Replies to post #216630 on $Stock*Shop*Charts*News*Option$

[Stock Lobster]

Lindy, I agree and I've wondered whether there aren't two very divided factions in our government.

One faction sees and is alarmed by the exponentially growing risks posed by China and her rapidly expanding military, mever mind her demographically unabalanced population heavily skewed towards military aged young men, the result of decades of a one child policy. The other faction has embraced another agenda, and is focused narrowily on the threat they perceive from the growth of Islamofascism in the middle east. Occasionally we see public manifestation of skirmishes between the two, no doubt reflecting a much deeper philosophical rift in our government and military.

Does the latter faction understand that while radical Islam has many causes, it is also being used as a proxy by China and Russia, who have been busy in past years creating economic and military ties and allegiances with nations like Pakistan, countries in Muslim Africa, South America and the former Soviet satellites?

Iran is playing the same role as that of Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Ahmadinejad is unbelievably cocky, because China and Russia have shown their clear support for Iran, and have no doubt helped arm it. At times he almost seems to be taunting the United States, practically inviting a confrontation. If the US takes the bait, it will be walking into a trap. That is my strong belief.

Like you I am appalled that our overextended forces in the middle east have left us dangerously exposed and underequipped at home. This is exactly the kind of situation that presents an opportunity for calculating nations harboring ambitions of altering the world's balance of power.

Can we truly be this unaware, or have be chosen to believe our own myth of our invincibility and impregnability? I have to believe there are level heads in DC who are alarmed. When Katrina struck, we didn't even hae the needed national guard to help evacuate the area...even NG jeeps and trucks were being deployed in Iraq, and not available in a time of national crisis.

This cannot continue!

China has been using the vast surplus she's accumulated to rapidly expand her navy and military, and is now planning a joint space venture with Russia. If we don't wake up quickly, we will be playing a game of catch-up in an uncomfortable new landscape and a timetable not of our choosing.

Sometimes I think that the threat increases with every passing week, as China may feel that she has a limited window of opportunity to strike before we deploy a new generation of space based weapons, and a new administration is elected who may deal with the situation more aggressively. As I said in my previous post, our developing economic crisis disturbs me for not only the obvious reasons, but because I know from history it presents an opportunity for a surprise assault.

The Chinese are skilled students of Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher who wrote "The Art of War". The opportunities presented by the current US dilemma are exactly the kind which he would suggest taking advantage of.

From Chapter Six, "The Art Of War"

Chapter Six: Weakness and Strength

Sun-tzu said:

Generally the one who first occupies the battlefield awaiting the enemy is at ease;
the one who comes later and rushes into battle is fatigued. ?

Therefore those skilled in warfare move the enemy, and are not moved by the enemy. ?

Getting the enemy to approach on his own accord is a matter of showing him advantage;

stopping him from approaching is a matter of showing him harm. ?

Therefore, if the enemy is at ease, be able to exhaust him;

if the enemy is well fed, be able to starve him;

if the enemy is settled, be able to move him;

appear at places where he must rush to defend, and rush to places where he least expects. ?

To march over a thousand li without becoming distressed, march over where the enemy is not present. ?

To be certain to take what you attack, attack where the enemy cannot defend. ?

To be certain of safety when defending, defend where the enemy cannot attack. ?

Therefore, against those skilled in attack, the enemy does not know where to defend; ?

against those skilled in defense, the enemy does not know where to attack. ?

Subtle! Subtle!

They become formless.

Mysterious! Mysterious!

They become soundless.

Therefore, they are the masters of the enemy's fate. ?

To achieve an advance that cannot be hampered, rush to his weak points.

To achieve a withdrawal that cannot be pursued, depart with superior speed. ?

Therefore, if we want to do battle, even if the enemy is protected by high walls and deep moats, he cannot but do battle, because we attack what he must rescue.

If we do not want to do battle, even if we merely draw a line on the ground, he will not do battle, because we divert his movements. ?

Therefore, if we can make the enemy show his position while we are formless, we will be at full force while the enemy is divided. ?

If our army is at full force and the enemy is divided, then we will attack him at ten times his strength. ?

Therefore, we are many and the enemy few.

If we attack our many against his few, the enemy will be in dire straits. ?

The place of battle must not be made known to the enemy.

If it is not known, then the enemy must prepare to defend many places. ?

If he prepares to defend many places, then the forces will be few in number. ?

Therefore, if he prepares to defend the front, the back will be weak.

If he prepares to defend the back, the front will be weak.

If he prepares to defend the left, the right will be weak.

If he prepares to defend the right, the left will be weak.

If he prepares to defend everywhere, everywhere will be weak. ?

The few are those preparing to defend against others, the many are those who make others prepare to defend against them. ?

Therefore, if one knows the place of battle and the day of battle, he can march a thousand li and do battle. ?

If one does not know the place of battle and the day of battle, then his left cannot aid his right, and his right cannot aid his left;

his front cannot aid his back, and his back cannot aid his front. ?

How much less so if he is separated by tens of li, or even a few li. ?

Based on my calculations, though Yueh's troops were many, what advantage was this to them in respect to victory?

