Echoes of the past as Moscow's Victory Day parade stirs memories of a previous anti-American alliance
May 9, 2015
Vladimir Putin, centre, and Xi Jinping, third left, watch the Victory Parade in Red Square, Moscow
At first sight, things look very different now. When President Xi Jinping of China took pride of place next to Vladimir Putin of Russia on Saturday, they looked like any other modern world leaders: pragmatic men-in-suits, full of smiles, temporary possessors of power rather than dictators-for-life.
Back in 1949, when Chairman Mao Tse-tung paid his first visit to Moscow to celebrate Comrade Joseph Stalin's 70th Birthday, it was a paean of old-school Communism.
Children in Young Pioneer uniforms paraded through the Bolshoi Opera House telling of their ambition to become tractor drivers. Mao wore a "Mao suit" and Stalin military uniform. Both men looked grumpy.
But the two events, six decades apart, have a clear parallel. Once again, the Russia-China axis is the main threat to the West's vision of peaceful and prosperous international relations.
Alongside Mr Xi were Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Raúl Castro of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela: standouts against what Mr Putin called a unipolar world, his code phrase for the spread of western-style democracy.
In itself, there isn't much new to this. China has been railing against a "unipolar world" for a decade. Mr Putin and his allies all have their reasons for disliking the West's tendency to set a high store on open elections, a free press and "cooperative" foreign policies.
What is stark is that Russia and China are now openly stating their intention to stand together to lead such an alliance.
The history is a patchy one. In 1949, Mao felt snubbed by Stalin, who regarded him as just another leader of a Soviet-backed Communist satellite rather than an equal.
Mao's subsequent falling-out with Stalin's successors led to the US-China rapprochement following President Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972. The new détente helped defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
Twenty years ago, when both Presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin of China stood alongside Boris Yeltsin at the 1995 Moscow Victory Day parade, the power relations were self-evident.
A self-confident America knew that Russia was no longer a threat, while China was dependent for its economic growth on American spending power and investment.
Yesterday in Moscow there was no America – something Washington may come to regret – and there was no doubt whose smile was most confident.
Mr Xi finds himself in a diplomatic sweet spot. It is Mr Putin who gets the flak for standing up to Nato in Ukraine, for supporting the Assad regime in Syria, for threatening to sell air defence systems to Iran.
But it is China who is the ultimate winner, as America's attention is diverted from Beijing's expansion across the South China Sea.
China is openly developing a naval strategy aimed at challenging American dominance of the western Pacific, including in the waters around Japan and Taiwan.
Unlike Chairman Mao, Mr Xi is happy to be seen to play second fiddle on the podium in Moscow. With China now the rising power, he has no doubt as to where the balance of power will lie between China and Russia in years to come. Shows of Russian strength like yesterday's serve his interests, as much as Mr Putin's.
The Victory Day parade at Red Square in Moscow, Russia
Russia is reportedly set to begin construction of the Lider-class destroyer in 2019, with this possibly including the use of a Chinese-developed nuclear propulsion system. The new ship has a reported displacement of 17,500 tons and a length of 200 meters. The country is also intending to construct an additional aircraft carrier from 2025, to augment the one carrier already in service with the Russian Navy.
Russian Navy plans to begin construction of a new Lider-class destroyer in 2019, Navy Commander-in-Chief Adm. Viktor Chirkov told reporters
June 21, 2015
The Russian Navy unveiled Lider's designs at the Army-2015 international military technical forum earlier this week.
According to the description, the vessel will have a displacement of approximately 17,500 tons, with a length of 200 meters and a breadth of 20 meters.
The destroyer may be armed with up to 60 anti-ship cruise missiles, 128 anti-aircraft guided missiles, and 16 anti-ship guided missiles.The vessel may reach a speed of 30 knots and operate to up to 90 days without support.
"We plan to start construction of a Lider destroyer in 2019. We are currently carrying out design work," Chirkov said.
He added that the capabilities of the new destroyers would be comparable with the capabilities of a cruiser.
