Mar.02 (China Military News cited from investors.com) — Geopolitics: As America unilaterally disarms, a Chinese officer in a new book touts a new reality — that China is prepared to rule the roost, and the U.S. better keep off the grass.
On April 5, 2009, in Prague, President Obama gave a speech in which he pledged America would work toward a “world without nuclear weapons.” Almost a year later, it seems we are moving toward a world without American nuclear weapons.
“To put an end to Cold War thinking,” the president said, “we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same.” The others, such as China, seem to have other plans.
Su-30MKK fighters of PLA Air Force
“China’s big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power,” People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Col. Liu Migfu writes in a newly published book, “The China Dream.” This dream could rapidly become America’s nightmare.
These are heady days for China, flush with American cash and holding large chunks of our debt.
China today has nearly $2.4 trillion in foreign exchange holdings, with roughly $1.6 trillion of that in dollar-based assets. It’s the No. 1 holder of U.S. debt in the world.
The Chinese military, infuriated by America’s sale of $6.4 billion in arms to Taiwan, recently wanted to dump some of China’s vast holdings of U.S. Treasury and corporate bonds on the market, hoping to punish us economically. China has too much at stake to do it, perhaps, but the threat is real. And in an actual crisis over Taiwan, who knows?
It would be easy to dismiss all of this as bluster, but we’d do so at our peril. China’s economic advancement and military buildup are real, as is the threat in both areas. The leadership in Beijing does not let its military speak so publicly and bluntly unless it wants to send a message that is clear and unmistakable.
Col. Liu argues that China should use its growing revenues to become the world’s biggest military power, to the point where the U.S. “would not dare and would not be able to intervene in military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.”
That possibility is increasingly real. As Defense Secretary Roberts Gates said in a recent speech to the Air Force Association: “Investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare (by China), anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, and ballistic missiles could threaten America’s primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific — in particular our forward air bases and carrier strike groups.”
Of specific concern is a new Chinese missile, the land-based DF-21. It’s the world’s first ballistic missile capable of hitting a moving target at sea and is designed to attack and sink U.S. carrier battle groups. The conventionally armed missile has maneuverable warheads and a range in excess of 1,000 miles.
Against this backdrop we see the U.S. almost unilaterally disarming. The administration ended financing for a new nuclear warhead to replace our aging inventory, and the BBC reports that the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review “will point to dramatic reductions in the stockpile.”
The new strategy will also seek to abandon Bush administration plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons known as bunker busters to penetrate hardened underground targets like the nuclear facilities in North Korea and Iran.
We have abandoned long-range, ground-based missile defense in Europe and cut planned deployment in Alaska and California. We have stopped production of the fifth-generation F-22 Raptor and have no plans for a follow-on strategic bomber or to replace our aging strategic missiles in their silos.
“I’m very pessimistic about the future,” writes another PLA officer, Col. Dai Xu, in another recently published book. “I believe that China cannot escape the calamity of war, and this calamity may come in the not-too-distant future, at most in 10 to 20 years.”
We are pessimistic about the future as well, given this administration’s defense and foreign policies. As the Chinese say, we live in interesting times.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
For nations to denuclearise would be tantamount to suicide
when the United States has conventional warfare superiority.
If anything, China and Russia should develop orbiting nuclear
warheads above the skies of the United States to circumvent
the US Missile Defence/Offence shields encircling China and Russia.
This in addition to increasing nuclear submarine force in the
Pacific/Atlantic oceans.
To be unprepared for a nuclear showdown would be strategically stupid.
US Global Tyranny dictates that Russia/China should pre-emptively
nuke the United States when the military encirclement by the U.S. is
near to completion.
Nuclear wars with the United States is simply inevitable and targeting
at least about 250 million American lives should be the main focus.
US Global Tyranny shall not remain unchecked for the sake of mankind.
Nuking the UNited States shall be the top priority of all nuclear
states and all aspiring ones too.
March 10th, 2010 at 2:14 am
“Nuking the UNited States shall be the top priority of all nuclear
states and all aspiring ones too.”
Yeah that would be an incredibly dumb move there, Einstein. Thermonuclear war generally isn’t very survivable for those who participate in it, or their neighbors, for that matter. Just sayin’.
March 11th, 2010 at 3:09 am
War is really a dead end. World war 2 proved this, it ended up wrecking the whole European continent. It also demonstrated that we have reached a point of technological developments of the art of war, where, we now have the ICBM, the computer and the nuclear bomb, and the modern navy (ships, subs etc). Any future big wars will use such devices to destroy whole civilizations.
Any fools stupid enough to want such wars deserve the label “village idiot”.
You may end up in a world of many cultures, but at least you will be alive. The exponential growth of science/technology gave us HDTV, the internet, multi-core computers etc. Now it will eventually give us really advanced nano-technologies that will make it possible for anybody to have a table-top assembler/disassemblers so that we may make any item and recycle that item ourselves, assisted by the internet so we may exchange designs etc. It will also bing on a new age of medicine where nanobots will fix every one of our cells in our bodies, eliminating diseases, reversing aging in old people etc. Now, why would you want wars now to happen? Whey are all the countries spending billions and trillions (1000 x 1-billion) per year (every year) on the world-wide war machine if it is eventually (in 10 to 20 years), going to kill most of us? It will only take 100 million to 1-billion to cure aging (in the next 10 years, faster if you spend a bit more money), see: http://www.mprize.org ( the mprize foundation, who supports university researchers world-wide on aging research.
Remember, the war tech from 50 years ago (the start of the cold war) can kill us now, what about war nanotech, what horrors of war could we make from that, would it not be better to make personal computers 1-million times more powerful than todays most powerful computers, or life extension nanotech.
There are over 1000 billionaires today which could fund the development of advanced life extension nanotech, many state governments could also do it many times over, yet we build more palaces, yaughts, etc.
Rich people and people in government have at their disposal vast resources able to fund crash programs to develop advanced nano/biotech that could help eliminate aging and re-define the medical landscape and also, make it much cheaper to provide advanced medical care to any given countries population (better come re-election time?). you just have to look around at the immense medical costs now a days (faced by the governments) in any developed country (using the best 20th century tech we now have) to see the problem we now have.
Remember, if you have a happy population, then everybody benefits!
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