China patiently challenges US military superiority

Ray

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China patiently challenges US military superiority

While the U.S. reacts to the scourges of Ebola and ISIS, China continues to patiently and steadily exploit weaknesses in U.S. military capabilities. The bipartisan U.S. China Commission is poised to release its annual report to Congress that details some of the specifics. The big lesson to learn from it is that the U.S. can not only react to world events, it must also look forward and prepare to deter and defend against distant and not-so-distant threats. For as hard as it is to beat back ISIS, a terror organization with a lot of motivation but without serious military might, imagine the fix in which the U.S. will find itself with a China whose national objectives conflict with the U.S., and with the military capabilities to see them out.

According to the Washington Free Beacon's Bill Gertz who obtained the report, the PLA has deployed two brigades of DF-21D ballistic missiles, infamously called "carrier killers." In December of 2010, then Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Willard, revealed China was developing these lethal missiles but emphasized that they had merely achieved what the U.S. called "initial operational capability" meaning, the PLA was still developing the system and that it had not fully matured.

Four years later, the missiles have presumably been improved and have multiplied. China has opted not to flight test the missile, keeping the U.S. guessing on whether or not its primary military platform for deterring war and keeping peace in the region—the aircraft carrier—can be directly targeted. The U.S. has no defensive system in its arsenal that could defeat the highly sophisticated DF-21D. But this isn't the only Achilles Heal the Chinese have been working to expose.
Indeed, this has been China's objective: rather than trying to compete with the U.S by building a conventional military that goes toe to toe with the Pentagon's, and thereby draining its resources, it is developing high-technology weapons that directly challenge where the U.S. is weakest. This is why it's a bad argument to insist that since the U.S. defense budget dwarfs the Chinese defense budget, it necessarily means the U.S. can dismiss the Chinese (or Russian, or North Korean or Iranian, for that matter) threats.

Of particular concern is China's emphasis on nuclear capabilities, which the Obama administration has opted not to detail in its annual reports to Congress. According to Gertz, "The commission report faults the Pentagon for ending its practice of providing details of China's nuclear arsenal in annual reports to Congress, saying the omission is contributing to Chinese military secrecy." And actually, the Obama Pentagon stopped releasing its annual report on China's missile force after its 2010 report. The complete absence of these reports, combined with the administration's patterns of conciliatory outreach towards Beijing, make it seem like the Obama administration doesn't want to put public pressure on the Chinese government for its aggressive military developments designed to threaten the U.S.

But Frank Kendall, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics has recently been sounding an alarm bell, urging industry to bring him new ideas, to innovate, and to fight for the U.S. strategic edge.

In August he raised eyebrows by saying, "Our technological superiority is very much at risk, there are people designing systems [specifically] to defeat us in a very thoughtful and strategic way, and we've got to wake up, frankly." Just this month he provided a document to Congressional staff laying out key warfare domains where the U.S. is losing superiority. To name a few of those key domains listed in the document: China could target the U.S. surface fleet and overseas bases at risk in the Western Pacific; could challenge U.S. dominance of the air by the year 2020; is rapidly advancing in space and could prevent the functionality of U.S. satellites; and continues its cyber assault on U.S. computer networks.

As if aware of how startled the document could leave its readers, Kendall says in the summary section, "The intent of this paper is not to suggest that military confrontation with China is inevitable or likely." Then he goes on to close with this: "Technological superiority the U.S. demonstrated over 20 years ago, and which we have relied upon ever since, is being actively challenged." U.S. policy-makers and especially the next administration better read between the lines. It is because of the latter quote that makes confrontation all the more likely.

Heinrichs is a fellow at the George C. Marshall Institute where she writes about defense and foreign policy and specializes in nuclear deterrence and missile defense.
China patiently challenges US military superiority | TheHill
An interesting commentary as to how China is overtaking the US.

And how US is being an ostrich with its head buried in sand.

What should the US do and what should China do in this game?
 

The Last Stand

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An interesting commentary as to how China is overtaking the US.

And how US is being an ostrich with its head buried in sand.

What should the US do and what should China do in this game?
Ray sir,

Currently I feel that the US has the edge. They have a numerically and technologically superior Navy and war-hardened pilots and can project power very far with their nuclear-powered Aircraft carriers. It will take decades before China will overtake this advantage. And we can't forget nukes in case of war, where I think both countries have fantastic delivery mechanisms with their missiles and both have no credible anti-missile defense against the other's best missiles.

But US is also working on their defense systems, and I feel that China is not up there.
 

SADAKHUSH

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Is it possible that USA Armed Forces have a system in place to counter the China's threat which they do not want to the outside world to know? Who transferred the missile technology to China? Did they steal or they still doing it with the help of so called Chinese immigrants from mainland China? These are the question USA intelligence community has to answer. It is the Nixon-Kissinger factor which has come to haunt future US administrations. They will have to monitor those immigrants 24-7 with all the tools at their disposal.
 

sgarg

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The sum total is that Chinese have obtained what they wanted through outright purchase or through espionage.

The monster manufacturing machine that the Chinese have built is very efficient at churning out copies. I wonder if China will build fighters like cars on assembly line.