Russia is currently undergoing a $325-billion rearmament program for a 70-percent increase in its military's modern weaponry by 2020.
Marine Commandant Joseph Dunford: Forget ISIS, Russia Is Greatest Threat To National Security
General Joseph Dunford said that Russia — and not ISIS — poses the greatest existential threat to our national security while testifying at a Senate Armed Services committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
DUNFORD: In Russia, we have a nuclear power. We have one that not only has the capability to violate the sovereignty of our allies and to do things that are inconsistent with our national interests … So if you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat toward the United States, then I would point to Russia, and if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.
Gen. Dunford — who was on the Hill to be confirmed as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — listed ISIS as America’s fourth-largest threat, behind Russia, China and North Korea. Dunford also noted that “allowing sequestration cuts to go into effect later this year,” would greatly reduce military’s ability to safeguard national security, Washington Times reports.
DUNFORD: I believe we’re at the razor’s edge. Our readiness level is at the point now where if we were to go below this level, we would have to adjust the ends of our strategy.
Thank God for the United States Marine Corps! Some common sense in the brass is always good to see. Semper Fi!
In May, the Russian Federation and the Peoples Republic of China will be held the first joint Russian-Chinese computer command-staff exercise on missile defense, "Air and Space Security 2016" on the basis of the Central Research Institute of troops Aerospace Defense Russian Ministry of Defense to address the heads of military departments .
The main purpose of the event - development of joint action quickly create groups and missile defense between Russia and China on protection of territories from accidental bumps and provocative ballistic and cruise missiles.
This exercise is not directed against any third party.
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The US authorities are concerned about resurgent Russia and aggressive China, US Air Combat Command Commander, Gen. Herbert Carlisle said. In an interview with The USA Today, Carlisle claimed that Chinese and Russian military aircraft have been making an increasing amount of sorties to intercept American aircraft. "Our concern is a resurgent Russia and a very, very aggressive China," Carlisle said Sunday.
According to him, Russia is striving to determine its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, while China is doing the same in the South China Sea. "Their intent is to get us not to be there... So that the influence in those international spaces is controlled only by them.
My belief is that we cannot allow that to happen. We have to continue to operate legally in international airspace and international waterways," Carlisle stated. He added, though, that the sides need to maintain close contact with each other to prevent the growth of tensions in the world and resolve misunderstandings.
American experts are certain that Russia and China rapidly reduce the technological backlog of their armies,
The Hill wrote. The new weapons that Russia and China have been developing during the recent years is capable of detecting and destroying targets very effectively. Russia and China thus want to make US forces retreat from their borders, the publication added.
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Chairman of the Chinese Chapter of the Russian-Chinese Committee of Friendship, Peace and Development Dai Bingguo, center, shakes hands with Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, attends the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, May 31, 2016. The Russian International Affairs Council hosts a Russia-China conference ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit to China in June. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's foreign minister says President Vladimir Putin's planned trip to China will give powerful new impulse to ties between the two nations.
Speaking Tuesday at a Moscow conference, Sergey Lavrov described expanding ties with China as Russia's top foreign policy priority.
Lavrov said the two nations share opposition to a unipolar world, a veiled reference to perceived U.S. global domination.
He added that Moscow and Beijing oppose "double standards" as well as attempts at "diktat and blackmail" in global affairs.
Amid a bitter strain in Russia-West relations over the Ukrainian crisis, the Kremlin has sought to bolster ties with Beijing to soften the impact of Western sanctions.
Putin is set to visit China in June on a trip intended to further boost cooperation in the energy sphere and other areas.
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China steps up 'military cooperation' with Assad along with Russia as top Chinese admiral visits Damascus Syrian defence minister Lt Gen Fahd Jasem al-Freij (second right) hosted a Chinese delegation in Damascus earlier this week Credit: AFP/Getty Images China is to step up personnel training and humanitarian assistance to President Bashar al Assad’s Syrian government, state media reported on Thursday, in a signal of growing concern in Beijing about the course of Syria’s civil war.
