not.

China has always been the quiet nuclear power. A billion people and a powerhouse manufacturing base confers quite enough clout, thank you very much.

Beijing has far more to gain from brandishing its financial fist than its nuclear fist — or its carrier-killing missiles. Using what seems like a tactical weapon to them could be misperceived as a strategic attack. Just imagine the potential consequences if Nixon had had Pershing 2s and launched them – even with conventional warheads – at Hanoi in 1972.

Not that the U.S. gets it, either. Converting sub-launched Trident ballistic missiles into conventionally-armed weapons for quick global strike isn’t the smartest move. China may not appreciate ballistic missiles hurtling over the Pacific in their direction, either — conventional warheads or not.

[Photo: via SinoDefence]

China May Turn Missiles into Carrier-Killers (Corrected) | Danger Room | Wired.com

China Testing Ballistic Missile ‘Carrier-Killer’

• By admin
• Email Author
• March 29, 2010 |
• 12:12 pm |
• Categories: Miscellaneous, Navy

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Dr. Andrew Erickson is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute and a Truman Security Fellow. This is his first post for Danger Room; these are solely his personal views.

Last week, Adm. Robert Willard, the head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), made an alarming but little-noticed disclosure. China, he told legislators, was “developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile based on the DF-21/CSS-5 [medium-range ballistic missile] designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.”

What, exactly, does this mean? Evidence suggests that China has been developing an anti-ship ballistic missile, or ASBM, since the 1990s. But this is the first official confirmation that it has advanced (.pdf) to the stage of actual testing.

If they can be deployed successfully, Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles would be the first capable of targeting a moving aircraft-carrier (.pdf) strike group from long-range, land-based mobile launchers. And if not countered properly, this and other “asymmetric” systems — ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines, torpedoes and sea mines — could potentially threaten U.S. operations in the western Pacific, as well as in the Persian Gulf.

Willard’s disclosure should come as little surprise: China’s interest in developing ASBM and related systems has been documented in Department of Defense (.pdf) and National Air and Space Intelligence Center (.pdf) reports, as well as by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the Congressional Research Service. Senior officials — including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair (.pdf) and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead — have pointed to the emerging threat as well.

In November 2009, Scott Bray, ONI’s Senior Intelligence Officer-China, said that Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile development “has progressed at a remarkable rate.” In the span of just over a decade, he said, “China has taken the ASBM program from the conceptual phase to nearing an operational capability.… China has elements of an [over-the-horizon] network already in place and is working to expand its horizon, timeliness and accuracy.”

When someone of Bray’s stature makes that kind of statement, attention is long overdue.


Equally intriguing has been the depiction of this capability in the Chinese media. A lengthy November 2009 program about anti-ship ballistic missiles (video) broadcast on China Central Television Channel 7 (China’s official military channel) featured an unexplained — and rather badly animated — cartoon sequence. This curious 'toon features a sailor who falsely assumes that his carrier’s Aegis defense systems can destroy an incoming ASBM as effectively as a cruise missile, with disastrous results.

The full program is available in three segments (parts 1, 2, and 3) on YouTube. Skip to 7:18 on the second clip to view this strange, and somewhat disturbing, segment.

Likewise, Chinese media seem to be tracking PACOM’s statements about this more closely than the U.S. press. The graphic above is drawn from an article on Dongfang Ribao (Oriental Daily), the website of a Shanghai newspaper.

Beijing has been developing an ASBM capability at least since the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis. That strategic debacle for China likely convinced its leaders to never again allow U.S. carrier strike groups to intervene in what they consider to be a matter of absolute sovereignty. And China’s military, in an apparent attempt to deter the United States from intervening in Taiwan and other claimed areas on China’s disputed maritime periphery, seems intent on dropping significant hints of its own progress.

U.S. ships, however, will not offer a fixed target for China’s DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles. Military planning documents like the February 2010 Joint Operating Environment (.pdf) and Quadrennial Defense Review (.pdf) clearly recognize America’s growing “anti-access” challenge, and the QDR — the Pentagon’s guiding strategy document — charges the U.S. military with multiple initiatives to address it.