Therefore I say, victory can be achieved. ?

Though the enemy is many, he can be prevented from doing battle.

Therefore, know the enemy's plans and calculate their strengths and weaknesses. ?

Provoke him, to know his patterns of movement. ?

Determine his position, to know the ground of death and of life. ?

Probe him, to know where he is strong and where he is weak. ?

The ultimate skill is to take up a position where you are formless. ?

If you are formless, the most penetrating spies will not be able to discern you, or the wisest counsels will not be able to do calculations against you. ?

With formation, the army achieves victories yet they do not understand how.

Everyone knows the formation by which you achieved victory, yet no one knows the formations by which you were able to create victory. ?

Therefore, your strategy for victories in battle is not repetitious, and your formations in response to the enemy are endless. ?

The army's formation is like water.

The water's formation avoids the high and rushes to the low. ?

So an army's formation avoids the strong and rushes to the weak. ?

Water's formation adapts to the ground when flowing.

So then an army's formation adapts to the enemy to achieve victory. ?

Therefore, an army does not have constant force, or have constant formation.

Those who are able to adapt and change in accord with the enemy and achieve victory are called divine. ?

Therefore, of the five elements, none a constant victor, of the four seasons, none has constant position;

the sun has short and long spans, and the moon waxes and wanes. ?

[Stock Lobster]

From Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" Chapter 1:

01. LAYING PLANS

Excerpts:

17. According as circumstances are favorable,
one should modify one's plans.

18. All warfare is based on deception.

19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable;
when using our forces, we must seem 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.

20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder,
and crush him.

21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.

22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to
irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.

24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where
you are not expected.

25. These military devices, leading to victory,
must not be divulged beforehand.

_____________________________________________________________

Another Summary, from a good Wikipedia post:

http://www.andya.org.uk/everywiki/doku.php?id=suntzu

Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

I was planning to make this a paraphrasing of the key points of the book as I saw, however there is a lot of repetition in the text or the same point being made with regard to very subtly different situations. Because of this I have discarded the original format and re-ordered the points to make the order more logical (to me at least).

Sun Tzu lists a number of factors which he claims you can use to calculate who will win a war. Which is all rather odd since the whole point of the book is how to win a war no matter what the numbers say.

War is rather important so study it and be aware of the risks involved.

- Those unable to understand the risks involved in resorting to war are also unable to employ force well.

- Civil leaders should not be allowed to give tactical orders to the army, how the achieve the required goal should be left to the general.

- Warfare is about information, spying is about gathering information. It is impossible to succeed in the former without making full use of the latter.

- War's expensive, make sure you can pay for it before starting out.

- Keep wars short, long protracted fights will wear you down as much as the opponent, you may hear of bad decisions being made quickly but you never hear of cunning prolonged decisions. An attack need not be original but it mast be fast.

- War is based on deception, make the enemy think you are weaker than you are, confuse him as to your location.
Do the unexpected.

- Know your enemy and know yourself.

- Annoy the leader of the enemy and anger him into making rash attacks.

- Cause disagreements between the government and the military leaders of your opponent.

- Isolate your enemies and prevent them from forming alliances.

- Don't allow the enemy time to recover and regroup.

- Bring your weapons with you but live off the land, transporting consumables will eat up resources like crazy and should be minimised.

- Once an army has sated it's ambition (either a desire for revenge or to loot) then they will no longer fight well, make sure that they always have a reason for wanting to win the next fight.

- The point of war is to capture the opponents land, not to kill everyone. To capture the enemy is preferable to destroying them.

- The best tactic is to find a weakness in your opponents strategy and exploit it. Failing that isolate him from his allies.

- Don't attack his cities, you will be destroying the very thing you want to capture intact.

- The point of a good offensive it to win without fighting. A good general will not win a close fought battle, he will defeat the enemy before they even take the field.

- Always have a way of getting out if it becomes inevitable that you will lose.

- Not losing is dependent purely on your defence. Wining is dependent on both your attack and your opponent making a mistake.

- Make yourself invulnerable and then wait for the enemy to become vulnerable.

- A good general will only ever have easy fights because he has already arranged matters such that his enemy is weak. (He seems to like making this point, it gets repeated a lot)

- To control a host is the same as controlling a handful, it is a matter of organisation.

- Organise your force into two, the ordinary and the extraordinary. The ordinary does the expected, the extraordinary wins the battle.

- Ordinary and extraordinary are interchangeable as circumstances change and your enemy reacts.

- Build up momentum, when you make the winning manoeuvre do it quickly and with unstoppable force.

- Use your forces in ways in which they are effective, don't ask them to defend the indefensible or attack the invulnerable.

- Make the enemy to do this whenever possible by attacking when they are in poor locations or forcing them to attack your defences.

- Do not attack the enemy's fortifications, instead attack something that he must leave his fortifications to protect.

- Appear to be somewhere distant that he must defend so that he is forced to rush around.

- Whoever holds the battle field first waits calmly, those who arrive later rush into battle exhausted.

- Do not rush into a distant battle, you will arrive weak and dispersed.

- Position your own troops such that your plans are concealed until they are put into effect.

- Move only when there is some advantage in doing so.