Rear Admiral Guan Youfei, who heads China's office for international military cooperation, met Lt. General Fahd Jassem al-Frejj, the Syrian defence minister, in Damascus earlier this week, the Xinhua news agency said.
The Chinese military is “willing to strengthen cooperation with its Syrian counterparts,” the agency quoted the defence ministry as saying.
“They reached consensus on improving personnel training, and the Chinese military offering humanitarian aid to Syria,” the Xinhua report said of the Damascus meeting.
Syria's war children: a generation that only knows conflict Play! 01:37
Xinhua said Adm. Guan also met Lt. General Sergei Chvarkov, the Russian general in charge of the reconciliation centre Russia set up earlier this year to monitor a short-lived ceasefire between the government and rebel groups.
The Russian defence ministry was not immediately available for comment. Russia entered the war in Syria on Assad’s side in September 2015.
The Global Times, a paper published by the ruling Communist Party, said advisors are already on the ground in Syria to train regime forces in the use of Chinese-bought weapons including sniper rifles, rocket launchers, and machine guns.
Syrians reveal what life is like under Islamic State Play! 01:24
China has been selling weapons to Syria for decades and has joined Russia in blocking resolutions critical of the regime at the United Nations Security Council.
It has avoided further entanglement, however, and is currently the only permanent member of the Security Council not involved in military operations in Syria.
“The dispatch of senior Chinese military personnel suggests a deeper involvement and a more strategic angle,” to the Syrian crisis said Michal Meidan, an associate fellow at Chatham House and Asia analyst at Energy Aspects.
China sources about half its oil and gas from the Middle East, mostly from Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, which back opposing sides in the multi-sided conflict. Beijing is unlikely to risk alienating any of those powers by becoming militarily involved in the conflict.
The visit may be intended as a diplomatic poke in the eye for the United States amid mounting tensions over Chinese territorial ambitions in the South China Sea, Ms Meidan said.
Chinese involvement in the Syrian war would further complicate a multi-sided conflict that has drawn in most of the world’s major powers.
Russia began flying bombing missions out of Iran this week, in a move likely to complicate plans to fly joint missions with the United States against Islamic State and other terror groups.
The tangle of loyalties was further confused on Thursday when Syrian regime jets bombed Kurdish fighters who are also fighting the Islamic State terrorist group.
The strikes in the divided city of Hasakeh were the first such attacks against a Kurdish-held area of Syria. They come after clashes broke out between Kurdish and pro-government militia in the city on Wednesday.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy on Syria, suspended a humanitarian task force into the country's besieged areas on Thursday, citing continued violence and demanding a two-day ceasefire to bring supplies to civilians in conflict zones such as Aleppo.
Russia’s ministry of defence said it would consider a 48-hour “humanitarian pause” around Aleppo next week, but did not set specific dates for the ceasefire.
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The United States discarded its oft-misunderstood “two war” doctrine, intended as a template for providing the means to fight two regional wars simultaneously, late last decade. Designed to deter North Korea from launching a war while the United States was involved in fighting against Iran or Iraq (or vice versa,) the idea helped give form to the Department of Defense’s procurement, logistical and basing strategies in the post–Cold War, when the United States no longer needed to face down the Soviet threat. The United States backed away from the doctrine because of changes in the international system, including the rising power of China and the proliferation of highly effective terrorist networks.
But what if the United States had to fight two wars today, and not against states like North Korea and Iran? What if China and Russia sufficiently coordinated with one another to engage in simultaneous hostilities in the Pacific and in Europe?
Political Coordination
Could Beijing and Moscow coordinate a pair of crises that would drive two separate U.S. military responses? Maybe, but probably not. Each country has its own goals, and works on its own timeline. More likely, one of the two would opportunistically take advantage of an existing crisis to further its regional claims. For example, Moscow might well decide to push the Baltic States if the United States became involved in a major skirmish in the South China Sea.