In a world where U.S. naval assets will often be safest underwater, President Obama’s defense budget supports building two submarines a year and investing in a new ballistic-missile submarine. And developing effective countermeasures against anti-ship ballistic missiles is a topic of vigorous discussion in Navy circles. The United States is clearly taking steps to prevent this kind of weapon from changing the rules of the game in the Western Pacific, but continued effort will be essential for U.S. maritime forces to preserve their role in safeguarding the global commons.

Image: Dongfang Ribao


Tags: Eye on China, Info War, Missiles, Navy, Strategery

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010...arrier-killer/

Russia Would Use Nukes to Stave Off Threats - General Staff

http://en.rian.ru/images/16529/76/165297623.jpgChief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov

© RIA Novosti. Vladimir Vyatkin


16:12 15/02/2012
MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti)

Russia would use nuclear weapons in response to any imminent threat to its national security, Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov said on Wednesday.

“We are certainly not planning to fight against the whole of NATO,” Makarov said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio, “but if there is a threat to the integrity of the Russian Federation, we have the right to use nuclear weapons, and we will.”

The general said Russia’s nuclear deterrent is the cornerstone of strategic stability and serious efforts are being taken by the Russian government to modernize the country’s nuclear triad.

The Russian Defense ministry is planning to acquire at least 10 Borey class strategic nuclear submarines, thoroughly modernize its fleet of Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers, and equip its Strategic Missile Forces with formidable Yars mobile ballistic missile systems.

Makarov also stressed the importance of maintaining highly-efficient, mobile conventional forces.

“Unfortunately, we are facing threats from a number of unstable states, where no nuclear weapons but well-trained, strong and mobile Armed Forces are required to resolve any conflict situation," Makarov said.

http://en.rian.ru/images/15943/09/159430930.jpg


© Сollage by RIA Novosti / Russian Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bomber


The Russian government has allocated 22 trillion rubles ($730 billion) on the state arms procurement program until 2020.


http://en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120215/171329091.html

and now some motivational music for the Unions / Pelosi / Obama / Reid / Communists / Marxists / Progressives / Democrats

The Russian Revolution (Instrumental) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fa4cu1t ... re=related

Russian Red Army Choir - Farewell of Slavianka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqFISER9 ... re=related

Nastassia by The Red Army Choir http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RygfigAe ... re=related

America was taken down while you watched dancing with the stars / borders were over ran while you were at the beach


you pissed around in Iraq and Afghanistan so that the Oligarks could put in a pipeline and steal other nations riches while using your blood, sweat and tears to pay for it while your treasury is depleted ... mean while on the other side of the world

Go back to sleep America... the Invasion already happened and you are the Newest 3rd World Country on the Planet

Russian military power - Hell march 2010 [HD] Russian military power - Hell march 2010 [HD] - YouTube

Russian special forces - Spetsnaz / Спецназ [HD] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWFZ2w8s ... re=related

Russian Spetsnaz Training http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZoqXr8d ... re=related

Russian spetsnaz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9h1sK4p ... re=related

Russian Military http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIGMYydp ... re=related

Russian Military Parade 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APHhNX9R ... re=related

Russian Army New Powerful Military Russian Tanks Jets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWn3T5XI ... re=related


Hrisantema tanks killer - missle system http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9StN1oN ... re=related

china stealth missle boat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQBqTqDP ... re=related

Tunguska anti aircraft vehicle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ICcHxoN ... re=related

FUERZA AEREA PERUANA EL CARRO DEL DIABLO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1a8CmWq ... re_related

Lou Dobbs: Chinese missile poses threat to US carriers Lou Dobbs: Chinese missile poses threat to US carriers - YouTube


China new anti-ship missile http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wewI606 ... re=related

China shoots down ICBM mid-course, Anti-ballistic missile intercept a success http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHE10sDG ... re=related

Agni 5 Missile scares China - Agni 5 to be ready by 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI0_9QyK ... re=related

China Ready For WW3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhpruspB ... re=related

The Superpowers: China http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QOvgyQx ... re=related

