WaPo hit piece on China

[MKSheppard]

Link

So, what do I get for Christmas?

Why, a major hit piece on the People's Liberation Army/Navy/Air Force by the Washington Compost, assisted by the Russians!

Military strength eludes China, which looks overseas for arms

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 25, 2010; 12:00 AM

MOSCOW - The Moscow Machine-Building Enterprise Salyut on the east side of town has put up a massive Soviet-style poster advertising its need for skilled workers. The New Year's party at the Chernyshev plant in a northwest suburb featured ballet dancers twirling on the stage of its Soviet-era Palace of Culture.

The reason for the economic and seasonal cheer is that these factories produce fighter-jet engines for a wealthy and voracious customer: China. After years of trying, Chinese engineers still can't make a reliable engine for a military plane.

Wrong. The Chinese are producing J-11B FLANKERS with the locally produced WS-10A Taihang turbofan, replacing the Russian AL-31.

The country's demands for weapons systems go much further. Chinese officials last month told Russian Defense Minister Anatoly E. Serdyukov that they may resume buying major Russian weapons systems after a several-year break. On their wish list are the Su-35 fighter, for a planned Chinese aircraft carrier; IL-476 military transport planes; IL-478 air refueling tankers and the S-400 air defense system, according to Russian news reports and weapons experts.

Please note the source of all these claims -- Russian news reports and weapons companies.

Why should the Chinese import Su-35s?

They've been cranking out J-11Bs with majority Chinese avonics and engines, along with J-10As and J-10Bs from Chengdu for the light strike/fighter role.

Also, the J-20 prototype may have taxiied -- there goes the rationale for PAK-FA on the world export market.

Additionally, the J-15 Flying Shark is coming along quite well -- so why do they need to buy Russian to get something that can fly off the Crapyrag?

Il-476 transports and Il-478 tankers? Why? The Russians had severe production problems just fulfilling the Chinese order for 30 Il-76 transports and 4 Il-78 tankers several years ago.

So why would the Chinese go to them again, when they are about to produce indigenously a large airliner -- the C-919, which can then be given a refuelling boom to fill the tanker role?

Really, the only hole so far is the lack of a heavy tactical airlifter; but that can be pushed off until the 2015s or so, since China is not going to be sending a whole Airborne Corps to invade Sudan any time soon; so the Y-9 turboprop can fill their needs (credible threat to Chinese Tapei) for the next decade.

Why do they need to import S-400s? They already have the HQ-9 rolling off like hotcakes, and being tested in the ABM role...

This persistent dependence on Russian arms suppliers demonstrates a central truth about the Chinese military: The bluster about the emergence of a superpower is undermined by national defense industries that can't produce what China needs.

Left unsaid is the fact that the Chinese are indigenously building a blue water navy that is increasingly sophisticated -- Type 052C DDGs with phased arrays and HQ-N-9 SAMs -- they're not up to the level of AEGIS yet, but they are a massive jump in quality over previous Chinese Naval SAMs, which were Crotales.

They've also begun to build a nice series of LPDs, the Type 071, capable of carrying a battalion of troops, and 15-20 amphibious tanks.

Remind me again, which country is buying an amphibious warfare ship from France?

Right, Russia.

Although the United States is making changes in response to China's growing military power, experts and officials believe it will be years, if not decades, before China will be able to produce a much-feared ballistic missile capable of striking a warship or overcome weaknesses that keep it from projecting power far from its shores.

Rumor is that the Crapyrag will finally launch or whatever around June 2011, and that the PLA(N) will have an indigenous CV in the water by 2015. So in about ten years, the PLA(N) will be a much more credible force.

"They've made remarkable progress in the development of their arms industry, but this progress shouldn't be overstated," said Vasily Kashin, a Beijing-based expert on China's defense industry. "They have a long tradition of overestimating their capabilities."

Again with using Russians as sources.

In 2000, the Chinese Marine Corps basically used modified BMP-1s with outboard motors attached along with flotation pontoons for their amphibious landing duties.

Now?

They have the ZBD-2000 Amphibious family of both light support tanks and IFVs

Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategic Technologies and an adviser to Russia's ministry of defense, predicted that China would need a decade to perfect a jet engine, among other key weapons technologies. "China is still dependent on us and will stay that way for some time to come," he said.

Indeed, China has ordered scores of engines from the Salyut and Chernyshev factories for three of its new fighters - the J11B, a Chinese knock-off of the Russian Su-27; the J10, which China is believed to have developed with Israeli help; and the FC1, which China modeled on an aborted Soviet design. It also told Russia that it wants a third engine from another factory for the Su-35.

