China MAY Put its Nuclear Weapons on High Alert

[teotwaki]

...and of course they would never get it wrong, misdirect, or lie.

......neither does the US government. Anyhow, look at what the Chinese have actually purchased and built for modernization since the 1990s and match that to their white papers and the book I referenced. I've been to China and yes the Chi-Coms are bastards and hate democracy but the hardware they float on the ocean is hard to obscure with Soviet style Маскировка

[Maeklos]

In 2009 Xinhua News Agency reported, "China will not build an offensive navy cruising the globe, but concentrate on its offshore area. Even if in [the] future the navy is modernized, the defensive nature of the naval strategy will not change."

Makes sense. Why bother with trying to sell your people on a foreign war when you can just build new land, claim it as your own, and then sell any war that results from said building as a "defending our homeland" conflict?

[LowKey]

In 2009 Xinhua News Agency reported, "China will not build an offensive navy cruising the globe, but concentrate on its offshore area. Even if in [the] future the navy is modernized, the defensive nature of the naval strategy will not change."

Makes sense. Why bother with trying to sell your people on a foreign war when you can just build new land, claim it as your own, and then sell any war that results from said building as a "defending our homeland" conflict?

Oh...you mean invading by increments, then when the other party defends itself declaring that an unprovoked attack on your nation and calling everything that flows from that "defensive"?
'Cause no one does that type of thing anymore....right?

[teotwaki]

兵者，詭道也。故能而示之不能，用而示之不用，近而示之遠，遠而示之近。

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.


Only the Chinese are capable of it ......

[teotwaki]

Oh...you mean invading by increments, then when the other party defends itself declaring that an unprovoked attack on your nation and calling everything that flows from that "defensive"? 'Cause no one does that type of thing anymore....right?

Forgot to say that what you stated is exactly right and at the heart of the Chinese approach to the South China Sea. It ties directly to force projection via the carriers because the PLA views offensive actions as part of their defensive strategy.

[Maeklos]

Things might be hotting up between the PRC and ROC with the swearing in of a heavily anti-China, pro-independence president for Taiwan on Friday. Time will tell if this will end up just being more of the same that's been going on between the two Chinas, or if might wind up becoming something more.

http://www.yahoo.com/news/china-officia ... 10517.html

In other regional news, Vietnam is making more overtures to get the US arms embargo lifted. Traditionally, the arms embargo has been linked to Vietnam's handling of human rights - same way that Cuba was embargoed, it seems to me. Anyway, Vietnam wants American weapons and America wants more regional access to curb Chinese influence, so some kind of agreement may be coming down the pipeline soon. Vietnam's done pretty darn well for itself economically in the last couple of decades, but the last time they fought a war (first to topple the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, then to fight off a punitive Chinese campaign) they still had support from the USSR. Seems to me that they're looking for an extra-regional arms supplier, since most of their current military hardware are leftovers from the Soviet era - though I seem to recall they've gone into a couple of co-development projects with India on a few new models of surface ships and aircraft. Or maybe that was Thailand...

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/22/polit ... index.html

EDIT: Looks like the lifting of the embargo just happened.

http://gma.yahoo.com/u-ends-decades-lon ... ories.html

[Maeklos]

Interesting article detailing proposed shifts in American missile defense tactics and technology to combat swarms of smaller, highly accurate missiles of the type being manufactured by the PRC in large numbers. Basically, existing American anti-missile technology was designed to shoot down large missiles, such as SCUDs and North Korean ballistic missiles. Trying to apply the same technology against much smaller cruiser missiles and antiship missiles doesn't work so well.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... -who-16303

[Doctorr Fabulous]

Things might be hotting up between the PRC and ROC with the swearing in of a heavily anti-China, pro-independence president for Taiwan on Friday. Time will tell if this will end up just being more of the same that's been going on between the two Chinas, or if might wind up becoming something more.

http://www.yahoo.com/news/china-officia ... 10517.html

In other regional news, Vietnam is making more overtures to get the US arms embargo lifted. Traditionally, the arms embargo has been linked to Vietnam's handling of human rights - same way that Cuba was embargoed, it seems to me. Anyway, Vietnam wants American weapons and America wants more regional access to curb Chinese influence, so some kind of agreement may be coming down the pipeline soon. Vietnam's done pretty darn well for itself economically in the last couple of decades, but the last time they fought a war (first to topple the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, then to fight off a punitive Chinese campaign) they still had support from the USSR. Seems to me that they're looking for an extra-regional arms supplier, since most of their current military hardware are leftovers from the Soviet era - though I seem to recall they've gone into a couple of co-development projects with India on a few new models of surface ships and aircraft. Or maybe that was Thailand...