Forbes on China Surpassing U.S. Naval Fleet Size http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdecwEJV ... re=related

Super Tanker To Aircraft Carrier http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUuQg9oh ... re=related

Chinese developing "kill weapon" to sink US carriers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko_Jm7Tb ... re=related

The Chinese DF-21D anti carrier weapon kill chain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLKZDVc ... re=related

China's Show of FORCE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN9CzHf9 ... re=related

Inside Story - Modernising China's military http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv55GZem ... re=related

chinese army 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvXwsbwl ... re=related

ZFB05 ZFB05A light wheeled armoured vehicle China Chinese Army Recognition http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVvYmYRG ... re=related

chinese army (land forces) 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwpsZCGj ... re=related

NEW-2009 - Chinese People's Liberation Army - HD - High QUality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHdWndMn ... re=related


Not to worry: Obama has New Gay and Transgenders ready to enlist to strengthen our Armed Forces that are depleted from Record Suicides and PTSD related Injuries.. so pay no attention to the size of the Russian and Chinese Armys

Besides... you were already taken down from the Inside the U.S. and the third world Nations from south of the border in estimates as high as 38 million Illegal Aliens...

So go collect your Chinese sponsered Welfare Check; this party is over

Chinese MBT Type 99-the Peacekeeper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZozmDC5d ... re=related

Chinese Tank Type 99 MBT - Main Battle Tank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB2Y0FZJ ... re=related


FULL VIDEO of Military Parade in Moscow on Victory Day 2010 - Part 1 FULL VIDEO of Military Parade in Moscow on Victory Day 2010 - Part 1 - YouTube

FULL VERSION of Military Parade on Red Square on Victory Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiS-S5hb ... re=related

HD Vehicle in Victory Parade 2010 Russia Moscow part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkI1W2xg ... ure=fvwrel

Flypast of Victory Day in Moscow in 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMK74rDt ... re=related

Stunning T-90 'Flying Tanks' performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjl-CDpD ... re=related

T-90 Supertank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcFVGhqe ... re=related

russian air force http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYt3rQ_c ... re=related

Tu-160 "Blackjack" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI9HHynq ... re=related

maybe it's just better if Obama lets the drugs in with the open border policy .. if every one is stoned they just will not know what happened

Vacuum Bomb (The daddy of all bombs) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXFHzy3t ... re=related

Tsar Bomba - King of the Bombs - 57,000,000 Tonnes of TNT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxD44HO8 ... re=related

I think we went a bunch of bridges too far

bttt

Obama mulls giving Moscow data on missile defense

By Jim Wolf
Tue Mar 6, 2012 7:56pm EST


WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) - The Obama administration disclosed on Tuesday that it is considering sharing some classified U.S. data as part of an effort to allay Russian concerns about a controversial antimissile shield.

The administration is continuing negotiations begun under former President George W. Bush on a defense technical cooperation agreement with Moscow that could include limited classified data, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Brad Roberts told a House of Representatives' Armed Services subcommittee.

He gave no details on the sort of data that might be shared under such an agreement.

Russia strongly opposes the U.S.-engineered bulwark being built in and around Europe against ballistic missiles that could be fired by countries like Iran.

Moscow fears that such a shield could grow strong enough over time to undermine Moscow's own nuclear deterrent force and has threatened to deploy missiles of its own as a counter.

"We're not the first administration to seek coooperation on missile defense," Roberts, who is responsible for nuclear and missile defense policy, told the subcommittee on strategic forces.

Nor is the administration the first "to believe that cooperation could be well-served by some limited sharing of classified information of a certain kind if the proper rules were in place to do that," he said in reply to questions from Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican.

"The Bush administration headed down precisely the same path," Roberts said.

"We're making no progress" in persuading Russia to drop its opposition, despite the willingness to consider sharing certain sensitive data, he added.

The Obama administration is pursuing this cooperation because it would be in the security interests of the United States, NATO and Russia by strengthening the defensive capabilities of both NATO and Russia, Roberts said.

Under any such agreement, NATO would be responsible for the defense of its member states and Russia would be responsible for the defense of Russia, Roberts added in written testimony.