Haw. So the Shenyang WS-10A powering the J-11B, and later models of the J-10 doesn't exist? Shows the quality of reporting these days.

The Russians have also been quite aggressive in pushing the whole "Lavi = J-10" angle; with all sorts of rumors that they've spread about their involvedment in the J-10 program.

How China's military is modernizing is important for the United States and the world. Apart from the conflict with radical Islamism, the United States views China's growing military strength as the most serious potential threat to U.S. interests around the world.

Speaking in 2009, Liang Guanglie, China's minister of defense, laid out a hugely ambitious plan to modernize the People's Liberation Army, committing China to forging a navy that would push past the islands that ring China's coasts, an air force capable of "a combination of offensive and defensive operations," and rocket forces of both "nuclear and conventional striking power."

The Pentagon, in a report to Congress this year, said that that the pace and scale of China's military reform "are broad and sweeping." But, the report noted, "the PLA remains untested in modern combat," thus making transformation difficult to assess.

Hey; I'm all fine with that. It's because of the growing strength of the PLA(N) that the USN started LRASM with DARPA to produce a supersonic anti-ship missile. Maybe by 2016 we'll see the US Navy's shipbuilding program put back on a rational basis thanks to the growing competency of the PLA(N).

'Could be sitting ducks'

One area in which China is thought to have made the greatest advances is in its submarines, part of what is now the largest fleet of naval vessels in Asia. In October 2006, a Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine reportedly shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier and surfaced undetected four miles from the ship. Although the Pentagon never confirmed the report, it sparked concern that China could threaten the carriers that are at the heart of the U.S. Navy's ability to project power.

China tried to buy Russian nuclear submarines but was rebuffed, so it launched a program to make its own. Over the past two years, it has deployed at least one of a new type of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine called the Jin class and it may deploy as many as five more.

The Office of Naval Intelligence said the Jin gives China's navy its first credible second-strike nuclear capability; its missiles have a range of 4,000 miles. But in a report last year, the ONI also noted that the Jin is noisier than nuclear submarines built by the Soviets 30 years ago, leading experts to conclude that it would be detected as soon as it left port.

The first Type 094 JIN SSBN was launched in 2004; so that means back in 2004 the PLA(N) had quieting levels comparable to the Soviet VICTOR III class SSNs in the early 1980s; which were the first submarines the Soviets had that could credibly threaten our fast attacks.

It is plausible now that they are approaching the quietness level of the early 688 classes. Given that the US Navy has only two operational Seawolves and seven Virginias, with the overwhelming majority of our SSN force being 44 x 688 class boats...of which only 23 are 688I class.

Yes, I know you can update the electronics on the boats to be newer, smaller and replace various bits of equipment with quieter pieces -- but you simply can't upgrade the powerplant and drivetrain to be vastly quieter on the eight Flight IIs and twelve Flight Is still in active service, because a lot of equipment is basically inaccessible without major hull penetrations, which cost $$$$.

"There's a tendency to talk about China as a great new military threat that's coming," said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. But, when it comes to Chinese submarines carrying ballistic missiles, he said, "they could be sitting ducks."

Ah, FAS. Such a reliable site for objective unbiased information. Could it be that the Chinese don't need to send their SSBNs out that much to achieve their objectives?

The CSS-NX-4 on the Type 094 SSBNs are estimated to have a range of 8,000 km; meaning that from their piers in Huldao; they can strike all of Russia, the important bits of Australia, India, the Middle East, and Pearl Harbor. A couple days of sail brings bits of the US West Coast into range.

That achieves pretty much all of China's strategic objectives for deterrence.

I would not be surprised if the reactor cooling intakes on the 094s are located further up from the hull bottom, to enable sitting doggo on the seabed near China. You could sortie the SSBNs given a credible war warning, and they'd be able become sufficiently hard to find in only a day of sailing, unless you decided to boil the ocean with nukes.

Plus keeping them close to home also saves you money on nuclear C3I since you don't have to construct a global network for communications or navigation solely to serve the SSBNs.

You know, it's kind of funny that the Chinese are behaving the way that the CIA and the US Intelligentsia establishment expected the Soviet Union to behave through the 1960s to 1970s -- only putting enough in to achieve minimum deterrence, so that money can be saved for either the economy or overall force modernization, not just the Nuklear bits.

Another problem is that China's submariners don't train very much.

China's entire fleet of 63 subs conducted only a dozen patrols in 2009, according to U.S. Navy data Kristensen obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, about a tenth of the U.S. Navy's pace.