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/22/polit ... index.html

EDIT: Looks like the lifting of the embargo just happened.

http://gma.yahoo.com/u-ends-decades-lon ... ories.html

Man, I was just coming to say they'd just announced the lifting of the embargo.

Here's hoping Vietnam wants to buy some F15s!

[teotwaki]

Last year the Vietnamese had a very favorable (78%) view of the U.S. I will be looking forward to the 2016 update of this 2015 survey:
http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/23/1-a ... bal-image/


America’s Global Image

By Richard Wike, Bruce Stokes and Jacob Poushter

America’s overall image around the world remains largely positive. Across the nations surveyed (excluding the U.S.), a median of 69% hold a favorable opinion of the U.S., while just 24% express an unfavorable view. However, there is significant variation among regions and countries.


Young See U.S. More Positively

In 22 of 39 nations, young people express significantly more favorable attitudes toward America. For instance, 59% of 18-29 year-olds in China have a positive opinion about the U.S., compared with just 29% of those ages 50 and older. Notably large gaps are also found in Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, Poland, Ukraine and Venezuela.

(more at the link)

[Mountainsquid]

Man, I was just coming to say they'd just announced the lifting of the embargo.

Here's hoping Vietnam wants to buy some F15s!

Highly doubtful that F-15s will make their way to Vietnam. Frankly, despite the lifting of the embargo, there is too much political risk there to risk making the premier aircraft of your air force an American one. You're just one political reversal away from not getting the planes or your money back. For a country that's a dictatorship like Vietnam, it isn't worth the risk.

But the Vietnamese have supposedly been trying to get the US to sell surplus USN P-3s to help them patrol the SCS better.

[teotwaki]

I think that even if we sold F-15s to anyone we just cut off their supply of parts as we've done many times before. And in the news today:

http://www.theweek.com/speedreads/62614 ... -argentina

China's military is building a mysterious space station in Argentina

China is constructing its first space tracking, telemetry, and command facility outside of its borders in Patagonia, Argentina, and some critics are already expressing concerns that it will be doing more than just looking at the stars.

Chinese military personnel will reportedly operate the space center, although officials have claimed the antenna is "totally civilian, and is not operated by military personnel." While the official purpose of the project is to monitor the moon, others believe that it could also be used to intercept communications from foreign nations' satellites.

The Diplomat points out that in 2015, the former representative of Argentina to the Arms Trade Treaty said the base would have a dual use. It would possess "the capacity to interfere with communications, electronic networks, electromagnetic systems" as well as "the capacity for receiving information about the launching of missiles and other space activities, including of drones, and movement of strategic arms. It has the capacity to collect information of enormous sensitivity in the eventuality of a military competition."

What critics also say is concerning is that China has used this "peaceful use" excuse before — in its highly controversial annexation of islands in the South China Sea.

[Mountainsquid]

I think that even if we sold F-15s to anyone we just cut off their supply of parts as we've done many times before. And in the news today:

Right, that would be the political risk I was referring to. It isn't worth it for the Vietnamese to try for something like that.

[Maeklos]

I think that even if we sold F-15s to anyone we just cut off their supply of parts as we've done many times before. And in the news today:

Right, that would be the political risk I was referring to. It isn't worth it for the Vietnamese to try for something like that.

Considering that the Vietnamese are likely looking to beef up their arsenal to interdict PRC interests in the South China Sea, it'd make more sense for them to be interested in anti-ship and anti-aircraft weapons systems, drones, as well as upgrades for their own modest surface fleet rather than new (to them, at least) aircraft.

[LowKey]

I think that even if we sold F-15s to anyone we just cut off their supply of parts as we've done many times before. And in the news today:

Right, that would be the political risk I was referring to. It isn't worth it for the Vietnamese to try for something like that.

What are they flying now, and what is their source for parts?

Switching to the F-15 might be risky, but less so than staying on the hook to certain parties.
...especially if the purchase of the aircraft came with the benefit of some "pilot instructors" on loan and a new "temporary training facility" where those "pilot instructors" flew alongside their Vietnamese students.

[Doctorr Fabulous]

Vietnam flies the Sukhoi/Flanker series, up to and including the Su30 and Su27, so I would guess Russia?

