Posted on 11/20/2002 5:41:48 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:59:05 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
China recently test-fired a new cruise missile with twice the range U.S. intelligence agencies initially estimated, intelligence officials say. The test comes as Chinese Communist officials last week appointed a top general in charge of China's missile buildup to a new post within the leadership that runs the military.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
CHARISMA NEWS.com: PERSECUTION WATCH: "CHINA" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "In the weeks leading to the party congress, which began last Friday, the government has banned books, blocked Internet sites and clamped down on other activists. China allows only government-monitored churches, and has harassed and imprisoned Christians who worship outside the official system.") (111102)
It's not accelerating at 5,625 gees--it's traveling at a straight 186Kmiles/sec.
However, lasers aren't necessarily the decisive element here--instead, it's things like Cooperative Engagement Capability.
Who cares if the aircraft carrier isn't able to fire a laser at the missile if one of the Aegis cruisers can splash the missile before it breaks the 100-mile circle?
Image the advantage we would have in a battlefield scenerio where we have a dozen airborne lasers circling a "containment zone". The enemy would be denied the ability to put ANYTHING into the sky, missles, aircraft, perhaps even satellites. To my knowledge we are further along in this area than any country in the world.
Uh...actually, the enemy would simply need more than a dozen SAMs. While the ABLs are engaging the first salvo of SAMs directed at them, the enemy launches another salvo.
The ABL is, like the AWACS and JSTARS, a "High Value Airframe" or HVA, and it will have to be properly protected.
In your world, making China a democracy will prevent them from 'killing us?'
Something special about a democracy?
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
If this country has resources China wants, whether they are democratic or not (or even republican, as is the USA) they will come and get it. If we don't sell it, they will get it by other means.
They might even VOTE before commencing action.
(They HAVE all that, you know.)
One for L.A., and another for SFO--and that's just from their mainland.
Now, with their patty-cake friendship with Iran, they could also make a mess of London (if the Iranian government holds against the coming rebellion.)
NOW what?
My ass...!
With Motorola, Intel, Microsoft and other high tech companies setting up R&D facilities in China it is only a matter of time that they will be technologically superior to us. Especially when these companies are retreating from doing any R&D in America.
One for L.A., and another for SFO--and that's just from their mainland.
A rather silly scenario. The US response would turn mainland China into a smoking, glowing, irradiated ruin. BTW, right now, ALL of the missiles would have to come from the Chinese mainland. Please note that the Chinese SSBN has not sailed in quite some time, and that they are buying imported submarines in large numbers despite some very intense efforts to build home-grown designs. If they can't build a competent diesel-electric boat, it's rather likely that they won't be able to build a nuclear attack boat or a boomer.
More to the point, they have a perfectly serviceable ICBM for accomplishing that mission today. It's old, it's liquid-fueled, and it uses an absolutely huge warhead--5 megatons--but it would do the job rather nicely. Using a W-88 for city-busting is extremely wasteful--and the precision manufacturing know-how and facilities that go into making a W-88 (which has a very high yield-to-weight ratio, and is accurate enough for destroying hardened targets like ICBM silos) are not readily available in China. It would be rather akin to the United States building a passenger-carrying model of the B-2 for the commercial aviation industry--a fabulously wasteful exercise.
When they were dealing with a known pantywaist. There's a new sheriff in town.
And China does not have the forces needed to take Taiwan. They do not have the lift capacity to get the troops across the Taiwan Strait.
And since when have dictators given a loud fart about the rabble?
Well, if they want to spend their sunset years never seeing daylight or open sky, that's their problem.
Those guys will be long burrowed into their hardened safe spots, and the USA will NOT incinerate all of China. We have more respect for rules of war than that...
Oh, really?
Trust me, the President that tries to show that much respect for the rules of war after two of America's largest cities get nuked will have two problems: (1) dealing with a Congress that wants to impeach him and (2) avoiding the lynch mobs long enough to see if he got convicted in the Senate.
Look: you and I know that there's the plan, and then there's what went wrong on the way to the plan's end. You and I also know that in war, about everything that CAN go wrong, WILL go wrong.
The Chinese ain't stupid and they ain't crazy. They also don't have the ability to get to Taiwan. They really don't have an option to invade Siberia--the Russians might decide to get rid of some START II restricted weapons by means of live-fire :o)
Some nutso in PRC might just push the button.
The ChiCom command and control system requires more than one guy to push the button. Seems the Party worries that the Army might get a wee bit uppity if they can shoot off the nukes by themselves.
Do you really think GWB would turn all of the PRC into a lava lake?
After two cities with a total population of 10,000,000 get nuked? If he doesn't push the button under those circumstances, he's dead--be it figuratively or literally.
Probably the same reason Ivan stole everything he could lay his hands on--and then discovered that he couldn't build it in anything resembling quantity when he tried to copy it.
Agreed they are not stupid and they are not crazy.
Do they play those 'missile' games near Taiwan just to keep our planners up all night?
As to Siberia: China will take that area, if they want it, by occupying Russia on the south through proxies like the Chechens, but far more numerous and with many more points of attack.
The Russkis will be too busy in the South to pay much attention to Siberia, and too damn worn out to open Front Two after knocking off the Chechen-esque ploy.
And I don't think the Russkis will nuke their OWN land--they want the oil, too!
You've obviously never read Suz Tzu or Mao. That's exactly what they are doing.
You're falling prey to the "ooh, they have missiles" ploy. They don't have enough sealift to put boots on the ground.
Read T.R. Fehrenbach's This Kind of War to understand why infantry is important.
As to Siberia: China will take that area, if they want it, by occupying Russia on the south through proxies like the Chechens, but far more numerous and with many more points of attack.
I have to disagree with your analysis of the Chechens as proxies of the Chicoms--the Chinese have their own Moose Limb problem, and they're not dumb enough to nurse a brood of vipers right next door to that problem. It's many times more stupid than our playing footsie with the mujihadeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
The Russkis will be too busy in the South to pay much attention to Siberia, and too damn worn out to open Front Two after knocking off the Chechen-esque ploy.
The Russians will NOT tolerate any Chinese move on Siberia or the Maritime Provinces. Period. Second, if the Chinese do try to move, the Russians are likely to just nuke the Chechens, THEN nuke the Chinese.
And I don't think the Russkis will nuke their OWN land--they want the oil, too!
Of course they won't nuke Siberia. They'll nuke northern Manchuria instead. Gosh, it's awfully hard to sustain an invasion of China when all of the railroads supporting the invasion just kinda evaporate...
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