China says U.S. missile shield threatens global stability

Androsphinx · Post by **Androsphinx** » 2007-10-25 10:08am

Well, from that perspective, because it makes any attack on India a de facto attack on the US. Besides, much of Europe seems happy enough to outsource their ABM.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2007-10-25 10:22am

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

The Indians tend to run two program streams, an indigenous stream using their own technology and research and an imported stream. ABM is no different, their imported stream uses Israeli technology (Arrow missiles and Green Pine radars) while their local stream uses their own rocket and radar technology.

The fascinating thing about the Indian indigenous ABM is that it uses an unguided interceptor. They do all the calculations on the ground point the rocket at a predicted intercept point and fire. Worked like a charm. Given that India produces the best mathematicians in the world and does so in large quantities its an interesting and very informative approach.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-25 10:23am

Besides, much of Europe seems happy enough to outsource their ABM.

"Much"?

How many European countries are ardent supporters of an American ABM shield? I guess not just those two which were lobbied through as territory for ABM system hardware, now, is it?

Well, from that perspective, because it makes any attack on India a de facto attack on the US.

Except in case where the US attacks India, or chooses to ignore an attack on India - for example, because it likes Pakistan more. Oooh, and the US will never nuke a country... or maybe not.

Androsphinx · Post by **Androsphinx** » 2007-10-25 11:00am

I didn't say that there was "ardent support", just that of the european countries involved in ABM, several are using the US's programme rather than their own. Considering the expense of an ABM system, especially one like India's which has more than just ICBMs to worry about, doing everything from scratch seemed excessive. Now I know they have Arrow/Green Pine at the moment, it makes rather more sense.

Except in case where the US attacks India, or chooses to ignore an attack on India - for example, because it likes Pakistan more. Oooh, and the US will never nuke a country... or maybe not.

If the Indians have a genuine concern that the US might launch a nuclear strike, and they would need their own ABM system - that would be a fair answer to the question I asked. But that doesn't seem very probable. As for the "they like Pakistan more" - that would be precisely the reason why being part of a US alliance with US troops likely to be affected by any attack would be a good idea. And remember that the Indian ABM system is also for the Chinese, not just the Pakistanis.

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2007-10-25 11:20am

Stas Bush wrote:
Besides, much of Europe seems happy enough to outsource their ABM.
"Much"? How many European countries are ardent supporters of an American ABM shield? I guess not just those two which were lobbied through as territory for ABM system hardware, now, is it?

Last I checked Germany and Italy are working with us on the Medium Extended Air Defense System, which is being developped to replace the PATRIOT in the US & Germany and the Nike-Hercules in Italy.

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2007-10-25 11:28am

Wait, why would anyone design an ABM System to try and counter the US or Russian Federations armaments? There's simply too many missiles to too try and intercept, if either of us wants through we're getting through, an ABM system is designed to stop nuclear arsenals like the kind India, Pakistan, and China might have, not thousands of nuclear weapons.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-25 11:38am

Wait, why would anyone design an ABM System to try and counter the US or Russian Federations armaments?

So, why would Russia design an ABM system around Moscow since the opposing party's strike would still be overwhelming?

There's simply too many missiles to too try and intercept

How does that preclude constructing an ABM? And "too many" is a vague nonsense concept - rack up your interceptor pool and you can handle "many" as well as "few".

an ABM system is designed to stop nuclear arsenals like the kind India, Pakistan, and China might have, not thousands of nuclear weapons

An ABM system is designed to stop nuclear weapons period. Expand it's scale, and you can create a sufficiently powerful first-strike shield even against an enemy with thousands of missiles.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2007-10-25 12:28pm

Stas Bush
Virtual attrition. Suddenly you're not sure that you can get all your nukes into the right spots, so you need to double up or worse. Eventually you end up with an entire nations nuclear arsenal pointed at Moscow.

This is, in fact, exactly why NMD is in the national interests of the US. And that is why the US is pursuing NMD. The cost of the system will be less than the economic cost of a destroyed city.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-25 12:31pm

Thanks, I'm pretty familiar with the principle.

So how does that make it reasonable for India not to have it's own ABM system?

Post by **Beowulf** » 2007-10-25 12:49pm

It doesn't. It may be reasonable for them to buy a copy of the US system, or the Israeli system, but they do need a system at least partly owned and operated by themselves.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2007-10-25 04:01pm

Androsphinx wrote:And remember that the Indian ABM system is also for the Chinese, not just the Pakistanis.

I assume you're ignorant of the Sino-Indian War. Believe me, India has NO reason to defend China from American missiles, and vice versa.