It's kind of fun what FAS neglects to say:

Information Dissemination



2005: 0 patrols
2006: 2 patrols
2007: 7 patrols
2008: 12 Patrols
2009: 12~ Patrols

It's also not clear what constitutes a "patrol". Does sailing up and down the Chinese coast constitute a patrol, or is deploying into deeper waters several thousand miles off the coast a patrol?

In addition, Kristensen said there is no record of a Chinese ballistic-missile sub going out on patrol. "You learn how to use your systems on patrol," he said. "If you don't patrol, how can you fight?"

Again, does China even need to send it's SSBNs out on patrol? It seems to me that the PRC leadership is treating them as a rapidly dispersable backup strike system to back up the Second Army Corps (SAC!) land based missiles.

Anti-ship capabilities

China's missile technology has always been the pointy edge of its spear, ever since Qian Xuesen, the gifted rocket scientist who was kicked out of the United States during the McCarthy period in the 1950s, returned to China.

U.S. government scientists have been impressed by China's capabilities. On Jan. 11, 2007, a Chinese missile traveling at more than four miles a second hit a satellite that was basically a box with three-foot sides, one U.S. government weapons expert said. Over the past several years, China has put into orbit 11 of what are believed to be its first military-only satellites, called Yaogan, which could provide China with the ability to track targets for its rockets. China is also trying to fashion an anti-ship ballistic missile by taking a short-range rocket, the DF-21, and turning it into what could become an aircraft-carrier killing weapon.

You forgot their ABM tests. They've been doing a continuing series of ABM tests using KT-xx missiles, which are....modified DF-21s.

Given that the Chinese have about a hundred DF-21s deployed, they could instantly deploy a thin shield of ABM weapons once the C3I network for it is in place

Even though it has yet to be deployed, the system has already sparked changes in the United States. In September, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said China's "investments in anti-ship weaponry and ballistic missiles could threaten America's primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific - particularly our forward bases and carrier strike groups." The U.S. Navy in 2008 cut the DDG-1000 destroyer program from eight ships to three because the vessels lack a missile-defense capability.

But the challenge for China is that an anti-ship ballistic missile is extremely hard to make. The Russians worked on one for decades and failed. The United States never tried, preferring to rely on cruise missiles and attack submarines to do the job of threatening an opposing navy.

U.S. satellites would detect an ASBM as soon as it was launched, providing a carrier enough warning to move several miles before the missile could reach its target. To hit a moving carrier, a U.S. government weapons specialist said, China's targeting systems would have to be "better than world-class."

Wu Riqiang, who worked for six years at the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation as a missile designer, said that while he could not confirm that such a missile existed, he believed weapons such as these were essentially "political chips," the mere mention of which had already achieved the goal of making U.S. warships think twice about operating near China's shores.

"It's an open question how these missiles will do in a conflict situation," said Wu, who is now studying in the United States. "But the threat - that's what's most important about them."

Or it could be that this is a continuing development of a 'universal' missile, the DF-21 and seeing what exactly it can do with the capabilities it gives the PLA(N), from ASAT to ABM to whether it can be used as a 'brilliant' homing ballistic missile.

In fact, I suspect the carrier mission is actually a smokescreen to test guidance and sensor technologies for a 'smart' DF-21 to give the PLA(N) capabilities similar to Pershing II in striking small point targets like aircraft parked along runways at airbases...

Morale trouble

The deployment of a naval task force to the Gulf of Aden last year as part of the international operation against pirates was seen as a huge step forward for China. The implication was that China's military doctrine had shifted from defending China's borders to protecting China's interests, which span the globe. But the expeditionary force has also provided a window into weaknesses of the People's Liberation Army, according to a new report by Christopher Yung, a former Pentagon official now at the National Defense University.

China's lack of foreign military bases - it has insisted that it won't station troops abroad - limits its capacity to maintain its ships on long-term missions. A shortage of helicopters - the workhorses of a naval expeditionary force - makes it hard for the ships to operate with one another.

China was always chronically short of helicopters -- this is not limited to the PLA(N); the PLA showed a lot of weaknesses the last few years of disasters due to it's limited helicopter force. Also, the US refused to supply China with parts for some of their american made S-70s -- that has got to have annoyed them.

But lately, a lot of long range programmes are coming to fruition, like their Z-10 Attack helicopter program, which is slowly entering service, giving them something similar to EuroCopter Tiger.