- If you do not make use of people with local knowledge you will not be able to take advantage of the ground.

- Do not pursue an enemy who appears to flee.

- Always leave the enemy a way out, never force the enemy to fight to the death.

- Fight downhill.

- Do not fight or camp with your back to an impassable barrier.

- Do not attack an enemy as he crosses a river, wait until he is half across and then attack while he is in disorder.

- If the enemy sees and advantage but does not take it then he is fatigued and weak.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Stock Lobster]

USA Today: Report: Chinese spying top threat to U.S. tech

Updated 16d ago

By Foster Klug, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Chinese spying in America represents the greatest threat to U.S. technology, according to a congressional advisory panel report Thursday that recommended lawmakers consider financing counterintelligence efforts meant to stop China from stealing U.S. manufacturing expertise.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission also said in its annual report to Congress that small- and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers, which represent more than half the manufacturing jobs in America, "face the full brunt of China's unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation and illegal subsidies for Chinese exports."

China's economic policies create a trade relationship that is "severely out of balance" in China's favor, said the commission, which Congress set up in 2000 to investigate and report on U.S.-China issues.

Carolyn Bartholomew, the commission's chairwoman, told reporters that "China's interest in moving toward a free market economy is not just stalling but is actually now reversing course."

China denied any spying activities, stressing the importance of healthy economic ties with the U.S. "China never does anything undermining the interests of other countries," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regular briefing Thursday in Beijing. "China and the U.S. have a fundamental common interest in promoting sound and rapid development."

The report comes about a year before U.S. presidential and congressional elections, and candidates have been critical of what they see as China's failure to live up to its responsibilities as an emerging superpower. China often is singled out for its flood of goods into the United States; for building a massive, secretive military; for abusing its citizens' rights, and for befriending rogue nations to secure sources of energy.

U.S. officials also recognize that the United States needs China, a veto-holding member of the U.N. Security Council, to secure punishment for Iran's nuclear program and to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

The commission's Democratic and Republican appointees have begun meeting with congressional staff and lawmakers to discuss the report's 42 recommendations.

In the report, the commission said China's spies allow Chinese companies to get new technology "without the necessity of investing time or money to perform research." Chinese espionage was said to be straining U.S. counterintelligence agencies and helping China's military modernization.

While the report praised China for some economic progress this year, improvements were undertaken "with great hesitancy and, even then, only with the prodding of other nations and the World Trade Organization."

China, it said, "maintains a preference for authoritarian controls over its economy" and has done too little to police widespread copyright piracy of foreign goods sold in China.

The commission also faulted China for keeping the value of its currency artificially low against the dollar. American manufacturers long have complained that Beijing's low currency makes Chinese goods cheaper in the United States and American products more expensive in China.

China's dependence on coal, lack of energy efficiency and poor enforcement of environmental regulations, the report said, "are creating devastating environmental effects that extend throughout the region and beyond to the United States."

The commission said tensions between Taiwan and China have created an "emotionally charged standoff that risks armed conflict if not carefully managed by both sides. Such a conflict could involve the United States."

The United States has hinted it would go to war to protect Taiwan if nuclear-armed China were to attack. China claims Taiwan as its own and vows to attack any declaration of independence by the island's leaders.

The report also described what it said was China's tight control over information distribution, which allows Beijing "to manage and manipulate the perceptions of the Chinese people, often promoting nationalism and xenophobia."

Beijing, the report said, uses its control of the media to influence its perception in the United States; that could endanger U.S. citizens if reports on food and product safety and disease outbreaks are manipulated.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2007-11-15-china-spying-tech-threat_N.htm

[Stock Lobster]

Military.com: The Chinese Threat

Allan Topol | May 31, 2006

Last week the United States office of the Secretary of Defense forwarded a report to congress entitled “Military Power of the Peoples Republic of China 2006.” It was a bizarre and terrifying document. Terrifying because this fifty-page report spelled out in some detail the military expansion of China in the past year.

Among its highlights, the report explained that China now has more than 700 combat aircraft based within un-refueled operational range of Taiwan. China has deployed almost 800 short-range ballistic missiles across from Taiwan. China’s naval force now includes 75 major surface combatants, 55 attack submarines and 50 costal missile patrol crafts. In ground forces, the Peoples Republic Army and the paramilitary Peoples Armed Police have over 4.6 million available troops. In addition, China can draw upon more than 10 million organized military militia members.

Of the total number of ground troops, some 400,000 are deployed to the three military regions opposite Taiwan, an increase of 25,000 over last year. Moreover, China has been upgrading these units with tanks, armored personnel carriers and a substantial increase in the amount of artillery. There is no doubt that China has in place the necessary military resources to launch an all out attack in an effort to recapture Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province. Beyond Taiwan, the report notes, “China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages.”

At the same time that this report presents these facts about China’s military expansion and capability, the document juxtaposes in a bizarre manner, expressions of optimism about these developments. For example, the report states, “the United States welcomes the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China.” It encourages China to take on “a greater share of responsibility for the health and success of the global system.” Then the report notes that, “China’s leaders have yet to adequately explain the purposes or desired end states of their military expansion.” The question is asked: What is China’s motivation for this huge arms expansion?

