Chinese threat requires missile defense
At last count China had about 20 ICBM's some of which might survive out current missile defense system. I don't think enough would survive to make it worth the risk to the Chinese since the retaliations would be overwhelming. It could be that the Chinese have added to their arsenal, but I have need seen any indication of that. Their build up appears to be a modernization as well as an increased maritime presence. They could pose a threat to US Naval assets in the region. If there is a confrontation with China, I suspect that Guam would be a primary target since it is where several of our Asian assets are located. I think cyber attacks from China are also a real threat.The United States needs new weapon systems, including missile defenses and other advanced military capabilities, to deter and counter China's steady buildup of nuclear and conventional arms, according to a draft internal report by a State Department advisory board.
U.S. defense policy has stressed missile defenses against Iran and North Korea. The report, by the Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), is the first to recommend such defenses against China, including technology in space.
The draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, said Chinese strategy goes beyond building forces capable of retaking the island of Taiwan. China seeks to "break out" by projecting power beyond its region including sea lanes that carry energy resources for its modernization, the document said.
"Using superior U.S. military technical capacities, the United States should undertake the development of new weapons, sensors, communications, and other programs and tactics to convince China that it will not be able to overcome the U.S. militarily," the report said.
The draft report presents a tough assessment of Chinese strategic modernization that goes beyond many current government and private-sector analyses that say that China's military modernization does not pose a major challenge to U.S. security interests.
For example, in an interview with The Washington Times in March, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden expressed professional "admiration" for China's rapid and sophisticated buildup and said it is "not inevitable that they will be an enemy." The report said that to reduce the chance of a miscalculation by China that could lead to a crisis or conflict, the United States "must take seriously China's challenge to U.S. military superiority in the Asia-Pacific region. ... China's military modernization is proceeding at a rate ... to be of concern even with the most benign interpretation of China's motivation."
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There are several good reasons for China to avoid a confrontation with the US. We are China's largest trading partner and war with us would cut them off from their biggest customer. It would also mean that they would lose their investment in debt instruments from the US government.
your right, they have about 20 DF5A's
ReplyDeletebut they have since made some new ones that came out in 2006 and 2007 of which there is less than ten each.. however how many they have added i dont know
the new one is the DF31, and a longer range DF31A...
the latter one can hit the west coast of the US, and uts thought that it incorporates many design features of current new russian missiles.
however, just to be aware.. you only need a large boat, and a weather balloon...
so dont be so confident that complex delivery systems with precision accuracy are the only danger. there are a lot lower tech ways to deliver them for an EMP attack, and some others that we wouldnt even notice because of what we expect.
and since this is a view that technology isnt everything, that leads to "unrestricted warfare" a treatise on modern war theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
Unrestricted Warfare (超限战, literally "warfare beyond bounds") is a book on military strategy written in 1999 by two colonels in the People's Liberation Army, Qiao Liang (乔良) and Wang Xiangsui. Its primary concern is how a nation such as China can defeat a technologically superior opponent (such as the United States) through a variety of means. Rather than focusing on direct military confrontation, this book instead examines a variety of other means. Such means include using International Law (see Lawfare) and a variety of economic means to place one's opponent in a bad position and circumvent the need for direct military action.[1]
it certainly makes one think twice about baby products, and milk products, as well as other things like bibs and teethers, and so on. And any negative financial action they may take... and the fact that under this kind of thing, subversion through politics and running capitalism into the ground is a fair deal philosophically. tainting products, creating viruses, manipulating credit or finance, making counterfeit money,etc.
it basically is 'passive agressive' warfare, where you can continue to harm and attack your enemy and wear them down like an incompetent friend that seems to mean well but is costly to have around because of all the accidents and seeming bad luck.
one thing for sure... when you read it, you know real well that we as a people are not as well educated about ourselves as others are. the authors references span a wide range of things.
a chasm has already appeared between traditional soldiers and what we call modern soldiers. Although this gap is not unbridgeable, it does require a leap in terms of a complete military rethink. To many professional military people this is potentially something they could not hope to achieve if they spent the rest of their lives on it. In fact it is very simple. The [necessary new] method is to create a complete military Machiavelli.