In any case, the war would start on the initiative of either Moscow or Beijing. The United States enjoys the benefits of the status quo in both areas, and generally (at least where great powers are concerned) prefers to use diplomatic and economic means to pursue its political ends. While the U.S. might create the conditions for war, Russia or China would pull the trigger.
Flexibility
On the upside, only some of the requirements for fighting in Europe and the Pacific overlap. As was the case in World War II, the U.S. Army would bear the brunt of defending Europe, while the Navy would concentrate on the Pacific. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) would play a supporting role in both theaters.
Russia lacks the ability to fight NATO in the North Atlantic, and probably has no political interest in trying. This means that while the United States and its NATO allies can allocate some resources to threatening Russia’s maritime space (and providing insurance against a Russian naval sortie,) the U.S. Navy (USN) can concentrate its forces in the Pacific.
Depending on the length of the conflict and the degree of warning provided, the United States could transport considerable U.S. Army assets to Europe to assist with any serious fighting.
The U.S. military would be under strong pressure to deliver decisive victory in at least one theater as quickly as possible. This might push the United States to lean heavily in one direction with air, space and cyber assets, hoping to achieve a strategic and political victory that would allow the remainder of its weight to shift to the other theater. Given the strength of U.S. allies in Europe, the United States might initially focus on the conflict in the Pacific.
Alliance Structure
U.S. alliance structure in the Pacific differs dramatically from that of Europe. Notwithstanding concern over the commitment of specific U.S. allies in Europe, the United States has no reason to fight Russia apart from maintaining the integrity of the NATO alliance. If the United States fights, then Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom will follow. In most conventional scenarios, even the European allies alone would give NATO a tremendous medium term advantage over the Russians; Russia might take parts of the Baltics, but it would suffer heavily under NATO airpower, and likely couldn’t hold stolen territory for long. In this context, the USN and USAF would largely play support and coordinative roles, giving the NATO allies the advantage they needed to soundly defeat the Russians. The U.S. nuclear force would provide insurance against a Russian decision to employ tactical or strategic nuclear weapons.
The United States faces more difficult problems in the Pacific. Japan or India might have an interest in the South China Sea, but this hardly guarantees their participation in a war (or even the degree of benevolence of their neutrality.) The alliance structure of any given conflict would depend on the particulars of that conflict; any of the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan or Taiwan could become China’s primary target. The rest, U.S. pressure aside, might well prefer to sit on the sidelines. This would put extra pressure on the United States to establish dominance in the Western Pacific with its own assets.
Parting Shots
The United States can still fight and win two major wars at the same time, or at least come near enough to winning that neither Russia nor China would see much hope in the gamble. The United States can do this because it continues to maintain the world’s most formidable military, and because it stands at the head of an extremely powerful military alliance. Moreover, Russia and China conveniently pose very different military problems, allowing the United States to allocate some of its assets to one, and the rest to the other.
However, it bears emphasis that this situation will not last forever. The United States cannot maintain this level of dominance indefinitely, and in the long-term will have to choose its commitments carefully. At the same time, the United States has created an international order that benefits many of the most powerful and prosperous countries in the world; it can count on their support, for a while.
Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Information Dissemination and the Diplomat.
Image: A B-1B Lancer soars over the Pacific Ocean as it maneuvers in for aerial refueling by a KC-135 Stratotanker on September 30, 2005. Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Air Force
Trying to find a winning scenario against Russia alone in the Baltic's without China...
“Our question was: Would NATO be able to defend those countries?,” Ochmanek recalls.
The results were dispiriting. Given the recent reductions in the defense budgets of NATO member countries and U.S. pullback from the region, Ochmanek says the NATO team was outnumbered 2-to-1 in terms of manpower, even if all the U.S. and NATO troops stationed in Europe were dispatched to the Baltics — including the 82nd Airborne, which is supposed to be ready to go on 24 hours’ notice and is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
“We just don’t have those forces in Europe,” Ochmanek explains. Then there’s the fact that the Russians have the world’s best surface-to-air missiles and are not afraid to use heavy artillery.