The answer is plain. China is preparing to launch an attack to retake Taiwan. Moreover, China is building up its forces to protect the flow of oil and other natural resources from the Middle East and South America back to China. The overwhelming Chinese economic expansion requires these resources and the Chinese military will be in a position to secure their continual flow. All of this means that as we look ahead fifteen or twenty years, there is a significant chance that China will surpass the United States, not only economically, but militarily as well.

It is all very well for DOD to report on these facts on an annual basis to Congress. But the more important question is what is the United States doing to counter the Chinese increase in military power?

Unfortunately, significant portions of our own armed forces are tied down with what now appear to be long-term commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. With depleted forces at home, what would the United States be able to do if China launched an attack on Taiwan next week, for example? How could we respond effectively in an Asian military confrontation?

It is imperative that Pentagon decision makers publicly disclose some of our own increases in technology or military capability in order that the Chinese will not become too confident of their own superiority. Likewise, the Untied States must move more aggressively to deepen strategic alliances with Japan and India. That will give the Chinese pause for concern that they may be faced with opposition from an Asian rival as well as from the United States.

In the last couple of years, we have had an overriding preoccupation with military events in the Middle East, which are certainly critical to the United States. Looking ahead, Asia is certain to be a trouble spot and the time is ripe now to begin focusing on that part of the world. We cannot wait until China uses some of its newly developed military resources in order to build up our own.

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.


Copyright 2007 Allan Topol. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,99285,00.html

[Stock Lobster]

ChicagoTrib, 8/05: Chinese subs called growing threat to U.S.

By Michael Kilian
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

August 12, 2005

WASHINGTON – Little noticed by the public, a recently released Pentagon report to Congress carries a strong warning that China's rapidly expanding and improving submarine fleet poses a mounting military threat to the United States.

The end of the Cold War left the United States as the world's supreme naval power, and the Pentagon, occupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has shifted its priorities away from seaborne threats.

The Pentagon has even diverted components of its anti-submarine warfare program to other purposes.

China, though well behind the U.S. submarine fleet, has turned to an undersea vessel that American planners had considered largely obsolete – the diesel-electric attack submarine – to boost its arsenal. It also is equipping its submarines with new technology from Germany and elsewhere to make the craft harder to detect and more lethal.

Experts predict that China's submarine fleet will substantially outnumber that of the United States within 15 years.

The Pentagon report, delivered to Congress last month, says that China's navy is designed mostly to prevent or dissuade the United States from intervening in any future conflict between China and Taiwan. But it also is giving China the capability of menacing Japan and striking U.S. cities with submarine-launched nuclear missiles.

"China is in the midst of perhaps the largest military buildup the world has witnessed since the end of the Cold War," said Richard Fisher, vice president of Washington's International Assessment and Strategy Center, at a recent hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

John Tkacik Jr., a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, raised a similar alarm.

"China's ambitious weapons modernization and reforms in military doctrine are aimed at promoting vast increases in its comprehensive national power," Tkacik told the House committee. He said the Pentagon report is "a wake-up call to the administration, to Congress, to the Taiwan government and to our friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region that . . . China stands poised to assert itself as the pre-eminent power in the Asia-Pacific region."

China appears to be strengthening all branches of its military – improving training and weaponry for its huge army, increasing its short-and long-range ballistic missiles, adding new aircraft and precision munitions to its air force and developing unmanned aircraft, the report said.

Submarines have become a high priority. China has about 64 surface warships in its navy and 55 or more attack submarines, designed for use against enemy surface ships and submarines as well as ground targets.

They not only include its current Song-class sub, armed with anti-ship cruise missiles that can be launched underwater, but a new Yuan diesel-electric attack sub. China also is expected to introduce a nuclear attack submarine this year and has bought four highly capable Russian Kilo-class attack submarines, with eight more of the diesel-powered craft on order from the Russian military.

In contrast, Taiwan has just 27 surface warships and four submarines.

The United States has a fleet of 59 attack submarines of all classes, but has commitments for them across the globe.

At current attrition and replacement rates, experts estimate that the U.S. attack fleet will be down to 40 submarines or fewer within the next 15 years, while China expands its fleet by perhaps as many as 35 modern subs.

Another major advance in Chinese attack-submarine capability has been the introduction of AIP, or "air-independent propulsion," technology to its attack force.

Lt. Cmdr. Bill Murray, a veteran submarine officer now serving as an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, said AIP technology has transformed the diesel-electric sub into an ultra-stealthy ship-killing weapon.

Nuclear submarines are quieter than diesels, but attack subs running on batteries are quieter still.

"When they're on battery (power), they're incredibly difficult to find," Murray said. "So, unless you know where they are, they could be anywhere, which complicates the United States' or any opposing navy's ability to operate on the surface."

Lyle Goldstein, another Naval War College expert, said diesel-electric subs have been able to operate for only two or three days on batteries, having to resurface to recharge them. With AIP, the submarine carries its own air supply, as it might extra fuel, and can recharge its batteries while deep underwater and stay submerged for two or more weeks.

