China is now a "SuperPower!"

The US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, warned that China's steady military and economic expansion may ultimately lead to Beijing attaining superpower status while the United States steadly declines as a superpower.

"Globalization is causing a shift of momentum and energy to greater Asia, where China has steadily expanding reach and may become a superior competitor to the United States at some point," Negroponte said at a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on global security threats.

"Consistent high rates of economic growth, driven by exploding foreign trade, have increased Beijing's political influence abroad and fueled a military modernization program that has steadily increased Beijing's force projection capabilities," the US intelligence czar said.

In the foreign policy domain, China is focused for now on other Asian nations "where Beijing hopes to make economic inroads to increase political influence and to prevent a backlash against its rise," said Negroponte.
But he suggested however that China's sphere of influence will broaden over time.
"Beijing also has expanded diplomatic and economic interaction with other major powers, especially Russia and the European Union, and begun to increase its presence in Africa and Latin America," he said.

On the military front, Negroponte noted that China is "vigorously" pursuing a modernization program of its weapons systems.

China's runaway economic expansion is slowed however by "a number of difficult economic and legal problems," including corruption, a faulty education system, and environmental degradation.
"Beijing's biggest challenge is to sustain growth, sufficient to keep unemployment and rural discontent from rising to destabilizing levels, and to maintain increases in living standards," said Negroponte.
"Indeed, China's rise may be hobbled by systemic problems and the Communist Party's resistance to demands for political participation that economic growth generates," he said.
"Beijing's determination to repress real or perceived challenges, from dispossessed peasants to religious organizations, could lead to serious instability at home and less effective policies abroad."
At the same hearing, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, said China's military near future includes efforts "to expand and modernize all categories of its ballistic missile forces, to increase survivability and war-fighting capabilities, to enhance their deterrence value and to overcome ballistic missile defenses."
Michael Hayden, the deputy director of national security, said China's military buildup may exceed what is needed to protect their own security, and may be designed to defeat the United States in a military showdown.

"They have this perception, there's almost a momentum in Chinese thinking, that they are great powers. They clearly want and need to be viewed as a great power. As history has so bloodly shown..."Great powers feel they need certain things."

"They're not necessarily tied to a specific military event, either proposed or expected, but simply become the trappings of -- I'll use the word -- their global legitimacy.

China's hidden military buildup

Commercial satellite photos made public recently provide a new look at China's nuclear forces and bases -- images that include the first view of a secret underwater submarine tunnel. A Pentagon official said the photograph of the tunnel entrance reveals for the first time a key element of China's hidden military buildup. Similar but more detailed intelligence photos of the entrance are highly classified within the U.S. government, the official said. "The Chinese have a whole network of secret facilities that the U.S. government understands but cannot make public," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "This is the first public revelation of China's secret buildup." Satellite images from 2000 to 2004, show China's Xia-class ballistic missile submarine docked at the Jianggezhuang base, located on the Yellow Sea in Shandong province. Nuclear warheads for the submarine's 12 JL-1 missiles are thought to be stored inside an underwater tunnel that was photographed about 450 meters to the northwest of the submarine. The high-resolution satellite photo shows a waterway leading to a ground-covered facility. Other images show additional underground military facilities, including the Feidong air base in Anhui province with a runway built into a nearby hill. The images were obtained by the nonprofit groups Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Federation of American Scientists. The photos first appeared Friday in the winter edition of the quarterly newsletter Imaging Notes. The images are sharp enough to identify objects on the ground about 3 feet in size. Such digital images were once the exclusive domain of U.S. technical intelligence agencies, but in recent years, commercial companies have deployed equally capable space-based cameras. Disclosure of the underground bases supports analyses of Pentagon and intelligence officials who say China is engaged in a secret military buildup that threatens U.S. interests, while stating publicly that its forces pose no threat.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said during a trip to China in October that Beijing was sending "mixed signals" by building up forces in secret and without explaining their purpose.

Adm. Gary Roughead, commander of the Navy's Pacific Fleet, said he DID consider China "a threat." But he also said in a speech Tuesday that China's purpose behind its rapid military buildup is not fully known. "That's a little unclear," he said, noting that "increased transparency" is needed from China. The photographs included several shots of Chinese H-6 strategic bombers and related aerial refueling tankers at Dangyang airfield in Hubei province. Also, 70 nuclear-capable Qian-5 aircraft were photographed parked at an airfield in Jianqiao, Zhejiang province, on the East China Sea coast.

The Pentagon's four-year strategy report made public earlier this month stated that China is emerging as a power with "the greatest potential to attack the United States." The report stated that Beijing is investing heavily in "strategic [nuclear] arsenal and capabilities to project power beyond its borders." The report did not provide specifics. U.S. officials said, however, that the secrecy of the Chinese buildup has fueled a debate within the U.S. government over the threat posed by that country.

U.S. intelligence agencies recently produced a National Intelligence Estimate, or major interagency analysis, that concluded China is using strategic deception to fool the United States and other nations about its goals and programs, including its military buildup.

Pentagon officials have asked China to allow visits to underground facilities such as the submarine tunnel and a command center in Beijing, but either the requests were denied or the existence of the sites was denied. "The Chinese have denied having any underground submarine facilities," the Pentagon official said, noting that the satellite photos indicate that China has misled the United States. Underground submarine sites are one of 10 major types of facilities hidden by the Chinese military, U.S. officials said. The others include nuclear missile storage facilities, other weapons plants, command centers and political leadership offices. In 2004, China revealed the first of a new class of submarines. The development of the Yuan-class submarines was kept secret through the use of an underground factory in south-central China, the officials said. Since 2002, Beijing has deployed 14 submarines. And it is working on a new ballistic-missile submarine, known as the Jin class, and two new Shang-class attack submarines.

