Posted on 07/28/2005 12:24:00 PM PDT by Paul Ross
Navy officer warns of Chinese subs
BUILDUP: China is boosting its submarine force with the eventual aim of preventing the US from coming to the aid of Taiwan, a retired US military official said
By Charles Snyder
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
Wednesday, Jul 27, 2005,Page 3
A former senior US naval officer warned Monday that within 20 years, China will have the ability to wreak havoc on US naval forces going to Taiwan's defense against a Chinese attack.
Such a defeat of the US navy by a Chinese force "will ruin America as we know it today," Vice Admiral Al Konetzni said. He was testifying before a hearing of a commission formed by the Pentagon earlier this year to probe plans for closing dozens of US military bases in a bid to save money.
Konetzni was testifying at a hearing in Boston on plans to close the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut, one of 33 major bases slated for closure under the Defense Department's base closure initiative.
He made his comments less than a week after the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on China's military buildup, which warned of a grave threat to Taiwan stemming from China's military modernization and of its submarine force expansion.
A key role for Chinese submarines, the report and US military experts note, would be to prevent the US from coming close enough to aid Taiwan by essentially closing off the Taiwan Strait to US vessels and troops, allowing China to complete its attack on Taiwan without US interference.
"I see one punch in the nose [from the Chinese], and it will ruin America as we know it today."-- Former US navy vice admiral Al Konetzni
China's submarine force is larger than the US', and "in the year 2025, they'll have three times [as many as the US] at the rate we're doing business," Konetzni told the base closing commission hearing.
"I see a problem with Taiwan," he added.
"I see us putting our white hats on and going across the world and getting there" in the case of hostile Chinese military action against Taiwan requiring a US response, he said.
"And I see one punch in the nose, and it will ruin America as we know it today," Konetzni told the commission.
Until his recent retirement, Konetzni was the deputy commander of the naval command that covered Europe, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Before that he spent three years as commander of submarines in the Pacific and before that, three years in Japan and South Korea.
He testified in opposition to the closure of the New London submarine base.
There are 400 submarines in the world today, he said. China now has a larger force than the US' and in 10 years China will have twice as many submarines as the US. By 2025, the gap will rise to three-to-one, he testified.
Konetzni said that the US has fewer submarines in the Pacific than it has needed, even with the stationing of additional subs in Guam at the end of the 20th century.
"Today, we can deploy nine -- we can stretch it to 10 -- submarines at a time. Our [combat commanders] ... have a requirement for critical requirements of up to 13," he said.
"The fact is, over 30 percent of critical peacetime missions are missed annually. That means we didn't know much about the Chinese [or their] Yuan-class being launched last year," he said.
Ironically, the New London facility is one of the shipbuilding sites that could be involved in building the diesel subs that the Bush administration has been pressing Taiwan to purchase since 2001.
The Electric Boat Division of the defense contracting giant General Dynamic Corp has a variety of docks reserved for ship building, refitting and repair, which builds submarines for the US navy and for sale abroad under US official foreign arms sales programs.
General Dynamics has been named as a potential supplier of the eight submarines that are part of the NT$410.8 billion (US$12.8 billion) arms-sales package that has been held up in the legislature by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its allies.
No we are not...it's free trade, it's good for the country, you're being an alarmist....don't you know that Republicans are for it and you should be to??? How dare you rock the boat...you better get back in line and swear your allegiance to all the Bush Bots on FR....because in short time...someone will drag Hillary Clinton in front of you and threaten to use her on you unless you are in total agreement with every aspect of Bush's 2nd term....they will also point out how stupid you are......you better get it together or they will lash you and call you a DUmmy, lib or even possibly a tinfoil hat wearer....a side not, also make sure you understand that illegal immigration is not so bad....cause Bush turns the great eye the other way, so therefore we should not worry....Hillary might win is the trump card...don't forget these things...///i'm just here to help//// rant off ;)
A sure sign is the down sizing of the military.
See what happened to Great Britain. Then see what happened the Soviet Union.