Likewise, the Z-9 Programme has been shifting into a higher gear from 2000-2010, with more and more indigenous content (it's a clone of the AS-365N Dauphin II); with an increasing amount of aircraft being delivered; including navalized Z-9s.

China's tiny fleet of replenishment ships - it has only three - doesn't give it enough capacity to do more than one such operation at a time.

Two of them are Qiandaohu (FUCHI) class replenishment ships carrying 10,500 tonnes of fuel, 250 tonnes of water and 680 tonnes of ammunition on a total displacement of 23,000 tonnes. One is a ex Soviet AOR Vladimir Peregudov that was being built in the Ukraine in 1991. It was bought in 1996 and finished by the PRC. It can deploy 9,630 tonnes of fuel on a displacement of 37,000 tonnes.

Undoubtedly we will see more Qiandaohus built in the 2010-2020 timeframe; increasing the PLA(N)'s global reach as they assimilate the lessons of the first two ships.

There's also the Type 920 Hospital Ship introduced in 2008 for more global outreach and undoubtly for supporting long deployments.

China's navy, according to Yung, also has difficulty maintaining a fresh water supply for its sailors. And poor refrigeration on its ships makes it hard to preserve fruit and vegetables, something that makes for griping on board.

"The sailors during the first deployment had a real morale problem," Yung said, adding that following their mission, they were taken on a beach vacation "to get morale back up."

So? Until now all of their deployments have essentially been close to China; fresh water wasn't that much of a problem, nor was food. But now that they're operating longer distances from home; it's highlighting the weaknesses in their stores system; and pointing out the need for more potable and perishable stores.

Empowering local commanders, considered key to a successful fighting force, is something that Beijing clearly has yet to embrace. British Royal Navy Commodore Tim Lowe, who commanded the Gulf of Aden operation for the U.S. 5th Fleet up until May, noted that while other navies would send operations officers to multinational meetings to discuss how to fight pirates, China would dispatch a political officer who often lacked expertise. The concept of sharing intelligence among partner countries was also tough for the Chinese to fathom. To the Chinese, he said, "that was an unusual point."

Tension with the Kremlin

China's military relations with Russia reveal further weaknesses. Between 1992 and 2006, the total value of Russia's arms exports to China was $26 billion - almost half of all the weapons Russia sold abroad.

But tensions arose in 2004 over two issues, Russian experts said. Russia was outraged when it discovered that China, which had licensed to produce the Su-27 fighter jet from Russian kits, had actually copied the plane. China was furious that after it signed a contract for a batch of IL-76 military transport planes it discovered that Russia had no way to make them. After receiving 105 out of a contracted 200 Su-27s, China canceled the deal and weapons negotiations were not held for several years.

Purchases of some items continued - S-300 air defense systems and billions of dollars worth of jet engines. An engine China made for its Su-27 knock-off would routinely conk out after 30 hours whereas the Russian engines would need refurbishing after 400, Russian and Chinese experts said.

So why are the J-11Bs being produced with WS-10As if that's such a problem?

"Engine systems are the heart disease of our whole military industry," a Chinese defense publication quoted Wang Tianmin, a military engine designer, as saying in its March issue. "From aircraft production to shipbuilding and the armored vehicles industry, there are no exceptions."

When weapons talks resumed with Russia in 2008, China found the Russians were driving a harder bargain. For one, it wasn't offering to let China produce Russian fighters in China. And in November, the Russians said they would only provide the Su-35 for China's aircraft carrier program if China bought 48 - enough to ensure Russian firms a handsome profit before China's engineers attempted to copy the technology.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

You silly Russians. The Chinese already have the J-15, which started with the T-10K-3 prototype that they bought from the Ukraine in 2001. So why should they buy the Su-35?

Oh, and the first J-15 prototype flew with WS-10As. I thought engines were a problem?

Russia also announced that the Russian military would buy the S-400 air defense system first and that China could get in line.

"We, too, have learned a few things," said Vladimir Portyakov, a former Russian diplomat twice posted to Beijing.

Heef.

[Ryan Thunder]

Am I wrong in sensing that the situation is rapidly approaching a point where a hypothetical confrontation with China is going to come down to a choice between "be totally overwhelmed" and "nuke them till they glow in the dark"?

[That NOS Guy]

Am I wrong in sensing that the situation is rapidly approaching a point where a hypothetical confrontation with China is going to come down to a choice between "be totally overwhelmed" and "nuke them till they glow in the dark"?

Are the Chinese going to invade the West Coast all the sudden?

[Pelranius]

Saw that piece yesterday. Gave us at CDF and SDF quite a laugh.