Androsphinx · Post by **Androsphinx** » 2007-10-25 04:24pm

I assume you're ignorant of the Sino-Indian War. Believe me, India has NO reason to defend China from American missiles, and vice versa.

No, not at all. When I said that the Indian ABM was for China as well, I meant to PROTECT India from Chinese missiles.

Or did you think when I said "the Indian ABM system is also for the Chinese, not just the Pakistanis", I meant that the Indians were planning to protect the Pakistanis with their ABM? Read carefully!

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2007-10-25 04:58pm

Androsphinx wrote:Or did you think when I said "the Indian ABM system is also for the Chinese, not just the Pakistanis", I meant that the Indians were planning to protect the Pakistanis with their ABM? Read carefully!

In that case, you should've worded your post more carefully, e.g., write, "The Indian ABM system also defends against Chinese attacks, not just Pakistani."

Androsphinx · Post by **Androsphinx** » 2007-10-25 05:15pm

I think that in the formulation "A is for B, not just for C", it is pretty clear that the relationship between A and B (India and China) is the same as that between A and C (India and Pakistan). Especially when your misreading leads you to assume my ignorance of recent world history.

Pelranius · Post by **Pelranius** » 2007-10-25 08:19pm

Stuart wrote:
Pelranius wrote: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.

Pelranius wrote: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.

Well actually, the Chinese have at least two (probably three) 094 SSBNs right now. There's this photo on google, as shown in the arms control blog. http://kotare.typepad.com/thestrategist ... iforc.html

I would assume that they have resolved the production issues with the JL2 to their satisfaction, otherwise they would have never built the second sub (and possibly third, but that's a point of contention among the Chinese military watching community).

Since the Chinese already have quite a line of space rockets, they probably could use those engines as a basis for ICBM designs (the French took the Ariana engines for their M5 missile, IIRC).

As for the accuracy of Chinese warheads, there are think tanks going around saying that Chinese IRBMs "theoretically" could be fired with enough precision to hit American carrier groups, such as Dr. Fisher. Though the rough comparisons I made seem to suggest otherwise. Just a rumor from our think tank friends.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2007-10-26 03:54am

Pelranius wrote: I would assume that they have resolved the production issues with the JL2 to their satisfaction, otherwise they would have never built the second sub (and possibly third, but that's a point of contention among the Chinese military watching community).

That doesn't necessarily follow: They may still want to have two subs with trained and prepared crews, and just fill them up gradually as the missiles come off the assembly line.

You still need a significant time to actually drill your crews and develop procedures, and you don't need to haul missiles aboard for that. In fact, for the initial part of training excercises, it's better not to load the nukes, in case an inexperienced crew does something monumentally stupid (it happens sometimes).

Not to mention, that with three subs they will have enough to keep one at sea at all times. Even if every such sub only has one or two missiles, it's still better than a nuclear deterrent that simply sits in port 1/3 of the time.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2007-10-26 04:07am

Stuart wrote:The fascinating thing about the Indian indigenous ABM is that it uses an unguided interceptor. They do all the calculations on the ground point the rocket at a predicted intercept point and fire. Worked like a charm. Given that India produces the best mathematicians in the world and does so in large quantities its an interesting and very informative approach.

Isn't that essentially how the old Nike system worked?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2007-10-26 09:08am

And they're doing that with hit-to-kill interceptors? With no terminal guidance? That's impressive.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2007-10-26 05:58pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:And they're doing that with hit-to-kill interceptors? With no terminal guidance? That's impressive.

Well, if you have ground radars continually refining the intercept solution and sending new intercept coordinates to the missile, that makes life easier. The Nike team figured out that you could do it with Zeus (despite it not really being designed for that).

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2007-10-26 06:19pm

I suppose its not really any different than their '60's-era skin-to-skin hits.

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2007-10-26 06:24pm

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

They can't make stainless steel kitchenware worth a damn, so that's no surprise.

Pelranius · Post by **Pelranius** » 2007-10-27 04:40pm

Elfdart wrote:
Stas Bush wrote:Why oh why hasn't China expanded their nuclear forces? Well, their metallurgy sucks donkey balls, that's why.
They can't make stainless steel kitchenware worth a damn, so that's no surprise.

Well, the Sukhoi officials stated that on a visit to China, they were surprised by the quality of the metal finish on the Chinese license produced J-11A (the ones with made in China airframes), which they said was actually better than the Russian one. I don't know if I'll be able to dig up the article though (I think it was on that Kanwa magazine)

Though I must admit that good fighter airframe work doesn't necessarily equal to good missile parts.