China says U.S. missile shield threatens global stability

[Ace Pace]

Global Security

HARBIN (China), October 24 (RIA Novosti) - The placement of U.S. missile defenses in Europe will not ease global security concerns but will undermine the global strategic balance, the Chinese foreign minister said Wednesday.

Washington insists that the deployment of a radar in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland will protect the U.S. and its NATO allies from potential missile attacks coming from Iran or North Korea, despite Russia's objections.

Speaking at a news conference after a meeting between foreign ministers of China, Russia and India, Yang Jiechi expressed hope that a new concept of global security, characterized by mutual trust and equal rights, could be established in the future.

The Harbin meeting is the third stand-alone meeting of the foreign ministers from the three countries. New Delhi hosted the previous two meetings, which some experts and media said could be aimed at setting up a military-political alliance to counter the influence of the United States in the region.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the news conference in Harbin that Russia has no plans to form a military union with India and China.

He said Moscow is developing dialogue with the two Asian countries through bilateral as well as trilateral formats, within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other structures.

"We are striving to jointly resolve key issues of security through multilateral dialogue, primarily by political and diplomatic means," Lavrov said.

"There is no alternative to a multi-polar and equal-rights cooperation in the world if we want to respond effectively to the existing threats," he said.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Chinese just don’t want to be stuck having to buy more then 20 ICBMs to maintain the balance of terror.

[Kane Starkiller]

I've always wondered why China doesn't attempt to expand it's nuclear forces more rapidly. They had the 20 ICBMs capable of hitting USA for ages now.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I've always wondered why China doesn't attempt to expand it's nuclear forces more rapidly. They had the 20 ICBMs capable of hitting USA for ages now.

Well, they are trying to boost their SSBNs. I think there are 2-3 Delta IV copies right now.

[Kanastrous]

Good target practice for our Virginia-class boats, anyway.

[Stuart]

I've always wondered why China doesn't attempt to expand it's nuclear forces more rapidly. They had the 20 ICBMs capable of hitting USA for ages now.

They have problems making the warheads. They also have the problem that there's a pretty good chance we could shoot down all of their ICBMs. After spending billions developing an ICBM force that's very upsetting for them.

It's also the benefit of ABM - it makes the entry cost to the strategic game so high, few countries can afford it

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I've always wondered why China doesn't attempt to expand it's nuclear forces more rapidly. They had the 20 ICBMs capable of hitting USA for ages now.

They have problems making the warheads. They also have the problem that there's a pretty good chance we could shoot down all of their ICBMs. After spending billions developing an ICBM force that's very upsetting for them.

It's also the benefit of ABM - it makes the entry cost to the strategic game so high, few countries can afford it

What sort of problems? I know they stole the specs for some US warheads and that they were behind the US and Russia when it came to miniaturisation.

[Kanastrous]

What sort of problems?

It's an issue of neutron flux density, in the first three nanoseconds of the warhead core implosion, feeding the chain reaction.

There's a critical density you have to maintain for the sake of efficiency, and for some reason in Chinese warheads the reaction is hungry, only two nanoseconds later.

[Darth Raptor]

There's also the obscene codependence of China and the United States to consider. They're not bigger enemies and strategic rivals because they can't live without each other, regardless of how much they may hate that fact. Cold wars can be very bad for inter-bloc trade, what with all their walls and curtains and missiles and evil empire rhetoric.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Which one? We've got about nine ways to intercept that we're working on.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I believe ABM in America's getting popular now because we have hypersonic bombers and spaceplanes, however hypothetical, to rattle our scabbards with. Honestly, I prefer manned bombers due to recallability, better ability to penetrate enemy defenses, unpredictability, ability to loiter, and all-up practice-mission capability. Ballistic missiles don't have these capabilities to any useful degree.