Army Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, the head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said he had no knowledge of any move to share with Moscow any classified information on the U.S. technology used to knock out target missiles.

"I never received a request to release classified information to the Russians," he told the panel, testifying alongside Roberts.

Panel chairman Michael Turner said last November that he would oppose any Obama administration effort to provide Russia information on the so-called burnout velocity of Raytheon Co Standard Missile-3 interceptors, a key part of the layered defense.

"The House Armed Services Committee will vigorously resist such compromise of U.S. missile defense capabilities," he said in a speech last November.

Republicans who control the panel will back legislation that would bar the administration from transferring classified missile defense technology to Russia as part of any negotiations or for any other purpose, a congressional staff member said.

Obama mulls giving Moscow data on missile defense | Reuters

China Secretly Seeks The High Ground

March 5, 2012: The American DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency, a military version of the CIA) believes that the Chinese space program involves more than the peaceful use of space. The DIA has discovered that the Chinese are working hard on jamming satellite signals and using lasers to damage satellites. All this is in addition to Chinese work on tracking satellites, a prerequisite for damaging or destroying them. All this is the result of greater scrutiny of the Chinese space program since 2007, when China unexpectedly tested a Killsat (killer satellite). The U.S. let China know that the Killsat test delivered a message. The U.S. responded a year later. The American shoot down of a failed photo satellite in February 2008, was a direct response to the Chinese use of an attack satellite to destroy one of their inoperable weather satellites in January 2007. The U.S. was alarmed at the Chinese satellite destruction test and wanted to let the Chinese know that there were American weapons available to do the job quicker and cheaper. What the U.S. didn't say, or didn't have to say, was that America was now keeping a very close eye on Chinese space warfare capabilities.

Meanwhile, the Chinese were duly impressed when, in early 2008, a U.S. Navy cruiser used its Aegis radar to locate the target, some 220 kilometers above, before firing a single SM-3 missile to destroy the truck sized satellite. To assist precisely locating the target, larger radars and telescopes were also used. This attack wasn't easy because the satellite was out of control and moving erratically. The orbit had to be predicted at least to the point where the Aegis warship could position itself under that orbit. That ability to overcome these difficulties was a good thing. If the Aegis anti-satellite weapon was to be used again, as in wartime, an enemy satellite might try to maneuver to avoid a shot from an Aegis equipped warship.

The 2008 shot took six weeks to plan, mainly because there were so many unknowns. Now, many of those unknowns are knowns and another shoot-down could be carried out more quickly. How quickly remains a secret. There were other surprises as well. When the nine kg (20 pound) missile warhead hit the satellite there was an unexpected explosion as the hydrazine fuel of the satellite ignited. The flames burned for over twenty seconds. The impact of the warhead (which is inert, just a chunk of metal) was more destructive than anticipated, breaking the satellite up into more, and smaller, pieces. That was good, as those tiny fragments are less likely to hurt anything it hits.

This all began back on January 11th, 2007, when China launched an anti-satellite system (a KillSat or Killer Satellite) that destroyed an old Chinese weather satellite, about 850 kilometers up. That's at the upper range of where most reconnaissance satellites hang out. The KillSat hit the weather bird and the result was several million fragments. Most of the pieces are tiny, at least 817 are truly dangerous (at least 10 cm/four inches long, wide, or in diameter).

What China did was, in terms of technology, something the U.S. and Russia had demonstrated over three decades ago. No big deal, unless you actually use it. While China has now demonstrated its ability to destroy satellites (at the cost of a launcher and a maneuverable KillSat), it has also caused a major stink among the dozens of nations that own, or use (usually via leasing arrangements) the several hundred satellites in orbit. That's because this Chinese test increased the amount of dangerous space debris by about eight percent. That's a lot. By common agreement, nations that put up satellites include the capability for the bird, once it has reached the end of its useful life, to slowly move closer to earth until it burns up as it enters the thicker atmosphere. This approach leaves no debris that can collide with other satellites behind. Even a small piece of satellite debris can, when hitting another satellite at high speed, destroy or fatally damage it.