We have ceased to be an independent self- sufficient nation and have become dependent on others.
I think it is part of a deliberate plan that has been in place to bring us into the global community where no one nation is capable of independent military or financial action without the approval and support of those global bodies which will control world markets and economies.
Can't have powerful loose cannon running around acting independently upsetting world trade. It's bad for business.
I think Iraq is the last time you will see the U.S. act without the approval of the major players in the global community except on a small defensive scale.
I think the New World Order or Globalist plan for relative peace, stability and prosperity is to have each nation dependent on the other for survival.
Banding together for trade and common defense is what got us where we are as a country.
It was through trade agreements that the states and people gave up their power and freedom to our centralized government.
What we have been witnessing is the same plan put in place on a global scale.
We are and will continue to give up our national power and freedom to a loosely formed centralized government of nation states.
That may well be the plan. I predict many problems and objections on the road to implementation. This is not going to be acceptable to loyal American conservatives because it means the dilution if not complete elimination of American sovereignty. That is completely unacceptable and a breach of the oath of office taken by the President and the members of Congress, unless and until the American people have voted to approve such action.
Without the consent of the American people, and once those oaths are breached, we will have a government that has lost its moral authority to govern, and will no longer be entitled to govern.
"We are and will continue to give up our national power and freedom to a loosely formed centralized government of nation states."
We shall see.
I agree. And we need to start using nuclear armed torpedoes and anti-submarine rockets again.
China will eat Taiwan unless we have airsuperiority on Day One. That's all I got for that tune.
But wouldn't it take a long time for subs to reach southeast Asia from Connecticut?
Good Grief - what else?
Oh, I suppose we'd have to mouth a few protests about Taiwan going nuclear, pro forma.
But nobody but the Red Chinese (and I guess the NK, if they had something to bomb) would really care about a nuclear Chinese.
Heck, Japan would probably fund it, so they don't have to do it.
==And you don't worry about China selling its nukes to anybody who needs nukes?
The point of having the 1,000 or so cheapo fighters is to knock the Chinese Air Force into the dirt, followed quickly thereafter by the Chinese Army and Navy. And the reason the fighters would be cheap is that they're light, have fewer systems than a multirole bird like the F-16, and are built to turn and burn--they can carry bombs, but only if they have to.
China will eat Taiwan unless we have airsuperiority on Day One. That's all I got for that tune.
==1000 fighters was not even enough to take out the Viet Congs, not to mention China. Try 5,0000 and 10 years.
That is the outrageous truth.
The Chicoms and Ruskies can just kick back and watch our own politicians wage war against America. They will win the war by watching us kill ourselves.
It is the people of this nation that are to blame. They are allowing the politicians to destroy our nation and fail to revolt, as our founders did.
Aren't these the same people who keep telling us Islam is a "religion of peace?"
As oppossed to now?
(You did see the correction of China to Taiwan in the next post, right?)
Two comments on this:
The best way to kill submarines is to have the intelligence that they are about to go to war and then eliminate them before they make it out to sea. The Ohio SSGNs are a near perfect system for sitting off of the PRCs shore and taking out the PLAN sub bases through saturation attacks. There's a reason, folks, why the Navy is going to Blue/Gold crew them and is thinking about forward-deploying two to Apra in Guam. The idea that the ChiComs could do the preparations and staging necessary to successfully close the strait and successfully invade Taiwan is ludicrous at face value.
The second-best way to kill a submarine is to detect it while at sea and have another sub eliminate it. I find it difficult to believe that PLAN quieting techniques will ever really match advances in US hydrophonic detection/analysis technology. Beyond that, I recall that there was an awful amount of attention and money going into the use of blue-green lasers (including from satellites) to detect the movement of submerged subs ... back in the mid-1980s. 20 years on, I have to wonder what ever became of the program...
Thanks for the ping!
The PRC's posturing is bluff. They've got some bucks now and are upgrading assets, but I seriously doubt they'll be able to sustain their military endeavors.
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