"I don't think anybody really knows how far the Chinese are along with it, but we've found some very disturbing signs," Goldstein said.

Goldstein and Murray said China acquired much of its AIP technology from Germany. They emphasized that their assessments are their own and not official views of the Naval War College or the Navy.

All U.S. submarines are nuclear; the Navy has no diesel-electric attack craft. Last fall, the Swedish government leased the Navy one of its AIP-equipped diesel-electric vessels and crew so U.S. anti-submarine warfare forces could train against the wider-ranging submarine tactics AIP makes possible.

As the Pentagon report on China observed, the United States has emphasized capability over quantity in maintaining its submarine fleet. But numbers give the Chinese certain advantages.

"Numbers matter," Murray said. "The Chinese obviously believe that numbers matter because they're turning out submarines like sausages. The Chinese are definitely on the winning end of an arms race."

Though the collapse of the Soviet Union decreased the need for the nuclear submarine as a globally deployed, second-strike nuclear deterrent, the U.S. underwater fleet is spread worldwide as part of a strategy of projecting force across all oceans and major seas. That mission includes protection of the United States' wide-ranging carrier battle groups.

Alarm over the Chinese buildup is spreading on Capitol Hill. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, argued that this is no time to cut back the size of the U.S. attack-sub fleet or close the Navy submarine base at Groton, Conn., as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has recommended.

"The best anti-submarine weapon is another submarine," Hunter said.

The Pentagon report on Chinese military power assessed its submarine buildup as part of a coercive effort to convince Taiwan that "the price of declaring independence is too high" and that naval action against Taiwan might include a blockade or an attack.

"They want to deter us from interfering if they feel they have to use force to deter Taiwan (from independence), raising the potential cost (in casualties and ships sunk) of U.S. intervention to such a high degree that they think we will calculate we can't defend Taiwan without paying an exorbitant cost," Murray said.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050812/news_1n12china.html

[Stock Lobster]

AFP: US military sees looming China threat to satellites

Aug 14 05:43 PM US/Eastern

China may be just three years away from being able to disrupt US military satellites in a regional conflict, a senior US military leader said Tuesday, citing a recent anti-satellite test and other advances.

The warning came amid calls at a conference in Alabama for intensified efforts to ensure US "space superiority" in the wake of China's shoot down January 11 of one of its own satellites with a ballistic missile.

"It is not inconceivable that within about three years we can be challenged at a near peer level in a region," said Lieutenant General Kevin Campbell, head of the US Army's Space and Missile Defense Command.

"That means taking out a number of communications capabilities over a theater of war," he added in a speech to an audience of defense contractors in Huntsville, Alabama.

Campbell later told reporters that while a number of countries have some capabilities to interfere with satellite communications, China is the country he is most worried about.

Its anti-satellite test in January was a clear demonstration of its ability to destroy an orbiting satellite, he said.

But its development of jamming capabilities and advances in computer network attack point to a comprehensive approach to denying the US military access to space in a conflict, he said.

"It starts to add up that they'll have multi-dimensional capabilities to attack various systems that are in orbit today," he said.

"A lot of countries have pieces of what I've described, but I would say I'm more concerned about China than any of them," he said.

Satellites are vital to US military operations, enabling the flow of torrents of communications, imagery, and navigational data for the kind of high tech precision warfare that the United States excels at.

But US reliance on satellites also has created vulnerabilities that though long understood had not taken concrete form until the Chinese test.

Campbell said it has spurred the military to think about how to counter the threat, including ways to track and surveil objects in space to know what they are up to.

He said his command has devised a "space alert" system patterned on "air alerts" that would key the military's responses to a threat to a friendly satellite.

The military also is thinking about offensive counter-measures, he said.

"I'm not free to talk about specifics, but the bottom line is we're thinking about and taking steps to ensure we have a capability... that shows we have freedom of action in space," he said.


Copyright AFP 2007, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070814214301.e6ccp77g&show_article=1

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Mark Helprin: The Nuclear Threat From China

By Mark Helprin
Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page B07

Before rejoicing over detente with Kim Jong Il, it might be useful to remember that although agreements were reached in the past, his countrymen later built a number of nuclear weapons and carried out a test. Also, North Korea, with a rich chemical and biological arsenal having long ago neutralized American tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, has embarked solely on a program of survival by extortion and will gladly forfeit a power it does not need in exchange for recognition and some essential commodities. The Asian nuclear power of which we must take account is not North Korea but China.

The forerunners of China's government were able to defeat Chiang Kai-shek, fight the United States to a draw in Korea and, merely by means of their country's looming potential, help defeat America in Vietnam. This they did in chaos, poverty and without modern arms, but with strategy bred in the bone. Since 1978, using their extraordinary and sustained economic and technical growth to build military capacity, the Chinese have deliberately modeled themselves on the Meiji (who rapidly transformed feudal Japan into an industrial state able to vanquish the Russian fleet at Tsushima).

In altering their position relative to that of the United States, the Chinese have received generous assistance from the past two American presidents, who have accomplished first a carefree diminution of our orders of battle and then the incompetent deployment of what was left, in a campaign analogous to losing a protracted struggle with Portugal. China advances and we decline because, among other things, its vision is disciplined and clear, while ours is burdened by fear, decadence and officials who understand neither Chinese grand strategy nor its nuclear component.