A quarter century ago Russia and the United States agreed to halt such KillSat tests in order to reduce the amount of "space pollution" that threatened all current and future space satellites. Moreover, there was the practical problem of cost. Having launchers standing by to put a sufficient number of KillSats up would be enormously expensive. And it would simply encourage others to do the same thing, which would cancel the original anti-satellite effort. China has ignored, so far, any criticism of its KillSat test and dismissed the risk of starting an orbital arms race. But China has angered the other users of orbital space and earned the contempt of those nations as well. Now we know that it also compelled the United States to test one of its own anti-satellite weapons and a new one at that.

China is believed to have gone ahead and made preparations to assemble a force of 20-30 Killsat missiles, a force sufficient to cripple the American military satellite network. China denies all of this, which is the wise thing to do. It was impossible to hide the 2007 Killsat test and protests from other satellite owning nations were ignored. What China is not ignoring is the benefits of being able to fight in space.

Space: China Secretly Seeks The High Ground

bttt

Explosive new powerbase: Asia goes for broke with arms race

For the first time, the continent is spending more than Europe. But which nation will emerge strongest?

Andrew Buncombe, Clifford Coonan, Alexander Matthews Delhi, Beijing
Thursday 15 March 2012

http://www.independent.co.uk/incomin...race-getty.jpg

Last week it was China that captured the headlines. This week, the attention is on India. Eleven days ago, the authorities in Beijing announced an 11.2 per cent increase in its military budget, a rise that was in line with those of the past decade and underscored the country's continuing emergence as a global power.

Click HERE to view graphic

Officials in Delhi are today expected to announce India's military budget for 2012-13. Last year, despite austerity measures in some areas, defence spending was increased by 11.6 per cent as India continued to modernise and expand its military capabilities. If – as is anticipated – there is another double-digit increase today, it will highlight the growing arms race that has gripped Asia as nations compete both with each other and the US, for local and regional influence.

The true scale of this arms race was underscored in a report issued last week by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, which said arms spending by Asian nations will this year for the first time overtake that of European countries, where economic woes have forced constriction.

The organisation's annual military balance survey reported that in addition to India and China, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam are all spending heavily.

"There are three reasons for this," said Rahul Roy-Chaudhary, of the IISS. "First, Asian economies are rising; second, there is a dynamic procurement process taking place in South-east Asia, south Asia and east Asia, and third, there is an economic crisis in Europe."

The various reasons behind individual countries military spending priorities may differ. But Mr Roy-Chaudhary said it was clear that was a strong element of inter-connectivity – China watched US spending, India and Japan watched China's spending and Pakistan watched India's military expansion.

"India doesn't formally say that its budget is determined by what China is doing, but part of it is," he added. "Pakistan cares about India."

And it is clear that the ripples wash all ways. If Beijing is ever anxious about Washington, last year, when President Barack Obama announced that US military spending in the Asia-Pacific would be protected from the squeezes faced by other parts of the Pentagon budget, it was seen as a response to China's mounting influence, particularly over the oceans.

Maritime concerns may be driving much regional military spending, say analysts, including China's purchase of its first ever aircraft carrier, the refurbished Soviet ship,Varyag, which, it was announced yesterday, will go into service later this year.

"What we see is an arms race among South-east Asian nations looking at China. There is a perceived threat there, in countries like Vietnam and the Philippines," said one defence analyst, who asked to remain anonymous.

While China has little interest in exporting socialism, aware that Soviet Russia collapsed because of its hang-ups on international socialism, it is very aggressive about the South China Sea. A former Filipino president, Fidel V Ramos, wrote this week that "Chinese global power and arms build-up, plus east Asia's economic gravitas, are driving neighbouring countries to boost defence spending".

Most disputes are focused on the Spratley Islands and the Paracel Islands, one of the most hotly contested territorial disputes in the world. Chinese forces seized the western Paracels from Vietnam in 1974 and sank three Vietnamese ships in 1988, events that have cast a shadow over relations since and are a potential flashpoint. China is unlikely to budge on these islands, because they provide cover and protect the route of the Chinese navy's nuclear submarines, which are stationed on Hainan Island, in the South China Sea.

