Posted on 06/19/2005 7:32:42 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
"Both Weng and Li said that the test-firing of Ju Lang-2 on July 16 last year was a warning for the US not to meddle in China's affairs, especially the Taiwan issue."
So once again China is threatening us with nuclear weapons. Well, thats something a few well placed missles of our own (targeting their dams for instance ) would take care of.
That's not all. China also has mobile ICBMs on land now. And contrary to some of the rhetoric in these threads, the missiles are accurate.
Feel free to identify the missile you are talking about.
If it's the DF-31 it only has a range of 4300nm. Which is a might bit short of reaching the US.
Here's a typical reality about the ChiComs.
"As of 1996 it was expected that the DF-31 would enter full service by 1998. By 1999 it appeared that operational deployment of the DF-31 was expected as early as 2002 or 2003. Development of the DF-31 is progressing, by 2000 deployment was expected before mid-decade."
From: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/china/df-31.htm
FWIW - The accuracy of short range Chinese missiles is very poor. It's not rhetoric. They are about as good as a SCUD.
But they are supposed to be working on a new generation GPS based system. Problem is the US has the only operational GPS right now. Very easy to "adjust" it to make missiles miss.
According to the 2003–2004 issue of the IISS Military Balance, one brigade (eight missiles) of the long-anticipated DF-31 inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) is now deployed, with more presumably to follow in relatively short order . . . While this is not the first road-mobile, solid-fuel missile deployed by China, it is the first one capable of striking the continental United States.
...correction on my comment about that Chinese GPS. It's "wide area" but not worldwide. But the first test satellite for the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU, for a worldwide GPS) is scheduled to be launched before the end of this year, and China is, so far, contributing more to the project than are other countries.
"That information is obsolete. It has already been deployed."
Interesting situation. The article by the author of your paper sites almost the same source in reference 43. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/icbm/df-31.htm which shows an update date of October 05, 1999. My reference at
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/china/df-31.htm indicates it was updated as of atleast mid 2002.
I also suggest you read closely my reference, as it speaks to the credibility of IIIS's accuracy. "Given the wild inaccuracies of other IISS estimates of Chinese missile deployments, this claim must be viewed cautiously." And your authors are using IIIS as a major source for their paper. While this is a blog reference it will help explain the phenomena of the ChinaHawk.
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=389
I never will say ignore China. We are reacting properly with the current buildup and deployment of SDI. But there is no reason to get too worked up. They will eventually have a cold launch land based missile that can reach anywhere in the US. Eventually so will Pakistan. Eventually so will Iran. etc etc.. We have lived under the threat of Soviet ICBMs (which are still operational) for 40 years.
One final note, war colleges have quite a few authors that have political agendas. I remember one produced by the Army War college (IIRC) that said we'd get clobbered in urban fighting trying to take Baghdad.
Contributing more in terms of $$$s. The technology has been set and ready for quite a while. We also have the technology to take out satellites in space if the need occurs. The folks putting up Galileo are aware we will do that if needed. Since they control the accuracy of their system, and not the Chinese, I suspect they will add error into the system to make it useless for tactical weapons, which is what I was addressing. Accuracy of a nuke is not nearly as important as their short range missiles aimed at Taiwan.
The Chinese system has at most 3 satellites up there. Three satellites does not make for an accurate fix. We use up to 12 satellites plus something else in the case of DGPS. If there system were promising and expected to go forward why are they dumping money into a system they will never have control of?
Thanks for the discussion for the sake of learning (for all of us).
My intention is not to put down our defense at all, BTW. But I am more interested in seeing a lot more funding for it for a while.
China is a full member in the Galileo Joint Undertaking and will have engineering access to all security features. And here's my argument for the PLA getting what it wants out of that project.
* Chinese nationals (at least some of them being PLA) have been freely attending and graduating from our university hard science departments and participating in worldwide projects in technologies for some time now. The situation is not as it was in the 1960s.
* See some of the software projects here and there for examples. Some of those projects involve developing (successfully) software that uses all of the same file types used by commercial, closed source packages. In other words, if a product has already been built to do a specific task, another product can easily enough be designed by educated engineers/developers to emulate that product.
IMO, as long as their officials/defense keep the threatening posture toward expanisionism (e.g., Taiwan, ocean routes), we should shut their citizens out of some of our university departments in the hard sciences, at least. We should also expect the worst possible scenario for the future while disseminating convincing political speech, so that we'll get the necessary funding now and political support later when it's needed.
And the artificial economics ride with imports and foreign investments is over, one way or the other. Fuel prices are skyrocketing (due mostly to rising consumption in China, India,...), and the dollar must adjust in a free world market anyway (i.e., the dollar must decrease in value with respect to the yuan, for example). Foreign investors also have us too much by the _____, should hostilities happen. And a large manufacturing base offers a wider net for inventions.
And do you remember military history with respect to fuel and pursuits? ...another consideration that now matters even more than it did in WWII.
I'm in favor of much more for funding R&D for our Defense. Potential enemies are working mostly to send swarms (missiles and UACVs) while developing toward neutralizing defenses.
"Sounding and acting like a bully with no redeeming virtues is annoying the neighborhood."
When people are scared they run their mouths. They are deathly afraid of us and that makes them really touchy.
"The return strike from us would be epoch ending for the Chicoms."
Walmart wouldn't allow a return strike.
My thoughts exactly.
Don't forget madlib not-so bright.
You're welcome. Always appreciate reasoned debate.
It seems to me that most of our defense budget is headed towards things to help us in the Pacific rim. The LCS is an interesting ship, well suited to that region. We will have 11 of them in service in 2010. We can expect a major sub base in Guam by then as well, perhaps homeport to SSGNs. We are building alliances like crazy. The Japanese are build Aegis (kongo class) ships and are ramping up their presence in their southern islands. Lots of things are happening. Rumsfeld is my favorite SecDef since I've been old enough to known what a SecDef is.
One thing about Galileo, there is probably going to be one command and control center. As long as it isn't France or China, we're ok. I'm also fairly confident that we have weapon systems already up there for just such a contingency. Why else would the Air Force keep using these monster boosters from Vandenberg. But that is pure speculation on my part.
Most of us weren't really afraid of that, BTW (training), but I just had to toss a little of the "ate up" into that reply. ;-)
But for how long?
Thanks. I'll try to do that search this evening (need to finish some software development study for now).
If Jeffrey is still saying that we can't do MOUT to this day without a lot of losses, his reference material is outdated (and he's possibly too subjective for some reason or other). ...hope that I don't start getting senile very soon. Heh, heh.
That guys is against everything we do.
With right systems install, I may safety say that this missile can be very deadly even with basic tactic.
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