After eight hours of gaming out various scenarios, “the conclusion,” Ochmanek says, “was that we are unable to defend the Baltics.”
Ochmanek decided to run the game on a second day. The teams played the game again, this time working on the assumption that the United States and NATO had already started making positive changes to their force posture in Europe. Would anything be different? The conclusion was slightly more upbeat, but not by much. “We can defend the capitals, we can present Russia with problems, and we can take away the prospect of a coup de main,” Ochmanek says. “But the dynamic remains the same.” Even without taking into account the recent U.S. defense cuts, due to sequestration, and the Pentagon’s plan to downsize the Army by 40,000 troops, the logistics of distance were still daunting. U.S. battalions would still take anywhere from one to two months to mobilize and make it across the Atlantic, and the Russians, Ochmanek notes, “can do a lot of damage in that time.”
Ochmanek has run the two-day table-top exercise eight times now, including at the Pentagon and at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, with active-duty military officers. “We played it 16 different times with eight different teams,” Ochmanek says, “always with the same conclusion.”
When asked about Ochmanek’s conclusions, a Defense Department official expressed confidence that, eventually, NATO would claw the territory back. “In the end, I have no doubt that NATO will prevail and that we will restore the territorial integrity of any NATO member,” the official said. “I cannot guarantee that it will be easy or without great risk. My job is to ensure that we can reduce that risk.”
That is, the Pentagon does not envision a scenario in which Russia doesn’t manage to grab some Baltic territory first. The goal is to deter — Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced this summer that the United States would be sending dozens of tanks, armored vehicles, and howitzers to the Baltics and Eastern Europe — and, if that fails, to painstakingly regain NATO territory.
The Pentagon is also chewing on various hybrid warfare scenarios, and even a nuclear one. The senior defense official says, “As you look at published Russian doctrine, I do believe people are thinking about use of tactical nuclear weapons in a way that hadn’t been thought about for many years . . . . The doctrine clearly talks about it, so it would be irresponsible . . . to at least not be thinking through those issues. Any time there is nuclear saber rattling, it is always a concern, no matter where it comes from.”
Note: German public television ZDF reports on Sept. 22, 2015, thatthe U.S. will station 20 new atomic weapons, B61-12, in Germany. Each B61-12 has four times the destructive power of the one that was used on Hiroshima in 1945. “With the new bombs the boundaries blur between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons,” Hans Kristensen, the Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told ZDF.
There is a strong element of disappointment among senior foreign-policy and security officials in these discussions, of disbelief that we ended up here after all those good years in America’s relations with Russia.
The State Department official says: “A lot of people at the Pentagon are unhappy about the confrontation. They were very happy with the military-to-military cooperation with Russia.” Some think that Russia is a distraction from the real threat — China. Others think that working with Russia on arms control is more important than protecting Ukrainian sovereignty. Not only would they rather not have to think about Moscow as an enemy, but many are also miffed that even making these plans plays right into Putin’s paranoid fantasies about a showdown between Russia and NATO or between Russia and the United States — which makes those fantasies, de facto, a reality. In the U.S. planning for confrontation with Russia, says the Senate staffer, Putin “is getting the thing he always wanted.”
In his July confirmation hearing to ascend to the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford said that Russia posed an “existential threat” to the United States and that America must do more to prepare itself for hybrid warfare of the type Russia deployed in Ukraine. Dunford’s statement angered the Obama White House, which saw it as potentially provocative to Moscow.
The fact that U.S. repeatedly lost in the Pentagon’s own war games against Russia could explain why, according to a Sept. 25, 2015 article on the Russian news site, SvetKolemnas.Info, a “summary report of the Russian Ministry of Defense for the internal needs of the Kremlin” states that within three weeks after President Putin orders a “first strike” against America and its NATO allies, the military forces of the Russian Federation will achieve “a total defeat” of U.S. military forces, including:
The destruction of all 18 US aircraft carriers and ships capable of carrying aircraft, and of all US and NATO military satellites.