However, everyone in the region seems to have a claim on the Spratleys, including China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. "We see the disputes in the South China Sea as potentially the most pressing concern in terms of conflict in the region. It could be a spat over fishermen, or over an oil-drilling platform. The potential is always there, although it probably wouldn't develop into an open conflict," said Mr Roy-Chaudhary.

China is also active on dry land, spending more money in Tibet, not only on keeping the restive population there under control, but also on deploying more troops on the plateau at Tawang, near Arunachal Pradesh. China has a long-running border dispute with India over this area. The Chinese are deploying troops and aircraft and other equipment to the Himalayan area to see how they withstand the winter. In this arena, one that is particularly sensitive to India because it lost part of this territory to China during a 1962 war, Delhi has responded with men and machines.

"India has made more efforts to raise two mountain divisions, which you can say is a response to China," said Laxman Behera, of the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis.

China's announcement earlier this month said that its military budget would be increased to $106bn (£68bn), from $95bn. Such an amount leaves it far behind the US, which in 2013 will have a military spend of $525bn, but considerably ahead of its regional rival India, which in 2012 allocated to $36bn to the military, around a third of it on salaries and benefits.

Many think China is probably spending even more but that it chooses not to reveal the true figure. Last year, the US suggested that Beijing's true military budget might be 60 per cent higher, at around $160bn. Some analysts, believe China's military spend could double in the next three years.

Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said last week that it was "quite normal" to upgrade the military in an era of rapidly developing technology. "Weapons and equipment development is undertaken to maintain national security. It does not target any specific country or objective," he said.

Explosive new powerbase: Asia goes for broke with arms race - Asia - World - The Independent

related: http://www.alipac.us/f19/us-weapons-full-fake-chinese-parts-254531/#post1270992

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD1KY...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=A8KQWaLJn6M

Related: Russia and China pull together to counter US Asia drive &mdash; RT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHZIUdHm6b4&amp;feature=related

Related: China Has The Ability To Shut Down All The Telecommunications Technology It Sold To America - Business Insider

China Announces How It Would Go To War Against The US Fleet

Robert Johnson | Jun. 11, 2012, 7:22 AM


http://static6.businessinsider.com/i...ile-launch.jpg Wikipedia Commons

The U.S. has made no secret that it's pulling its focus from the Middle East and directing military attention to the Pacific, and now China is pushing back.
The Economic Times reports China is increasing its conventional missile capability to carry out multiple launches, the one tactic that could overwhelm a Navy ship's defenses and cripple its abilities.

Tan Weihong, Commander of China's Second Artillery Force says, "Conventional missiles are a trump card in modern warfare. So we must be ready at any time. We must be able to deliver a quick response to attacks, hit the targets with high accuracy, and destroy them totally. Of the 114 missiles [our brigade] has launched so far, all have accurately hit the target."

For each incoming missile a U.S. Navy ship will have to perform some variation of the following actions:

First it will launch a long-range air defense missile, like a SM-2ER. If that fails, then a shorter range missile like the ESSM (Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile) will go out — then the ship's main deck guns will fire anti-air rounds with fused airburst shells.

Surviving missiles will be engaged by close-in weapons systems like the Mk-15 Pahalanx or the RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile). Any incoming missiles struck by these systems will be so close, and moving so fast, that incoming shrapnel and debris would likely be unavoidable.

While all these "Hard Kill" options are going on the ship's electronic warfare systems will have been trying to jam the incoming missile, offering the missile a false target, while firing off chaff (for radar guided weapons) and flares (for infrared guided weapons).