In other news, there are pictures of the new Chinese 5th generation (fourth for them, they skipped our third generation) out.

http://i52.tinypic.com/2a7cy13.jpg

http://i51.tinypic.com/1zwoqah.jpg

(I think its computer security safe to view those images)

[Ryan Thunder]

Am I wrong in sensing that the situation is rapidly approaching a point where a hypothetical confrontation with China is going to come down to a choice between "be totally overwhelmed" and "nuke them till they glow in the dark"?

Are the Chinese going to invade the West Coast all the sudden?

You think I'm worried that they'd try?

[Chaotic Neutral]

Am I wrong in sensing that the situation is rapidly approaching a point where a hypothetical confrontation with China is going to come down to a choice between "be totally overwhelmed" and "nuke them till they glow in the dark"?

Could the US military stalemate China? Probably.

The real question is, how long until they would both go bankrupt?

[MKSheppard]

Here's an amusing thought --

Since the SC-19 ASAT/ABM is based off the DF-21 ballistic missile...the DF-21 has roughly the same mass as the early GBI PLV.

So could it be that China is aiming for a "breakout" capability of being able to deploy several hundred ABM interceptors nationwide in a very short period of time via adaptation of existing DF-21s once they have the battle management system all set up?

If so, it would be very amusing to listen to the screams of anguish from the US and Russia over about 20% of their strategic arsenal being rendered impotent.

[mr friendly guy]

Am I only one who thinks that with China holding lots of US debt, and the US being the second largest trading partner to China (after the EU), and with China's internal issues eg energy, environment requiring lots of attention, that a war in the near future is very very unlikely. Except in an Eric L Harry novel where China has a 60 million man army and aircraft carriers the size of today's super oil carriers, but still rely on human wave tactics.

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh I don't doubt that war is very, very unlikely. I just like to know how bad it will be if it ever does become likely...

[Siege]

I imagine 'how bad it will be' depends chiefly on what this unlikely war is being fought over in the first place.

[K. A. Pital]

Heh, Shep, a nice dissection. I wonder just why anyone would write this bullshit. How much can the Russian government pay for this sort of tripe, realistically? The idiots who destroyed their own nation are now "advising", i.e. telling fairytales about how China is actually not getting any real military power. I guess part of this tripe is aimed at the domestic "consumer", i.e. the mindless idiots who believe the same shit that they show on Russian TV. I'm just kinda wondering why a U.S. paper would even publish this shit. The U.S. public needs to be placated, or what?

Or is it because of the coming premier of the exceptionally racist conquer-US fantasy Yellow Red Dawn Remake - to make the citizens feel at ease?

[Pelranius]

Heh, Shep, a nice dissection. I wonder just why anyone would write this bullshit. How much can the Russian government pay for this sort of tripe, realistically? The idiots who destroyed their own nation are now "advising", i.e. telling fairytales about how China is actually not getting any real military power. I guess part of this tripe is aimed at the domestic "consumer", i.e. the mindless idiots who believe the same shit that they show on Russian TV. I'm just kinda wondering why a U.S. paper would even publish this shit. The U.S. public needs to be placated, or what?

Or is it because of the coming premier of the exceptionally racist conquer-US fantasy Yellow Red Dawn Remake - to make the citizens feel at ease?

Or the Chinese MSS could pay the Washington Post to down play Chinese military capabilities to kill funding for various weapons programs. Though I can't see why they'd want to hype Russian weapons, though.

[Sea Skimmer]

Heh, Shep, a nice dissection. I wonder just why anyone would write this bullshit. How much can the Russian government pay for this sort of tripe, realistically? The idiots who destroyed their own nation are now "advising", i.e. telling fairytales about how China is actually not getting any real military power. I guess part of this tripe is aimed at the domestic "consumer", i.e. the mindless idiots who believe the same shit that they show on Russian TV. I'm just kinda wondering why a U.S. paper would even publish this shit. The U.S. public needs to be placated, or what?

They are trying to justify cutting all the high end military programs in the US has right now as part of coming budget cuts. It won't work, but they are trying. They want to make 'all future wars will be COIN, arm and train only for COIN' a fiscal reality. Nothing new really.

[K. A. Pital]

Heh, Shep, a nice dissection. I wonder just why anyone would write this bullshit. How much can the Russian government pay for this sort of tripe, realistically? The idiots who destroyed their own nation are now "advising", i.e. telling fairytales about how China is actually not getting any real military power. I guess part of this tripe is aimed at the domestic "consumer", i.e. the mindless idiots who believe the same shit that they show on Russian TV. I'm just kinda wondering why a U.S. paper would even publish this shit. The U.S. public needs to be placated, or what?