The strategic takeover of heavy weapons.
The “erasing” of all US bases in the UK.
The total loss of US and NATO troops of over 35,000 (dead, wounded, captured and missing), and material losses of at least 15 trillion dollars (ships, aircraft, weapons, etc.)
The report envisions that after Russia achieved tactical superiority over US and NATO forces during the first 24 hours of the war, Moscow would issue a demand for the removal of all US forces, nuclear weapons and equipment from Europe, in exchange for a cessation of hostilities.
(NationalSecurity.news) A resurgent and aggressive Russia has created new concerns among Pentagon officials, leading them to dust off Cold War-era plans for dealing with Moscow’s improved forces. But when war-gaming long-forgotten scenarios under today’s conditions, Defense Department planners have made a shocking discovery: The U.S. military routinely comes up on the losing end of any conflict with Russian troops, Foreign Policy (FP) reported Monday.
To be sure, the Pentagon is always generating contingency plans for every possible scenario – from armed confrontation with Iran and North Korea to stopping zombie attacks (not a joke). As FP notes, those plans are then ranked and honed depending on priority and probability.
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, conflict with Russia and former Soviet satellite states dropped off the radar and, for the past two decades essentially sat on a shelf gathering dust.
Now, however, as Russia becomes more active in Eastern Europe and more aggressive in Ukraine and Syria, Pentagon planners have begun revisiting old Cold War scenarios, according to several officials in the State and Defense departments, FP reported. Specifically, those plans are being updated “to reflect a new, post-Crimea-annexation geopolitical reality in which Russia is no longer a potential partner, but a potential threat,” the magazine reported online.
“Given the security environment, given the actions of Russia, it has become apparent that we need to make sure to update the plans that we have in response to any potential aggression against any NATO allies,” one senior defense official familiar with the updated plans said.
“Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine made the US dust off its contingency plans,” added Michèle Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense for policy and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security. “They were pretty out of date.”...
When asked two weeks ago in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee whether the Army was “outranged” by any adversary, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milleysaid: “Yes … the ones in Europe, really Russia. We don’t like it, we don’t want it, but yes, technically [we are] outranged, outgunned on the ground.”
Given Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, this is sobering testimony. But is it accurate? Unfortunately, yes: Nearly two years of extensive wargaming and analysis shows that if Russia were to conduct a short-warning attack against the Baltic States, Moscow’s forces could roll to the outskirts of the Estonian capital of Tallinn and the Latvian capital of Riga in 36 to 60 hours. In such a scenario, the United States and its allies would not only be outranged and outgunned, but also outnumbered...
Frustrated and thinking about going nuclear against Russia?
Russian president Vladimir Putin announced on Tuesday that Russia’s nuclear force will receive 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles. These new missiles will be capable of overcoming any most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems, the Russian president said.
The announcement from Mr Putin should serve as a stark warning that Russia has never stopped advancing its nuclear capabilities after the Cold War. The country may have reached a point at present where it possesses nuclear weapons far more advanced than U.S.
Russia is constructing its amphibious assault ship that is capable of carrying 500 troopers and 40-60 military units. It has recently paraded a first-of-its-kind six-zone tank. It has developed the Lada submarine that could remain submerged for up to 25 days. In 2013, the country began developing supersonic precision weapons and as far back as 2011 it is developing missiles which the West dubbed as “Satan.”
The U.S. on the other hand stopped its innovations of nuclear warheads in the decades after winning the Cold War.
Late in 2014, then defense secretary Chuck Hagel announced a proposal of $1.5 to $15 billion a year worth of maintenance to the government’s nuclear arsenals. Before his resignation, he admitted that the U.S. Air Force and Navy had been busy with other security issues that nuclear infrastructures and maintenance have deteriorated through the years.