All that for every single missile, so if China can send off several at once directed at the same ship, the chances of success on their part may increase exponentially.

http://www.businessinsider.com/china...eak-out-2012-6

Related: Cover-Up Of Military Software Sale To China - United Technologies acknowledges coveru

The Asian-American Arms Race In Charts

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../picture-5.jpg
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/18/2012 18:43 -0400

• China

"Asia is a study in contrasts. It is home to economic freedom and political liberty; it is also home to political instability and tyranny. Some of Asia’s borders are unsettled and volatile. And military budgets and capabilities are expanding, sometimes faster than economic growth. The rise of China as a great power presents both sides of this equation. It is being watched carefully by all the countries of the region. It is the U.S. that is recognized as the catalyst in ensuring a prosperous peace over conflict. America is a Pacific power. That much is a matter of geography and history. But the facts – and America’s principles and interests – demand more than resignation to geography. They call for continued American leadership, commitment, and the predominant comprehensive power that has enabled Asia’s very welcomed, opportunity-laden rise."

Thus prefaces the Heritage Foundation its Asian 'Book of Charts', which summarizes most of the key economic, financial, trade, geopolitical, most importantly militaristic tensions both in Asia and, by dint of being the global marginal economic force, the world itself. And while we will present the complete deck shortly, of particular interest we find the summary in 7 easy charts how Asia is slowly but surely catching up on that accepted by conventional wisdom GloboCop - the United States.

We present it in its entirety below.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...ngasia750.ashx




http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...lysize750.ashx



http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...USnavy750.ashx



http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...litary750.ashx


http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...koreas750.ashx


http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...inasea750.ashx




http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...inland750.ashx

The Asian-American Arms Race In Charts | ZeroHedge

bttt

Related: Report: Russia Moves Nuclear Missiles to Cuba: Cuban missile crisis part two?

Related: http://www.alipac.us/f19/u-s-agitated-wwiii-horizon-262569/#post1298503

Related: http://www.alipac.us/f19/30-000-spee...-fleet-266015/

Guest Post: China’s J-31 Stealth Aircraft Takes Flight

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../picture-5.jpg
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/31/2012 21:44 -0400

• China
• Guest Post
• SAC
• Ukraine

Authored by J. Michael Cole via The Diplomat,

Well, the Chinese aviation industry sure isn’t wasting any time: From the first glimpse of the tarp-covered fuselage being hauled in the first official pictures released by Shenyang Aircraft Corp (SAC) in September, China’s second fifth-generation stealth aircraft, the J-31, has now taken its maiden flight.

While defense analysts have been busy fretting over Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corp’s (CAC) J-20, first unveiled in January 2011, it looks like SAC was not dwindling its thumbs but instead was hard at work developing a second low-signature aircraft. Since the unveiling in September, defense watchers had been holding their breath in anticipation of what would come next.

SAC didn’t make them wait for long, with in-flight images of the J-31, which previously had been designated J-21, popping up on defense Internet sites on October 31. Bearing the tail designation “31001,” the aircraft, accompanied by two Shenyang J-11Bs, reportedly conducted a high-speed taxi run, followed by a 10-minute flight with its landing gear in the lowered position.

There is still speculation as to whether the J-31 is intended to be a competitor to the J-20, or a complement to its larger cousin. The one prototype seen so far is a conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft like the J-20 and the Lockheed F-35A. However, computer-generated renditions of the aircraft have emerged in defense circles hinting at the possibility of a carrier-based variant, pointing to a role for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Analysts have also advanced the possibility that the J-31, under the designation F-60, could be intended as an export fighter to compete against the F-35.

As with the J-20 and other domestic aircraft programs, the main question remains which type of engine — the main technical bottleneck for Chinese engineers — will be used on the J-31. One option, according to some analysts cited at China Defense, could be the Progress-Ivchenko Al-222-95F, a 9.5-tonne turbofan thrust engine, which Ukraine has reportedly offered to co-produce with China.

The Chinese Air Force and Navy are probably half a decade away from seeing fight-generation commence operations in their respective services. But one thing is sure: Defense analysts have underestimated China’s ability to overcome technological hurdles before. While the sky isn’t falling in East Asia, the skies over China are well worth paying close attention to.

Guest Post: China

Related: http://www.alipac.us/f19/china-makes...4/#post1311023

Related: China submarines soon to carry nukes, draft US report says

http://www.alipac.us/f19/new-chinese...8/#post1328625

http://www.alipac.us/f19/china-revea...4/#post1379291