Achieve objectives by fair means or foul, that is the most important spiritual legacy of this Italian political thinker of the Renaissance.[1 ] In the Middle Ages, this represented a breakthrough against romantic chivalry and the declining tradition of knighthood. It meant using means, some possibly comprehensive, without restraint to achieve an objective; this holds for warfare also. Even though Machiavelli was not the earliest source of "an ideology of going beyond limits" (China's Han Feizi preceded him[2 ]), he was its clearest exponent.
The existence of boundaries is a prerequisite for differentiating objects one from another. In a world where all things are interdependent, the significance of boundaries is merely relative. The expression "to exceed limits" means to go beyond things which are called or understood to be boundaries. It does not matter whether they fall into the category of physical, spiritual, or technical, or if they are called "limits," "defined limits," "constraints," "borders," "rules," "laws," "maximum limits," or even "taboos." Speaking in terms of war, this could mean the boundary between the battlefield and what is not the battlefield, between what is a weapon and what is not, between soldier and noncombatant, between state and non-state or supra-state. Possibly it might also include technical, scientific, theoretical, psychological, ethical, traditional, customary, and other sorts of boundaries. In summary, it means all boundaries which restrict warfare to within a specified range. The real meaning of the concept of exceeding limits which we propose is, first of all, to transcend ideology. Only secondarily does it mean, when taking action, to transcend limits and boundaries when necessary, when they can be transcended, and select the most appropriate means (including extreme means). It does not mean that extreme means must be selected always and everywhere. When speaking of military people in this technologically integrated era, there are actually more facets to consider now, an abundance of usable resources (meaning all material and non-material resources), so that no matter what limits military people face, there is always a means which can break through those limits, many more means than in the environment from whence Machiavelli came. Thus, the requirements for modern military people with regard to transcending their way of thinking also involve being more thorough.
During a war between two countries, during the fighting and killing by two armies, is it necessary to use special means to wage psychological war aimed at soldiers' families far back in the rear area? [14 ] When protecting a country's financial security, can assassination be used to deal with financial speculators? [15 ] Can "surgical" strikes be made without a declaration of war against areas which are sources of drugs or other smuggled goods? Can special funds be set up to exert greater influence on another country's government and legislature through lobbying? [16 ] And could buying or gaining control of stocks be used to turn another country's newspapers and television stations into the tools of media warfare? [17 ]
i guess we better learn to get rid of subversives... oh.. too late..
In terms of beyond-limits warfare, there is no longer any distinction between what is or is not the battlefield. Spaces in nature including the ground, the seas, the air, and outer space are battlefields, but social spaces such as the military, politics, economics, culture, and the psyche are also battlefields. And the technological space linking these two great spaces is even more so the battlefield over which all antagonists spare no effort in contending. [3] Warfare can be military, or it can be quasi-military, or it can be non-military. It can use violence, or it can be nonviolent. It can be a confrontation between professional soldiers, or one between newly emerging forces consisting primarily of ordinary people or experts. These characteristics of beyond-limits war are the watershed between it and traditional warfare, as well as the starting line for new types of warfare.
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Using this as a standard, the armed force whose military capabilities most nearly reach this level is that of the Americans. Given its current equipment and technology, one of the U.S. military's information campaign systems [xinxi zhanyi xitong] can within one minute provide data on 4,000 targets to 1,200 aircraft. In addition to this is the extensive use of long-range attack weapons systems. This has led to a proposal for a "full-depth simultaneous attack" operations ideology. In terms of space, the U.S. military is starting to abandon the pattern of actions with a gradual push from the periphery towards the depth, and in terms of time, it is abandoning the obsolete combat model of sequential actions. However, judging from some documents openly published by the military, the Americans' line of thought in this regard so far is still confined to the scope of military action, and they have been unable to expand it to battlefields beyond the military sphere.
fun people... buffy and chaz should have them for cocktails, no?