Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Not since Pearl Harbor...



Storm'n Norm'n
As Obama Golfs and Fundraises, China Unveils First-Strike Nuclear Missile Targeting U.S. Cities
By Investor's Business Daily via Doug Ross Journal
Nuclear Threat: Beijing's strategic military buildup continues with the unveiling of a road-mobile missile capable of delivering up to 10 atomic warheads anywhere in America. Time to show some flexibility, Mr. President?
While President Obama was playing the back nine, and as it was confirmed that the Russians had developed a cruise missile, the R500, which violates 1987's Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, the Chinese were busy as well. They now have a mobile intercontinental nuclear missile with no other purpose than to make war against the U.S.
The announcement of the DF-41's existence was not exactly approved by the Chinese government. As the Telegraph reports, the inadvertent original government Web post appeared to have been deleted on Friday, but the Chinese newspaper Global Times, which seems to have a penchant for revealing Chinese military developments, posted a screen capture.
The Telegraph account notes that the DF-41 is designed to have a range of 7,500 miles, according to a report by Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems, putting it among the world's longest-range missiles.
The Pentagon said in a June report the new missile is "capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles," as many as 10.
One of the Pentagon's annual reports to Congress on China's military several years ago said Beijing had halted development of the DF-41. But after flight tests in 2012 and last December, the Pentagon revised its assessment.
"China also is developing a new road-mobile ICBM known as the Dong Feng-41 (DF-41), possibly capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV)," according to the latest report.
U.S. intelligence authorities, Bill Gertz reports in the Washington Free Beacon, regard the DF-41 as a first-strike weapon designed as a counter to existing U.S. missile defenses intended to deal only with missile threats from rogue North Korea and Iran.
"The emergence of the most recent image indicates that the DF-41 may now be in production," says Rick Fisher, a Chinese military expert with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
"If this is the case, then it is also likely that the first DF-41 unit is now building up."
Each Chinese ICBM unit, Fisher told the Beacon, operates with six or 12 launchers, and it is likely that all units include one reload missile for each launcher.
"The math is not comforting: Three DF-41 units could account for up to between 360 to720 new warheads," Fisher said, adding that China is quickly gathering the potential to achieve nuclear parity with the U.S.
Last fall, as we have noted, the Global Times published a report on how China's strategic missile submarines would attack the Western U.S.
What was chilling about the report is that it included photos and graphics detailing damage projections for Seattle and Los Angeles after they had been hit by Chinese nuclear warheads and the deadly radiation that would spread all the way to Chicago.
"The 12 JL-2 nuclear warheads carried by one single Type 094 SBYN can kill and wound 5 million to 12 million Americans," the Global Times reported. "If we launch our DF 31A ICBMs over the North Pole, we can easily destroy a whole list of metropolises on the East Coast and the New England region of the U.S., including Annapolis, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Portland, Baltimore and Norfolk, whose population accounts for about one-eighth of America's total residents."
While we deactivate entire ICBM squadrons to ensure compliance with the New Start Treaty with Russia, Moscow violates such agreements with impunity as its neighbor prepares to fight and win a nuclear war with the U.S.
We would suggest something bigger than a nine iron, Mr. President.
Read more at Investor's Business Daily
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As Obama Disarms America, China Unveils Another New, Hypersonic "Carrier Killer" Weapon System
National Security: Beijing is moving fast on a maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle designed to evade America's defenses, including the Aegis ballistic missile system guarding our carrier battle groups.
On Aug. 7, China conducted a second test of its hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), known as the WU-14, yet another example of its relentless pursuit of high-tech weaponry as the United States abandons what the administration dismisses as Cold War weaponry.
The first test, conducted in January, saw China's HGV reach speeds in the vicinity of Mach 10, about 10 times the speed of sound. In the latest test, according to Internet reports, the WU-14 was the upper stage of a missile launched from the Jiuquan satellite launch facility in China's western Gobi desert.
Strategic experts say that the importance of this weapons program cannot be understated. The Washington Free Beacon quotes Rick Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, as saying:
"Accelerated HGV testing could potentially allow China to develop a second-generation antiship ballistic missile (ASBM) warhead that is more maneuverable and more difficult to counter."
As we noted after the January test, development of the WU-14 comes on the heels of China's deployment of a "carrier-killer," the DF-21D, a road-mobile ASBM. This land-based missile is designed to track and target our carrier battle groups in the western Pacific with the help of satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles similar to our drones, as well as over-the-horizon radar.
While the DF-21D is a traditional ballistic missile, the WU-14 operates in near-space and functions more like a plane, albeit on steroids. "The beauty of the HGV," Fisher told the Free Beacon, "is that it can perform hypersonic precision strikes while maintaining a relatively low altitude and flat trajectory, making it far less vulnerable to missile defenses."
China seems to be in a hurry. "The decision to conduct a second WU-14 test only a few months after its first test shows China's commitment to fast-tracking this program," said Lora Saalman, specialist on Beijing's HGV development at the Carnegie Foundation.
"China's test of a hypersonic glide vehicle proves that America's reticence about China's high-tech military developments diminishes American security by detracting from a needed political debate about real American defense requirements," Fisher has warned. "We are in effect disarming ourselves."
Certainly administration budget cuts and the effects of sequestration have done little to enhance America's military capabilities. In contrast, the New York Times reports, China in March announced a 12.2% rise in this year's military budget over 2013, which itself was 10.3% over the year before that.
These are the actions of an ascending power intent on challenging the U.S., first in the western Pacific and then globally. It is building a blue-water navy complete with its own carrier battle groups.
Last fall, the Chinese newspaper Global Times boasted, "The 12 JL-2 nuclear warheads carried by one Type 094 SSBN (ship, submersible, ballistic, nuclear — i.e., a ballistic missile-carrying nuclear submarine) can kill and wound 5 to 12 million Americans." This announcement came complete with target maps.
As we've also noted, China recently unveiled a new road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, the DF-41, that can deliver 10 nuclear warheads to any target in the U.S. We have moved in the opposite direction, recently deactivating an entire ICBM missile squadron.
China has begun throwing its weight around, recently establishing an air defense identification zone over the Senkaku Islands near Okinawa, claimed by Japan. It has also laid claim to the Spratly and Paracel Island chains in the South China Sea, the entirety of which it treats as Chinese territorial waters.
Beijing's goal is to push the U.S. out of the western Pacific, establish regional dominance along the Pacific Rim and then push outward from there. It is not preparing for more constructive dialogue with the United States.

1 comment:

Findalis said...

I fear that all he is doing is preparing the US for being conquered by ISIS.