[LowKey]

Vietnam flies the Sukhoi/Flanker series, up to and including the Su30 and Su27, so I would guess Russia?

Hmm...wonder how we'll they're getting along with Putin these days, or if they feel confident that Putin would step in to help if China gets a bit acquisitive again...



Not saying an F-15 sale would be the first or best sale for either Vietnam or the US. Not even saying that it's something that anyone is planning. Just that it wouldn't be out of the question, particularly given how Vietnam seems to be warming up to us as China grows more pushy in the region.


Now some radar stations and interceptor missile sites in Vietnam, joint training exercises, or just a very friendly port...all of those would be good for oth parties, even if it caused China to make a Sad Panda face.

[Asymetryczna]

Why bother with trying to sell your people on a foreign war when you can just build new land, claim it as your own, and then sell any war that results from said building as a "defending our homeland" conflict?

+1 Why indeed? One could not expect an expanding population with a competitive spirit to reside inside 13 little colonies.

By raising the allotted household children number by a factor of 1 any nation could be expected to grow (and then reach) inside of a decade. Mom and Dad need jobs; the kids need to eat. Do some math. Russia is hurting. Daesh is doomed if only because the majority of their sons are illegitimate. If they receive any degree of a liberal education those children will be unable to determine who they hate more.

And this is closer to the central question I have about long term planning. In the big news stories people tend to count aircraft carriers. The direct fight some would call it. This ignores our politicians on the payroll, ports on the Mississippi they tried to buy, leased ports on major continents, etc. SimpleExample Why fight something when you can own it? Did not old man Tzu say that it is the indirect approach that is needed to secure victory? Should you worry about their billion man army or their billionaire rep having a $80 dollar lobster tail with your elected official in some swank eatery off 14th St. this afternoon?

No one can harbor any doubt in this country about elections being purchased.

A few years back I read about a grant provided to the state of Virginia to study if snapping turtles were in decline. A news article led me to a more detailed discussion of the study I found online in which people wondered by the amount (in weight) of turtle sales was doubling, tripling and quadrupling each year. I finally contacted a wildlife biologist I knew to ask questions about the turtle study. (I eat snapping turtle but with so many Wendy's within a 5-minute drive...). He told me that China was buying the turtles. Confused, I asked why. His answer: "Because they have eaten all of theirs."

Political theory is fascinating to me but it offers no calories. A man's gotta eat.

[LowKey]

By raising the allotted household children number by a factor of 1 any nation could be expected to grow (and then reach) inside of a decade. Mom and Dad need jobs; the kids need to eat. Do some math. Russia is hurting.

...and I believe this is the key reason behind Russia's offer of free land in their eastern territory to whomever is willing to live there, even so far as eventual granting of citizenship to vetted applicants. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the Kremlin doesn't want Mother Russia's hungry vacuum filled with Chinese take out.

[Maeklos]

Indonesia is already confronting the Chinese in Indonesian territorial waters:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/indonesia ... 52661.html

Given the apparent Chinese aggressiveness in the two incidents outlined above, I wonder how long it's going to be before either the Chinese vessels open fire on whatever national naval or coast guard vessel is confronting them, or said navy or coast guard vessel fires on an actual Chinese warship or interdiction vessel for violating territorial waters and general aggressive action towards a military vessel operating in territorial waters.

[Langenator]

Pissing of Indonesia would be pretty high risk, since they can easily close the straights (Malacca, Sunda) that the bulk of China's oil imports move through

[woodsghost]

Pissing of Indonesia would be pretty high risk, since they can easily close the straights (Malacca, Sunda) that the bulk of China's oil imports move through

...and push China into kicking off a "defensive war of national survival." I doubt the Indonesians want to be "that guy."

[Dabster]

I don't think this has been shared yet and it seems relevant...

https://warisboring.com/she-doesnt-look ... .iok9ehcim

[Maeklos]

Don't know if it's linked to the lifting of the American arms embargo or not, but Vietnam is now set to procure BrahMos missiles from India.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/militar ... e-vietnam/

[teotwaki]

I don't think this has been shared yet and it seems relevant...

https://warisboring.com/she-doesnt-look ... .iok9ehcim

I have read that this is a problem for our Navy because we have no problem going toe-to-toe with China's naval warships, but fighting this (well-armed) "Coast Guard" boat might make us look like bullies. Most people have a view of coast guard vessels being brown water vessels that perform SAR or other low level policing functions in coastal waters.