This has led the United States unwittingly to encourage China to move toward nuclear parity. In the next five years, as we reduce our arsenal from 10,000 strategic warheads to 1,700, China's MIRV'd silo-based missiles and imminent generations of MIRV'd mobile and sea-based ICBMs will easily allow a breakout from warhead numbers now variously estimated to range from 80 to 1,800.

Once, the vast imbalance (in 1987, 500:1) might have discouraged China from such augmentation, but no longer. Our reductions and their growth provide fewer targets for more missiles and will create the possibility and therefore the temptation, however remote, of a first strike. As we have cut the stable sea-based leg of our nuclear deterrent from 37 ballistic missile submarines to 14, China works to build its own and a fleet that can provide protected bastions at sea as well as hunt down the small number of American boats on station.

Nuclear competition between mature and newly emerging powers is neither unprecedented nor unexpected, but the rule has always been that if nuclear potential exists it must be countered. Although we may no longer subscribe to this, China does. Aware that the United States planned to use nuclear weapons had China violated the Korean armistice, China would understandably seek nuclear balance, if not preponderance.

The danger lies not solely in quantitative instabilities but in potential nuclear strategies that technical evolution has elevated above Cold War paradigms. It is one thing for a few experts to foresee these strategies but quite another to obtain from a people no longer confident of its right to self-defense the political consensus, appropriations and authority to counter them. Consider just one scenario, highlighted by the recent successful test of China's anti-satellite weapon, part of a strategy to exploit technological asymmetries.

Given China's appetites and our alliances and interests, a war is not inconceivable in Taiwan, or in Korea. To remove American nuclear escalation from the equation, China would need not parity but only a deterrent such as it has long possessed. The Chinese, however, whose nuclear thresholds are dissimilar to ours, would have other options.

They know that every facet of America's economy, military and society depends on individual and networked electronic devices. Were these to fail all at once and irreparably, the nation would seize up, perhaps for years.

Faced with victory, or with loss, they might choose to -- and who would venture to guarantee that they would not? -- detonate half a dozen high-megatonnage nuclear charges in the mesosphere, in an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) strike perhaps not even in American airspace, cooking almost every circuit and semiconductor, rendering the American government blind, deaf and dumber than it is already and the country unable to resist the inroads that would surely follow.

Though we would undoubtedly respond in kind, China is not as technically dependent as are we. Nor, given China's sufficiency for a counterstrike, could we deter an EMP attack with the prospect of massive retaliation, especially because an EMP strike, with no immediate casualties, would seem as peaceful as snow in still air.

The trick in nuclear strategy is to maintain stability by balancing potentials and thus to discourage events from converting the hypothetical to the actual. Required in this case -- only one of many -- is the electronic hardening, redundancy and redesign of essential systems and networks; and missile defense, which would not only close the first-strike window by shielding our second-strike capacity from destruction but protect against an EMP strike directly and dissuade China in the first place by making its deterrent less certain.

Were we to proceed along these lines, we could diminish the chances that China might in the not-so-distant future be tempted to win a nuclear war without fighting a nuclear war. But given that we have ignored explicit warnings of the congressionally chartered EMP commission, what are the chances that we will act on an opinion we dare not even form? In regard to war and the sometimes counterintuitive actions for avoiding it, we are no longer either confident or clearsighted. What a pity to have come so far to find that our rivals and enemies all over the world can run rings around us because half of our politicians have lost their intelligence and the other half have lost their nerve.

Mark Helprin, a novelist, is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and a distinguished visiting fellow at Hillsdale College. This article will also appear in the Claremont Review of Books.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/02/AR2007030201402.html

[THE--EAGLE]

"What will you do if China attacks us and our drained military is in Iraq?"
that will never happen... China will never attack US.if China ever attacks USA it will be the end of human race .and humanity cannot afford another WW.
the only positive thing about nuclear bombs is that they prevent a confrantation of superpowers.

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IHT - China: The thuggery behind the harmonious facade

LETTER FROM CHINA
By Howard W. French
Friday, November 30, 2007

SHANGHAI: Last October, as Ma Shaofang prepared to travel from the Chinese city of Shenzhen to Beijing to attend a writers' conference, he received a menacing call from the police.

Why trouble a businessman who wants to attend a conference? The problem was that as a student hunger strike organizer during the Tiananmen protests in 1989, Ma had a "dossier" that still trails behind him wherever he goes in China.

The Chinese calendar is filled with special dates, "sensitive moments" whose association with events either historical or current put the authorities on alert and the people on guard.

October 2007 happened to be the month of the Communist Party's 17th Congress, a once-in-five years affair whose political significance is such that the capital is locked down, potential "troublemakers" rounded up and even the airwaves scrubbed with extra vigor by censors whose job it is to see that nothing can sully the image of a serene and clear-sighted leadership.

So with that backdrop in mind, the police "invited" Ma for tea. Ma's account of the meeting, which he recently published, and which was subsequently translated by the University of California at Berkeley's China Digital Times, offers a chilling glimpse of a Chinese reality that few foreigners ever see.