They are trying to justify cutting all the high end military programs in the US has right now as part of coming budget cuts. It won't work, but they are trying. They want to make 'all future wars will be COIN, arm and train only for COIN' a fiscal reality. Nothing new really.

I think just saying "we spend 500 billion, they spend 50" is enough justification for the common voter.

[MKSheppard]

Heh, Shep, a nice dissection. I wonder just why anyone would write this bullshit. How much can the Russian government pay for this sort of tripe, realistically?

Over at HPCA; there was some discussion over stuff like this -- the Russians apparently don't know or care about the difference between a requestion for information, a request for tender, a letter of intent and a contract -- when it comes to military hardware.

For example, the Russians are saying that the Vietnamese have signed a contract with them for some Kilos, while the Vietnamese are saying "wtf" considering they haven't even signed the contract yet; which won't be done until 2011.

Part of it is a giant SONY style game of FUD. The only thing worth a shit besides Oil that Russia exports is military hardware. That's it. And even the hardware they offer is not just that great anymore. I mean, they had to sign a contract to split the costs of PAK-FA with India of all places....

[Straha]

Am I wrong in sensing that the situation is rapidly approaching a point where a hypothetical confrontation with China is going to come down to a choice between "be totally overwhelmed" and "nuke them till they glow in the dark"?

Overwhelmed by what? Where? How?

The answer is, either perhaps yes and no.

"Perhaps yes" in that the most logical location for conflict is the Taiwan straits. The United States supports Taiwan, but it's thousands of miles from the US, and not nearly as far from the Chinese mainland. It also only has a population of 23 Million people, compared to the PRC's population of well over a Billion. In the mid-90s there was a flare-up over Taiwan and the United States starred the PRC down from using military force with the threat of blunt and over-powering force projected in a way that China would not be able to answer. Now, I doubt whether or not the United States has that ability, if only because the Chinese government has modernized its forces to 90s level technology, making the cost to the United States to defend Taiwan far outweigh the benefits.

No, in that there will certainly not be a world-shattering, balls-to-the-wall conflict between the United States and China, and even if there was one China would in no way be able to "overwhelm" the United States insurmountable military might.

I would like to add that I very much doubt the Chinese ever will be able to overwhelm the United States due to a number of internal demographic and economic factors, and that even if it could I very much doubt that it would want to. The US and PRC are tied at the hip, and while they might quarrel and disagree, are bound together economically and practically for the far foreseeable future.

[Knife]

I'm more worried about the neo-con's seeing them as the new 'enemy' where the Muslims are a rag tag hillbilly enemy, China with a modern army and good military tech could replace that as enemy number 1 for their foreign policy needs.

[Straha]

Funnily enough china was already enemy number 1 for the neocons. Before 9/11 china was the enemy and Rumsfeld was pushing through a modernization plan based on just that until he got distracted by Afghanistan and Iraq.

[MKSheppard]

Um guys, newsflash, China already views us as Probable Enemy No 1.

Just look at the new uniforms BLUE FORCE got. Yes, they call the bad guy training unit at their version of NTC...BLUE FORCE.






Note the cap pattern, camouflage pattern, and shoulder velcro locations visible.



BTW, CCTV-7 is rapidly becoming my favorite ChiCom channel. It's the Military/Agricultural channel

Anyway, having a nice clear probable enemy to plan for high intensity conventional war will be nice for both sides. It will keep us both from being diverted into stupid nationbuilding and COIN bullshit; maybe we can get a return to the old US Army Organization before Kosovo made it get a bee in it's bonnet about MOBILITY MOBILITY MOBILITY.

[Simon_Jester]

Am I wrong in sensing that the situation is rapidly approaching a point where a hypothetical confrontation with China is going to come down to a choice between "be totally overwhelmed" and "nuke them till they glow in the dark"?

Overwhelmed by what? Where? How?

The answer is, either perhaps yes and no.

"Perhaps yes" in that the most logical location for conflict is the Taiwan straits. The United States supports Taiwan, but it's thousands of miles from the US, and not nearly as far from the Chinese mainland. It also only has a population of 23 Million people, compared to the PRC's population of well over a Billion. In the mid-90s there was a flare-up over Taiwan and the United States starred the PRC down from using military force with the threat of blunt and over-powering force projected in a way that China would not be able to answer. Now, I doubt whether or not the United States has that ability, if only because the Chinese government has modernized its forces to 90s level technology, making the cost to the United States to defend Taiwan far outweigh the benefits.