According to a classified Defense Intelligence Agency assessment, China's nuclear forces
include about 45 long-range missiles, 12 submarine-launched missiles and about 100 short-range missiles -- each with a single warhead. By 2020, China's arsenal will include up to 220 long-range missiles, up to 44 submarine-launched missiles and up to 200 short-range missiles, the DIA report stated. Richard Fisher, a China military analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said that in addition to the northern submarine base, China also has a major submarine base at Yulin, on Hainan island in the South China Sea. The southern base gives Chinese missile submarines easier access to firing upon AMERICAN CITIES.

America will be attacked by a China-Russian alliance. You can take that to the Bank!!!

Robert A.

Laughing all the way to the Bank

The first 12 aircraft of the F-22 Raptor advanced tactical fighter entered service with the U.S. Air Force in mid-January 2006. The delivery of the new U.S. fighter triggered a heated debate regarding the U.S. technological superiority over the armies of other countries. Russia has traditionally built military equipment on a par with U.S.-made military machines. Now, the Americans also have the Chinese who are now not far behind the Americans in military aviation technology.

In the past, Russian military equipment exceeded the American one in terms of combat efficiency. In July 2006 the Russian's will field a new fighter capable of competing against the F-22 Raptor.

Experts say that the F-22 Raptor is a milestone in the development of the U.S. Air Force. The fighter is equipped with the radar that uses an active electronically scanned antenna array of 2,000 transmitter/receive modules, which provides agility, low radar cross-section, and bandwidth. The F-22 Raptor can fly at sustained supersonic speeds without the use of afterburner. The aircraft has a high multi-mission capability in ground attack as well as air-to-air roles.
The U.S. military information website Strategypage released a previously unpublished report by now defunct British Defense Evaluation and Research Agency. The report says that the F-22 Raptor is superior to Russia’s newest Su-35 fighter. A real combat casualty ratio between the F-22 and the Su-35 would be 1 by 10 at the very least. However, the report did trigger a gusher of euphoria in the U.S.
One F-22 Raptor costs $133.1 million while one Su-35 costs $30-$38 million. Even the U.S. can not afford such huge costs.

To save up $2.6 billion for funding 180 F-22’s, the Pentagon has already cut 33 reconnaissance aircraft U-2 Dragon Lady, 55 strike aircraft F-117 Stealth (the entire fleet), and 76 passenger aircraft C-21 Learjet. The military also reduced the fleet of bombers B-52 Stratofortress by 40 percent. The USAF had an initial plan for purchasing 648 aircraft.

The F-22 Raptor was originally built for combat against similar enemy aircraft, which were built only in the Soviet Union/Russia. The lack of the enemy resulted in a decrease of the number of F-22’s purchased by the Pentagon.

The USAF has recently conducted a joint exercise with the Indian Air Force. The U.S. F-15C/D’s simulated combat against several Russian-made Su-30MKi, MiG-27, MiG-29 and even pretty obsolete MiG-21 Bison, which defeated the U.S. F-22 Raptors totally and utterly. U.S. General Hal Homburg, head of the USAF Air Combat Command, said that the result of the exercise was a big surprise to the American pilots.

Commander in Chief of the Russian Air Force Vladimir Mikhailov said recently that Russia’s reply to the “American miracle” would be on the wing at the end of 2006. The demonstration prototype aircraft, designated I-21, has been successfully tested in a wind tunnel. The aircraft’s avionics and engine were on display at last year’s air and space show in Zhukovsky, near Moscow. Russian designers maintain that the avionics and engine of the new aircraft are not worse, and probably even better than those used in the U.S. aicraft

In the End..the Russians are laughing all the way to the Bank!!!

America's Inferiority is becoming Apparent

New Asian Naval Exercises Announced!

February 15, 2006 Amid persistent warnings about China's growing military clout, the US military said Tuesday it would hold one of its biggest naval exercises in the Asia Pacific this summer.
The large-scale operations will involve several carrier strike groups, each of which includes at least three warships, an attack submarine and a support ship.
Four carriers would be involved in three military maritime exercises -- one of them touted as the world's largest -- between June and August in the region, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet Admiral Gary Roughead said in Washington.

Two of the exercises are expected to be largely confined to US forces and held in the Western Pacific while the third involving navies from at least eight countries, including Australia, Chile, Japan, South Korea and Peru, would occur near the Hawaiian Islands.

While the war games would boost bilateral and multilateral cooperation and improve military preparedness, it "and clearly shows that American military might is still a deterrent for anyone who would wish us ill," Roughead told a forum organized by the US-based Asia Society, which aims to bridge ties between the two sides of the Pacific.

A major Pentagon review of US military strategy earlier this month singled out China as the country with the greatest potential to challenge the United States militarily.
The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), conducted every four years, said a key goal for the US military in the coming years will be to "shape the choices of countries at a strategic crossroads."
The QDR report noted China's secretive military buildup since 1996.

Some analysts also see recent China-Russian joint war-games as an unmistakable sign of China's semi-secret desire to wrest military and economic power in the Asia-Pacific region from the United States.

It has been at least 10 years since four aircraft carriers have operated in the Pacific Ocean at one time. His spokesman Navy Captain Matt Brown said it could be the largest combined aircraft carrier operations in the Pacific since the Vietnam War.

Aside from the Japan-based Kitty Hawk, the other carriers to be involved in the exercises are the San Diego-based Ronald Reagan and one more each from the Pacific and Atlantic fleets.

Elaborating on the exercises, Brown said, "As the QDR mentioned, it is important for us to be focusing on the our ability to wage war in the Pacific theater.