It is a side of China that not only persists, but also thrives. Of a state whose leaders are fond of proclaiming their attachment to advancing the rule of law but who cling to thuggery to intimidate the populace, silence critics and generally to enforce their will.

The police: You must be busy lately. Is business going well?

Ma: Enough of this. I've heard from the "relevant departments" that people like us are not allowed to make big bucks. We're just doing enough to make a living.

The police: We haven't bothered your business, have we?

Ma: Really? Unless I remember it wrong, you guys once talked to my partner and said, "if we see him dealing with your company, your business will end."

The police: That's because you did something we didn't want you to do. Over the last few years you haven't made any trouble for us, so we haven't made any trouble for you.

Ma: Is that so? You asked me to come here today. Isn't this trouble?

The police: How can you say this is trouble? We're friends. Isn't it O.K. to have a cup of tea together?

Ma: It's a pity we're not sitting here as friends. Enough beating around the bush, let's talk about why I am wanted here today.

The police: O.K., are you or are you not planning to go to Beijing soon?

Ma: I am. I'm flying there tomorrow. Any problem?

The police: You have to go?

Ma then insists that he is only going for business, and the police reply that if that's the case, they won't try to stop him. But they warn him, for good measure.

The police: We're just kindly reminding you. If you break the law, of course there are corresponding punishments, and it will surely not be like this, sitting here drinking tea.

Ma: You mean interrogation? I've already been through that. But what is this reminder, really, a warning or a threat?

The police: We're friends, and we don't want our friends to run into trouble.

Ma: But as I've said, we're not sitting here as friends. We are the ruler and the ruled.

It would be bad enough if such harassment were limited to former Tiananmen protesters, but goon tactics like these are widespread in China, and the thuggery doesn't stop there.

Chinese assistants for foreign news publications, for one, are regularly called in for debriefings over tea by state security agents who treat foreign journalists as intelligence targets and darkly wield an implicit threat about the consequences of noncooperation to squeeze information from local researchers.

This sort of thing pales, of course, in comparison to areas in which the authorities believe they enjoy more thorough impunity, where the use of fear and control over the media mean that their actions will remain cloaked in darkness.

In cities where huge urban redevelopment projects are underway, places like Shanghai, for example, residents who resist forced relocation without anything resembling due process are known to have been summoned to the police headquarters and retained there just long enough for the wrecking crews to knock down their homes in their absence.

Those who protest too much are often simply carted off to teach them a lesson.

Alternately, in another favored tactic, relatives are threatened that if their family member continues to be a nuisance, there could be consequences for others in the family.

Worse still is the contracting out of enforcement to genuine thugs. Here we're talking about local toughs who are deputed to take care of a "bad element," or suppress a demonstration using their fists or a few lengths of pipe. One could cite many examples, like Lu Banglie, who was badly beaten two years ago at Taishi, in Guangdong Province, when he brought a Western reporter with him to investigate the rigging of a village election.

This tactic, which seems to be spreading in China, has the advantage of deniability, since the police are usually careful to remain out of sight while heads are cracked.

Practices like these sometimes draw comparisons to the Wild West, but the more apt parallels belong to old-fashioned dictatorships like the Haiti of Papa Doc, with his notorious Tonton Macoutes.

Lawlessness in the name of the law has deep roots in China, with Mao Zedong, who unleashed wave after wave of vigilantism during the Cultural Revolution, undoubtedly rating as its greatest practitioner.

By contrast, this generation of Chinese leaders relishes stability above all, and an image of harmony and of enlightened modernity. But like their ceaselessly renewed battles against official corruption, the likelihood of reining in contemporary thuggishness seems remote. This is because the very officials who speak in euphemisms when addressing it are its ultimate beneficiaries.

E-mail: [e-mail]

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8539653

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CSM: Why China cracked down on my nonprofit

China should embrace, not antagonize, its able and caring NGO community.

By Nick Young
London
from the December 04, 2007 edition

Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1204/p09s01-coop.htm

"You can be the government of China's friend or our enemy; there is no other way."

This chilling message – and it is a direct quote – was delivered to me in Beijing this summer by an apparently high-ranking Chinese security official who would tell me only his surname: Song. He was, he said, "in charge of watching terrorism and NGOs," and he was offering me a real, not theoretical, choice. I could become an elite propagandist for China, or I would have to leave the country, where I had lived continuously for 12 years, and would never be allowed back.

On Sept. 26, after spending several weeks in Europe, I returned to Beijing and found that Mr. Song had spoken in earnest. Immigration authorities barred my entry, put me back on the plane to Helsinki, Finland, and canceled my multientry visa.

A worthy cause

My years in China were spent creating and growing a nonprofit newsletter, China Development Brief, which was subscribed to by a specialist readership of international aid agencies and China-watchers. We reported on efforts to achieve fair and sustainable development, sometimes taking international media and human rights organizations to task for facile and self-righteous China-bashing. In 2002, we added a Chinese-language edition, owned and run by a small team of Chinese writers who covered similar ground from their perspective for a readership of some 5,000 Chinese nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, and government staff.

