Posted on 08/13/2010 4:44:31 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
BEIJING: A Chinese General on Friday termed as "flagrant provocation" US plans to send a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea and said the country would retaliate if "offended".
"A country needs respect, so does a military. We will retaliate if we are offended," Major General Luo Yuan, deputy secretary-general of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Academy of Military Sciences, wrote in an editorial in the PLA Daily.
The US is "pushing its security boundary to the doorstep of others — the Yellow Sea, South China Sea and so on," Luo said.
China had in the recent weeks voice its firm opposition to activities of foreign military vessels or planes in the Yellow Sea and China's coastal waters, saying they undermine it security interests. Despite China's warning, the US insists on sending the carrier ‘USS George Washington', he said
The General was reacting to remarks by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the carrier will always go into international waters.
China is developing a new missile called Dong Feng 21D, that could penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 km.
Commence the trade war. Seriously.
It’s only going to get worse, the longer we wait. And the entire time, China is becoming more dangerous.
Time to shut down imports from China. Just turn the ships away.
But, the Nattering Nabobs of Free Trade Globalism want to continue subsidizing the ChiComs. They want to bankrupt America, while enriching our ChiCom enemies
Onada is doing his best to stir up a little Reichstag fire, isn’t he?
Kudos on an excellent assessment.
“What would happen if they sunk one of our carriers? In one move, China would alter the balance of global power.
Global thermal nuclear war.”
Er, that would be “thermonuclear war”. However, I don’t think even GWB would have gone nuclear over a conventional weapon sinking an aircraft carrier (or even the whole group). Certainly he wouldn’t have attacked civilian targets. I believe our conventional forces could fairly handily defeat the Chinese military if engaged.
0, on the other hand, would immediately sue for peace I’d guess.
I’m offended.
Actually, they know our hands are tied. Can we shoot with our feet?
What will be interesting will be 5-10 years from now when the Chinese try and run spy ships in the Caribbean or send token military vessels along the edges of US waters basing it on American precedents. America’s secrets are of greater worth after all.
We would NOT nuke China even if they took out one of our carriers. Not under Obama anyway. That is DREAMING. We probably would do SOMETHING...but it would be much more modest.
So - Major General Yuon will do what? Start jumping up and down while screaming “Round Eye! Round Eye! Round Eye!”
Or will it be the more historically used “White Devils!”
One or two of the chin’s subs will pop up and make an appearance in the middle of the battle group. Or will they be willing to send up some of hotshot pilots in their new aircraft to get in the way of the exercise.
A Chinese General on Friday termed as "flagrant provocation" US plans to send a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea...Thanks James C. Bennett. Now *there's* a Chinese General who will be looking at a brand new assignment very soon.
There are standing Contingency Plans that allow any Theater Commander to protect nukes with nukes.
(Sound of grey_whiskers purring that we can keep Teh One from surrendering.)
In November last year, the general, who works at the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing, slammed President Ma Ying-jeou, accusing him of promoting a policy of “peaceful secession” with his three-noes platform. Luo had been one of the more prominent proponents back in 2004 of Beijing’s drive to enact its “Anti-Secession” Law.
http://taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2010/08/14/2003480292
“In recent years, some parts of the Chinese media have become more commercialized. This has led some publishers to focus on publishing sensationalist and nationalistic views that can attract a mass audience,” said Bonnie Glaser, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
“Academics and PLA officers have seized this opportunity to write books advocating controversial positions in order to make money. Several PLA officers appear as pundits on Chinese TV programs and write for newspapers, viewing this as a means to promote their hardline views, but also to supplement their salaries.”
Glaser said that Luo Yuan and Rear-Admiral Yang Yi, an expert with the Institute of Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, were excellent examples of outspoken senior Chinese officers.
“Over the past 10 years a clear pattern has emerged whereby Chinese military officers are allowed to be more outspoken - especially in response to US actions and decisions - whenever tensions over Taiwan are mounting. However, what we are seeing today is much milder than what we saw in 1999, for example,” said Rodger Baker, director of East Asia analysis at Stratfor, a Texas-based global intelligence firm.
http://www.cnas.org/node/4195
“We have 14 Trident subs each with 24 D5 with 8 to 12 warheads each. 2688 – 4032 MIRVS we keep at least 8 subs in the water at all times”
Sorry, have to call out your BS there.
1. The USN(or any other navy for that matter) cannot maintain that kind of operational readiness(>60%). ~30% readiness is about the best one can achieve when factoring in the average time spent on routine maintenance, time spent in replenishment, time spent in non-routine maintenance + mid-life overhauls...etc. That translates into 4-5 boats ready in the water at any given time, under the most optimal scenario.