Chinese are rumored to have extensive underground storage and work areas under the main cities and some in mountainous areas. They could be hiding all kinds of war materiel, even nuclear missiles. A lot can be hidden if massive factories are connected through subterranean pathways.

The Americans are failing in dealing with the Chinese. And my doubt is if Americans are having trouble, what about India??

India is far behind in strategic thinking and military execution.
 

badguy2000

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1.well, USA is still decades ahead of the rest of the world, including China,as for military tech.

however ,CHina has huge ficial and human resource and unmatched industry capacity.....its economy petential is outpacing USA ....

in fact, under currency ficial condition, if there were a cold-war like arm race between USA and CHina, USA would surely be the loser

So, now USA is try to avoid arm race to avoid bankrupty while CHina is try to avoid immediate show-hand to fix the tech-gap between the two countries.

2. the power-balance between USA and CHina is quite like the one between British Empire and USA before WWI

At that time, USA already had unmatched industry capacity and huge human resource edge on UK like CHina today...however USA's military tech was still behind UK and Europe major powers.
 

W.G.Ewald

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But this isn't the only Achilles Heal the Chinese have been working to expose.
The Hill should fire its editor.
 

W.G.Ewald

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Even as U.S. and Indian diplomats squabble over Iran, cooperation between their counterparts in the military continues apace.

The Indian and U.S. navies began their 16th annual "Malabar" exercise last Saturday in Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu that borders on the Bay of Bengal. The 10-day joint exercise, which will conclude on April 16, consists of both ashore and at-sea training.

The harbor phase took place April 7 to 9 in Chennai, and was supposed to feature seminars on everything from air defense and integrated anti-submarine warfare operations, to carrier aviation operations and counter-piracy operations. The U.S. 7th Fleet released a statement saying that Malabar's at-sea phase will include, "liaison officer exchanges and embarks, communications exercises, surface action group operations, helicopter cross-deck evolutions and gunnery exercises."

India’s Navy Good U.S. Option | The Diplomat
 

TrueSpirit1

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1.well, USA is still decades ahead of the rest of the world, including China,as for military tech.

however ,CHina has huge ficial and human resource and unmatched industry capacity.....its economy petential is outpacing USA ....

in fact, under currency ficial condition, if there were a cold-war like arm race between USA and CHina, USA would surely be the loser

So, now USA is try to avoid arm race to avoid bankrupty while CHina is try to avoid immediate show-hand to fix the tech-gap between the two countries.

2. the power-balance between USA and CHina is quite like the one between British Empire and USA before WWI

At that time, USA already had unmatched industry capacity and huge human resource edge on UK like CHina today...however USA's military tech was still behind UK and Europe major powers.
Good analogy.
 

t_co

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1.well, USA is still decades ahead of the rest of the world, including China,as for military tech.

however ,CHina has huge ficial and human resource and unmatched industry capacity.....its economy petential is outpacing USA ....

in fact, under currency ficial condition, if there were a cold-war like arm race between USA and CHina, USA would surely be the loser

So, now USA is try to avoid arm race to avoid bankrupty while CHina is try to avoid immediate show-hand to fix the tech-gap between the two countries.

2. the power-balance between USA and CHina is quite like the one between British Empire and USA before WWI

At that time, USA already had unmatched industry capacity and huge human resource edge on UK like CHina today...however USA's military tech was still behind UK and Europe major powers.
It's probably closer to pre-WW1 Britain and Germany, not Britain and the US, for the simple reason that expansion of US power was not a direct threat to Britain, but expansion of German power was. Germany had also caught up to Britain's GDP prior to WW1. In addition, the US prior to WW1 was literally one of the most demilitarized countries on earth relative to GDP - less than 1% GDP spent on defense. China is not that.

Finally, the geopolitical situation between China, Japan, and the US today closely resembles that between Germany, France, and the UK prior to WW1. Indeed, the American war plan of a gigantic offshore blockade extending the length of the Chinese coast and in depth to the Straits of Malacca is in many ways an echo of how Britain threw its entire home fleet (40% of the world's naval tonnage at the time) into blockading Germany's Heligoland Bight and shutting down Germany's offshore trade. China's naval buildup in response to this war plan is also an echo of Germany and the UK's pre-WW1 dreadnought race.
 

sorcerer

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How well can US counter Chinese deception?
The first school, it is said, is that of the Traditionalists, faithful to Mao's conception of a defensive People's War; the second is represented by the Neo-Traditionalists who favor regional power projection; the third school is that of the High-Tech Revolutionists, who are betting on network-centric warfare in a more distant future. In this view, Unrestricted Warfare (URW) is said to be the most recent additioncompeting with the other three.
http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/defence-strategic-issues/64608-unconventional-warfare-3.html

How well can US contain China with percistance and "patience"(A virtue unknown to the west) in its many scheme of things?
@W.G.Ewald
Firing Hill's editor!!
Sir,That wont save the day for USA. Will it?

USA may give China a few "Shock and Awe" vis-a-vis Pakistan (the most friendly ally and the most friendly smoke screen) for China.
USA may try to install "freedom" later a democracy.

Popcorn...anyone?
 
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