No, in that there will certainly not be a world-shattering, balls-to-the-wall conflict between the United States and China, and even if there was one China would in no way be able to "overwhelm" the United States insurmountable military might.

I would like to add that I very much doubt the Chinese ever will be able to overwhelm the United States due to a number of internal demographic and economic factors, and that even if it could I very much doubt that it would want to. The US and PRC are tied at the hip, and while they might quarrel and disagree, are bound together economically and practically for the far foreseeable future.

Very likely.

But while I think it would be a terrible idea for everyone involved if China and the US started thinking of each other as enemies, I don't see anything wrong with the two countries perceiving each other as rivals, in the sense that, say, Britain and France were rivals during the Victorian era. Britain and France often planned their militaries with an eye to being able to fight each other, and they routinely competed for influence in other parts of the world, but they were also capable of cooperating with each other and there was a strong layer of mutual respect and cultural exchange between the two nations: they were rivals who took each other seriously and respected each other enough that they wouldn't try stupid stunts against each other.

The US has a history of facing opposition it will pretend is in some way less than civilized: the Soviets, the Muslim world. A rival that we know is a real country and that isn't an ideological threat might actually be a healthier thing for us than that.

[MKSheppard]

But while I think it would be a terrible idea for everyone involved if China and the US started thinking of each other as enemies

Um what? You need a defined enemy for logical military planning.

The British chose France as the enemy when they laid down specifications in the late 1920s and early 1930s for bombers. It's why you had a lot of two engine jobs in 1939 that could only do shallow 200-300 mile penetrations, as that was enough range to hit Paris from the UK, instead of ones with the range to fly all the way to Berlin.

This is one of the major issues recently like Skimmer said -- a lot of morons including Bob Gates, want to define down the spectrum of warfare to no longer include full contact, high intensity warfare against a peer or near-peer competitor. They think COIN will be the end all for the next 40 years.

Nevermind that a F-24A Rapier designed to destroy advanced stealth fighters on par with the F-22A would be capable of more than handling COIN operations with it's high altitude and speed providing a massive boost for it's internally carried weapons; so you could use less F-24As to provide on-call CAS for an entire region at any one time with SDB Mk IIIs.

If however, your air force consisted of subsonic light attack turboprops, you would need many many many more to do that on call 24/7 role.

Of course, UAVs will solve the CAS problem in COIN -- imagine each US Army Battalion with a pair of Predators attached to it organically for COIN operations.

The US has a history of facing opposition it will pretend is in some way less than civilized: the Soviets, the Muslim world.

Um what? While the Soviets were provisionally Godless Communists; when they collapsed in Christmas of 1991; while there was a general feeling of relief that the long Cold War was over; there was also a slight undercurrent of "Someday we're gonna miss them."

The Muslim world?

You won't find that slight undercurrent that will make the world miss them when the last drop of oil is drained from arab countries and the desert slowly reclaims their cities.

Nor will the world miss Pakistan when it eventually disappears under a hail of Hindoo atom-bombs after the ISI goes one too far in regards to operations in India.

Some people might miss Indonesia; particularly the Aussie militarists but if you have to rely on Indonesia....eh.

China and Chinese Tapei on the other hand; the world would miss them greatly if they disappeared; as they've tightly integrated themselves into the global market at almost all levels except for very high end industrial technics, which they are slowly making progress on.

[Bakustra]

The US has a history of facing opposition it will pretend is in some way less than civilized: the Soviets, the Muslim world.

Um what? While the Soviets were provisionally Godless Communists; when they collapsed in Christmas of 1991; while there was a general feeling of relief that the long Cold War was over; there was also a slight undercurrent of "Someday we're gonna miss them."

The Muslim world?

You won't find that slight undercurrent that will make the world miss them when the last drop of oil is drained from arab countries and the desert slowly reclaims their cities.

Nor will the world miss Pakistan when it eventually disappears under a hail of Hindoo atom-bombs after the ISI goes one too far in regards to operations in India.

Some people might miss Indonesia; particularly the Aussie militarists but if you have to rely on Indonesia....eh.

China and Chinese Tapei on the other hand; the world would miss them greatly if they disappeared; as they've tightly integrated themselves into the global market at almost all levels except for very high end industrial technics, which they are slowly making progress on.