2. Of those 4-5 boats in the water, only 1-2 would be within striking range of China at any given time. That’s at most 300 warheads capable of being delivered onto the Chinese mainland on short notice. Not the thousands that you were throwing out there.
“China MIGHT be able to put 100 warheads on us, but I doubt that. They only have about 2 dozen real ICBMs and 2 real Strategic subs...usually in port.”
Your guess is as good as mine. All we know is that their total nuke stockpile is somewhere between 400 to 1000 warheads(Strategic+Tactical) and they have successfully tested MIRVed ICBMs.
But just as a thought experiment, let’s conjecture the worst that the current Chinese deployed arsenal can do to the CONUS. Their 2 modern SSBNs do not have operational SLBMs, and their best strategic LACMs only have a range of 3000kms so by necessity they are limited to land based ICBMs.
So what do they have in terms of land based ICMBs:
~20 DF-5s => 20 5-MT warheads anywhere in the CONUS
~20 DF-31s(assume MIRVed with 3 warheads) => 60 100kt warheads only in the West Coast and Mountain States
~15 DF-31As(assume MIRVed with 5 warheads) => 75 100kt warheads anywhere in the CONUS
So at the very worst, the current Chinese Nuclear arsenal can destroy about 150 American cities. That would translate into at most 50% of the U.S population dieing in the nuclear exchange.
We owe them too much money.
I immediately thought of a speech Sir Winston Churchill gave in 1934, when the Nazis were beginning to assert themselves, I see many parallels between the state of Britain in 1934 and the US today, here is an excerpt from Churchill’s speech:
It is indeed with a pang of stabbing pain that we see all this in mortal danger. A thousand years has served to form a state; an hour may lay it in dust.
What shall we do? Many people think that the best way to escape war is to dwell upon its horrors and to imprint them vividly upon the minds of the younger generation. They flaunt the grisly photograph before their eyes. They fill their ears with tales of carnage. They dilate upon the ineptitude of generals and admirals. They denounce the crime as insensate folly of human strife. Now, all this teaching ought to be very useful in preventing us from attacking or invading any other country, if anyone outside a madhouse wished to do so, but how would it help us if we were attacked or invaded ourselves that is the question we have to ask.
Would the invaders consent to hear Lord Beaverbrook’s exposition, or listen to the impassioned appeals of Mr. Lloyd George? Would they agree to meet that famous South African, General Smuts, and have their inferiority complex removed in friendly, reasonable debate? I doubt it. I have borne responsibility for the safety of this country in grievous times. I gravely doubt it.
But even if they did, I am not so sure we should convince them, and persuade them to go back quietly home. They might say, it seems to me, “you are rich; we are poor. You seem well fed; we are hungry. You have been victorious; we have been defeated. You have valuable colonies; we have none. You have your navy; where is ours? You have had the past; let us have the future.” Above all, I fear they would say, “you are weak and we are strong.”
not so at all the Trident Fleet opperates 2 crew blue and gold crews that alternate 70 days at sea 25 days dock side. this is the deployment pattern for all 14 boats.This is public knowledge the NAVY does not publish specific deployments only fleet averages.
We’re talking about real-world operational readiness here not theoretical readiness limits. Even if everything ran perfectly, the readiness level you mention would be difficult for a single SSBN to consistently achieve.
However, when taking the entire fleet into account. A certain number of SSBNs is necessarily out of commission for a mid-life/engine refueling overhaul. Other SSBNs are necessarily out of commission due to weapons/component upgrades...etc. And very likely you’ll have at least one Boomer being down for non-routine maintenance. And off of these things takes away from the average operational readiness of the entire fleet.
So here’s a good reference for clarification:
http://www.defpro.com/news/details/6171/
“
Of the 14 SSBNs currently in the fleet, two are normally in overhaul at any given time. Of the remaining operational 12 submarines, 8-9 are deployed on patrol at any given time. Four of these (two in each ocean) are on “Hard Alert” while the 4-5 non-alert SSBNs can be brought to alert level within a relatively short time if necessary. One to three SSBNs are in refit at the home base in preparation for their next patrol.
The SSBNs on Hard Alert continuously hold at risk facilities in Russia, China and regional states with an estimated 384 nuclear warheads on 96 Trident II D5 missiles that can be launched within “a few minutes” after receiving the launch order.”
So ultimately, we are talking about a maximum of around 300 warheads that can be brought to bear on an enemy nation on short notice.
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