[Starglider]

Honestly, I prefer manned bombers due to recallability, better ability to penetrate enemy defenses, unpredictability, ability to loiter, and all-up practice-mission capability. Ballistic missiles don't have these capabilities to any useful degree.

Your reasons are good, but I mainly prefer hypersonic bombers because;
a) They're useful for conventional bombing. ICBMs aren't.
b) The R&D and industrial infrastructure needed for them is useful for building high speed civil transports and spaceplanes. R&D for the original generation of ICBMs was vital to the original space race (not to mention giving computer hardware development a significant boost), but AFAIK there are no significant non-military applications of further attempts to refine ICBMs.
c) They look much cooler (and you actually get to see them at airshows).

[K. A. Pital]

Why oh why hasn't China expanded their nuclear forces? Well, their metallurgy sucks donkey balls, that's why.

[Ryan Thunder]

better ability to penetrate enemy defenses

Which is why there was no point building interceptor planes after ICBMs were developed, right?

[Pelranius]

They don't seem to have any trouble producing the SLBMs for their new SSBNs, so I doubt they're having metallurgy problems (their space program and ASAT system are perfectly fine). And then there's the question of how many of those new MIRVed DF-31As they have deployed. Given how complete PLA military secrecy is, they could potentially have a hundred missiles deployed and we wouldn't know about it (except for DoD spy sat photos, and the Pentagon isn't just going to release those for public consumption)

[Illuminatus Primus]

There's also the obscene codependence of China and the United States to consider. They're not bigger enemies and strategic rivals because they can't live without each other, regardless of how much they may hate that fact. Cold wars can be very bad for inter-bloc trade, what with all their walls and curtains and missiles and evil empire rhetoric.

You mean like before World War I? Or II? Or how we bought the titanium from the USSR that we built the SR-71 with? Or that they survived off U.S. grain? Highly-interdependent trade and globalization has not stopped wars and hegemonic competition before.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I've always wondered why China doesn't attempt to expand it's nuclear forces more rapidly. They had the 20 ICBMs capable of hitting USA for ages now.

Well, that's a good reason right there. China has never shown any interest in World Conquest or some loony crusade to kill all non-Chinese; therefore, they only really need enough nukes to keep other nuke armed nations from threatening them with their nukes. And building more and more nukes didn't help the Soviet Union at all, did it ? Or America for that matter.

[K. A. Pital]

You mean like before World War I? Or II? Or how we bought the titanium from the USSR that we built the SR-71 with? Or that they survived off U.S. grain?

Or how the USSR never duped a single oil contract? Or how U.S. oil companies routinely sold oil to the Nazis, which powered their Navy, even during the war? Yes indeed, indeed rivalry rarely has been stopped by trade. This is also why arguments that trade between countries will make wars unlikely is bollocks.

[Sea Skimmer]

Which is why there was no point building interceptor planes after ICBMs were developed, right?

Actually the Soviets would be the only nation that launched new interceptor designs after the 1960s, in the form of the MiG-31. Remember, the US abandon the B-70 and most other nations likewise gave up on new bombers on the logic that the SA-2 missile, you know the same one that couldn't stop fighter bombings flying primary at subsonic speeds in Vietnam and the Mid East, would have a 95% hit rate in combat against anything that flew.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

They don't seem to have any trouble producing the SLBMs for their new SSBNs, so I doubt they're having metallurgy problems (their space program and ASAT system are perfectly fine). And then there's the question of how many of those new MIRVed DF-31As they have deployed. Given how complete PLA military secrecy is, they could potentially have a hundred missiles deployed and we wouldn't know about it (except for DoD spy sat photos, and the Pentagon isn't just going to release those for public consumption)

Building a rocket is quite different from designing an MIRV that is supposed to be re-enter the atmosphere. Quite different.