That's a lot of words to say "I don't understand what dehumanization means, and also I hate Muslims". The US dehumanizing the Soviet Union and communists in general is a blatant phenomenon. Just pop in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers or pull out your battered copy of Starship Troopers and it pretty much leaps off the screen or page. Doing the same thing to Muslims has been less prominent, since the public and the propagandists are both more sophisticated, but even in Back to the Future and Transformers in the '80s you had stuff about Libya, and the same general attitude that Muslims are violent, stupid, heathens is still there, though now at least government officials are less interested in agitprop and so it's not quite as prevalent.

It should have been obvious to a functioning human being that Simon was talking about a cultural perception of enemyhood and the production of mass media aimed at inciting American opinions of China, especially since he distinguished it from military planning.

[Phantasee]

Did you seriously just say "Hindoo atom-bombs"? Can you at least pretend to not be a complete fuck stick?

[Questor]

While I'll agree that Starship Troopers had anti-communist lines, claiming it as propaganda for western democracies just makes me think you haven't read it.

The western democracies fell just like the the communist countries. Hell, in it the political guy made fun of the Declaration of Independence, hardly something I would expect from western propaganda.

[Simon_Jester]

But while I think it would be a terrible idea for everyone involved if China and the US started thinking of each other as enemies

Um what? You need a defined enemy for logical military planning.

Excuse me. I'm using a different vocabulary. Sorry.

What I mean is that I don't think it's good for anyone if the US and China start thinking of China and the US, respectively, as 'the enemy:' the people you oppose at all times, who you don't cooperate with, who you expect to go to war with at any time.

It's fine for us to design weapons to fight China. It's bad for us to get into a global cold war dedicated to limiting Chinese influence, as we did against the Soviets, and even worse for us to fight a real war with them.

Your given example is actually suitable for this: the British designed bombers to fight France, but they never seriously proposed to attack France. And France and Britain didn't get into destructive feuds for influence in other parts of the world to any great degree: neither country felt dedicated to opposing the other. So in a sense, the British bombers in question were designed thinking "Who might our enemy be?" and not "who is our enemy?"

France was not an enemy of Britain, even though Britain designed weapons that would be best suited to fighting France.

The US has a history of facing opposition it will pretend is in some way less than civilized: the Soviets, the Muslim world.

Um what? While the Soviets were provisionally Godless Communists; when they collapsed in Christmas of 1991; while there was a general feeling of relief that the long Cold War was over; there was also a slight undercurrent of "Someday we're gonna miss them."

The Soviets were enemies in that we committed ourselves to opposing them- not just planning to fight them, but trying to block them at every turn. The American national narrative on Russia and communism contained a large dose of "this is an inferior way to build a civilization, these are filthy Godless commies, fear them!"

That became less true in the '70s and '80s, but it was still a major theme: that they weren't someone you could really coexist with without having this constant ongoing costly arms race and endless proxy wars and continuous attempts to vie with them for influence in Third World countries.

They were opponents who, in a real sense, were not and could never be peers.

The Muslim world?

You won't find that slight undercurrent that will make the world miss them when the last drop of oil is drained from arab countries and the desert slowly reclaims their cities.

Not saying otherwise. They're an even better example of someone we oppose but cannot think of as peers.

I'd be much happier if the US policy towards China includes that mutual acceptance- the idea that they have a right to a certain amount of influence and power in the world that we will not endlessly wrestle against, that we don't have to engage in brinksmanship or "rollback" or any of the other relatively poisonous and hostile stances taken towards the USSR over the years.

While I'll agree that Starship Troopers had anti-communist lines, claiming it as propaganda for western democracies just makes me think you haven't read it.

The western democracies fell just like the the communist countries. Hell, in it the political guy made fun of the Declaration of Independence, hardly something I would expect from western propaganda.

Heinlein's hypothetical state is much more strongly descended from the West than from the communist 'East'. In a sense, it's a reimagined West-as-garrison-state, what the US of the 1950s might have evolved into if it had been pushed in a militaristic direction, where the need to emphasize service to the state had trumped the growing trend towards civil libertarianism that we saw in the 1960s and on.

So instead of an increasingly free country, with the social order breaking up and being replaced by individualist egalitarianism, we see one where the social order tightens in response to destructive wars. The concept of citizenship shifts back towards Greco-Roman lines, where you have to be willing to struggle (or fight, depending on which of the author's remarks you believe) for democracy to be qualified to participate in it.

And part of that is the way the Bugs are cast. They're the allegorical version of the Chinese Communist hordes, fighting the allegorical version of the Western citizen-soldier. Heinlein didn't try to pitch his Federation as identical to America... but then, I doubt he seriously believed that the communist Chinese were a bunch of mind-controlled arachnids.