Neither newsletter complied with China's highly restrictive publishing laws, which entail political controls that prevent the kind of objective and independent reporting that we offered. But we seemed to have found a lacuna of tolerance that, I believed, might presage the gradual advance of free expression.

Our work in Chinese was sometimes cited and even reprinted (without permission) by state-authorized media. I appeared as a guest expert on Chinese TV programs covering such topics as poverty reduction and public health. On several occasions, central-government officials sought my opinion on issues such as the development of a legal framework for China's nonprofit sector.

Tolerance evaporates

The tolerance evaporated this summer. In the past two years, prompted by concerns about "color revolutions" elsewhere, security agents had been keeping a close watch on China's civil society. It seems that a sweep of potential troublemakers was deemed overdue.

On July 4, our office was visited by a dozen officials, police, and security agents, who ordered us to stop publishing. They came wielding video cameras, which they directed at us while rifling through papers and questioning us. Ominously, one of the group boasted to my colleagues that his team was "fluent in foreign languages, including Arabic and Uighur" – the language of the Muslim majority in Xinjiang, China's northwest frontier province.

I was made to sign a statement admitting to "conducting unauthorized surveys" in contravention of laws that give the Chinese state a monopoly on information gathering. Colleagues on our Chinese edition were charged with distributing an unlicensed publication and subsequently fined 12,000 yuan (about $1,500).

The charges could have been more serious and the penalty much harsher, so it seems the idea was to apply the minimum force needed to close this small window of free speech. I had been preparing to move on and transition the organization to new management, and the action against us seemed timed to prevent this.

In mid-July our predicament was reported by the international press corps based in Beijing. I had not broken the story to the press, but I hoped the coverage might pressure the authorities into negotiating with us. It did indeed lead to the bizarre interview with Song.

He began by saying he had evidence of our links with Xinjiang separatist organizations. This opening gambit shows both how closely we had been monitored and how sensitive an issue Xinjiang is for Beijing. The "evidence" almost certainly referred to an e-mail exchange two years ago with a Uighur exile group. We contacted them while researching a report that, in the end, I did not publish because it had been too hard to find information that was both new and reliable.

I told Song this, adding that I believe Beijing is courting disaster in Xinjiang by using heavy-handed treatment against its Muslim population. China, I argued, should learn from rather than mimic the calamitous failures of Western countries in their relations with the Islamic world.

Preparing to make a deal

I was equally frank in discussing several other issues Song raised, for there seemed no point in trying to reach an understanding based on pretense.

Then came the offer. Song said he could provide funds to expand our publishing and make it "famous" while helping the world to understand China better. In return, I would have to report directly to him. But, he warned, I should never tell anyone of this conversation, not even my wife. And if I rejected the deal I would be permanently barred. Pledging obedience to a threatening stranger was not an attractive idea, but I asked for time to think about it.

Two days later I met with Song again, having consulted colleagues and agreed with them on a negotiating position. We were prepared to try copublishing with a relevant government agency, accepting some loss of editorial independence; but would insist that the lines of accountability and control be transparent. We could accept Chinese cofunding only on a joint-venture basis with international backers, as is typically the case in aid projects.

But I had no opportunity to suggest terms. The second interview, at which a high-ranking uniformed police officer was also present, was short and frigid. I was told emphatically that I had to obey local laws or my presence would not be tolerated. Song did not mention his previous offer and dismissed all efforts to broach the subject. A few days later I left the country, planning to return in September.

I do not know why the door to negotiation closed so abruptly. Chinese friends speculate that xenophobic forces had prevailed in a behind-the-scenes debate. Perhaps my views on Xinjiang were relayed to superiors who found them dangerous. Or it may be that surveillance after the first meeting found me less discreet than they wished.

Confusing friend with foe

In any case, the decision to bar me is a grim reflection on China's concept of security. I have consistently argued that China has a right to develop and that the West has a duty to help it find a sustainable path in a global environment already seriously hurt by Western development. To construe this as enmity, or to believe that a better relationship could be achieved by bribery and bullying, is not only absurd but also deeply worrying.

Most disturbing is that this primitive "friend or foe" logic is still applied not just to foreigners, but to Chinese people. Recent months have seen heightened surveillance of local NGOs and the forced closure of some, such as a "rural reconstruction" initiative led by the eminent People's University professor, Wen Tiejun. This is the government's way of "killing the chicken to scare the monkey," as the Chinese proverb goes. It's a signal to others to watch their step.

Even social-service providers meet senseless constraints, such as the refusal to allow Meng Weina, whose Hui Ling organization cares for special-needs youngsters, to take a group of clients to the closing ceremony of the Special Olympics in Shanghai.

Faced with rising social and economic inequalities, President Hu Jintao has promised to create a "harmonious society." This will not be helped by security officials harassing a growing NGO community that embraces many of the country's most thoughtful, able, and caring citizens. This is talent that China needs to encourage, not alienate. As in Xinjiang, heavy-handed "security" measures risk creating the very forces of opposition that the state fears.

• Nick Young worked as a journalist in Central America and Africa before founding China Development Brief.

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