[Pelranius]

They don't seem to have any trouble producing the SLBMs for their new SSBNs, so I doubt they're having metallurgy problems (their space program and ASAT system are perfectly fine). And then there's the question of how many of those new MIRVed DF-31As they have deployed. Given how complete PLA military secrecy is, they could potentially have a hundred missiles deployed and we wouldn't know about it (except for DoD spy sat photos, and the Pentagon isn't just going to release those for public consumption)

Building a rocket is quite different from designing an MIRV that is supposed to be re-enter the atmosphere. Quite different.

I was referring to general Chinese metallurgy capabilities, which are satisfactory enough to produce Long March rockets on a large scale and so theoretically should be able to mass produce the booster stages of ICBMs. As for the MIRV, if one can build both a single warhead and a manned space vehicle, a MIRV should be within reach. Though mind you, there has been no hard evidence or official PLA press releases talking about MIRV technology. Mostly speculation from the DoD.

[Stuart]

They don't seem to have any trouble producing the SLBMs for their new SSBNs, so I doubt they're having metallurgy problems (their space program and ASAT system are perfectly fine).

Actually, they are having serious problems with the JL-1 and JL-2 production; its one of the reasons why their SSBN program is moving so slowly. They have one Project 094 SSBN in service but the older Project 092 boat is laid up at Quingdao with her missile compartment empty and her reactor room stripped. (She's on Google, N36:06:39.24, E120:35:3.48)

And then there's the question of how many of those new MIRVed DF-31As they have deployed. Given how complete PLA military secrecy is, they could potentially have a hundred missiles deployed and we wouldn't know about it (except for DoD spy sat photos, and the Pentagon isn't just going to release those for public consumption)

Let's just leave it that the number of ICBMs and their warheads is known to a high degree of accuracy.

Building a rocket is quite different from designing an MIRV that is supposed to be re-enter the atmosphere. Quite different.

Also, building ICBMs is a very different question from building an IRBM. SRBMs and IRBMs were buildable using 1940s technology (obviously) and were pretty widespread by the 1950s. ICBMs took much longer to sort out and weren't really reliable until the mid-1960s.

I was referring to general Chinese metallurgy capabilities, which are satisfactory enough to produce Long March rockets on a large scale and so theoretically should be able to mass produce the booster stages of ICBMs. As for the MIRV, if one can build both a single warhead and a manned space vehicle, a MIRV should be within reach. Though mind you, there has been no hard evidence or official PLA press releases talking about MIRV technology. Mostly speculation from the DoD.

MIRVs are a lot tricker than one might think. It's not doing it, its the precision needed to do it right. The bus that contains the re-entry vehicles has to be manoeuvered so each re-entry vehicle is pointed the right way. Look on it this way. An MRV is a shotgun blast. An MIRV is a weapon in which a computer manoeuvers the shotgun so that each pellet is aimed at a specific point and fired individually yet the whole thing takes place so fast the effect is like a shotgun blast.

[Ryan Thunder]

Which is why there was no point building interceptor planes after ICBMs were developed, right?

Actually the Soviets would be the only nation that launched new interceptor designs after the 1960s, in the form of the MiG-31. Remember, the US abandon the B-70 and most other nations likewise gave up on new bombers on the logic that the SA-2 missile, you know the same one that couldn't stop fighter bombings flying primary at subsonic speeds in Vietnam and the Mid East, would have a 95% hit rate in combat against anything that flew.

Ok, but were they actually of any use against ballistic missiles?

[Androsphinx]

She's on Google, N36:06:39.24, E120:35:3.48

I never cease to be amazed by GE. Thanks

More relevantly, why are the Indians going it alone for ABM? Couldn't they buy into the US programme?

[K. A. Pital]

More relevantly, why are the Indians going it alone for ABM? Couldn't they buy into the US programme?

This isn't a question that requires an answer. A more obvious one would be: why the hell should any nation trust it's matters of ballistic defense to some other foreign nation, with foreign interest? That just doesn't follow at all. Would you also want your ICBM arsenal operated by America? No? Why the would you want an America-operated ABM?