Russia’s new missile unbeatable even to the most advanced of anti-missile defense systems
“This year we will supply more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to our nuclear force. They will be capable of overcoming any most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems,” Mr Putin said in his opening address during the ARMY-2015 International Military-Technical Forum.
His announcement did not stop there.
“In April, we launched full-scale work on the radar station in Armavir. In the next few months, we are to test a new radar unit for over-the-horizon airborne target detection. It will eventually control the western strategic area. We will start building a similar unit this year for the eastern area,” Mr Putin said.
He said Russian troops will be equipped with new armored vehicles designed after the Armata, Kurganets, Boomerang and Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled units.
“Combat capabilities of these machines are unrivaled,” he said.
Mr Putin said that the combat capabilities of Russia’s Air Forces and Navy will be constantly upgraded.
“This year a new strategic submarine cruiser Vladimir Monomakh will go on combat duty. We will increase our surface fleet and the aviation component,” he said.
New Amphibious assault ship
Russia has recently launch a project to develop a new amphibious assault ship with a displacement of 14,000 tons, capable of carrying up to eight Ka-52K and Ka-27 helicopters. It will be armed Pantsir-M anti-aircraft complex. It will be 25 meters wide and 165 meters long. Its construction is set to begin in 2016, a source told political newspaper Pravda on condition of anonymity.
T-14 Armata, the newest six zone tank
On May 9, Russia paraded a new six-zone tank, T-14. The tank, a first-of-its-kind, can avoid collision with its radar that can detect enemies as far as 100 km. It can destroy approaching threats in automatic mode. It can also avoid detection, avoid target acquisition and avoid hits from the enemy. In the instance that the tank is shelled, its armor can avoid penetration, hence avoiding destruction that can kill the crew inside.
The new Russian submarine can remain submerged in water for 25 days. The only submarines that come close to this capability are submarines from Germany that can only last underwater for 20 days.
Russia has more tactical weapons than NATO and U.S.
In 2014, Pravda ran a report detailing the huge gap among tactical nuclear weapons of Russia, U.S. and NATO. The report said NATO countries have only 260 tactical weapons, the U.S. has 200 atomic bombs located in air based in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. However, Russia has 5,000 pieces of tactical nuclear weapons consisting of Iskander warheads, torpedoes and nuclear vehicles. Russia’s missile development aimed at U.S.
As early as 2011, Russia had been developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. The country has always been vocal that its developments are aimed at deterring all possible attack coming from the U.S.
“The decision about the creation of the new silo-based missile system with a liquid-fuel heavy missile has been made. The complex will have increased possibilities in overcoming the prospective missile defense system of the United States,” Russia’s commander of missile troop, Sergei Karakaev, was quoted as saying at the time.
“Russia does not stand against the US missile defense system. Russia stands against the creation of the missile defense system, which would be directly aimed against Russia to potentially reduce the possibilities of the Russian nuclear containment forces,” Karakaev said.
In 2013, Russia’s defense minister said that Russia will increase its supersonic precision weapons five-fold by 2020. Defense deputy Yuri Borisov said the U.S. has the same plan but will begin development by 2018-2025.
While Russia has been flaunting its nuclear innovations, the U.S. on the other hand admitted that it has neglected its nuclear program for decades. In November of 2014, then defense secretary Hagel announced a proposal of $1.5 to 15 billion a year to maintain the government’s nuclear arsenals.
Hagel asked the commitment of Pentagon officials to improve the status of the government’s nuclear programs by modernizing nuclear warheads, long-range bombers and ballistic missile submarines, The Washington Post reported at the time.
Members of the congress agreed to the budget proposal. The government’s nuclear programs suffered because of “insufficient resources, indifferent leadership, and poor morale,” said Rep Howard McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
In June 2014, the Pentagon conducted a “table top” exercise – a sort of war game between Russia and NATO. The scenario was Russian pressure on NATO member Estonia and Latvia. Would NATO be able to defend those countries?
“The results were dispiriting,” Julia Ioffe writes in Foreign Policy. Even if all US and NATO troops stationed in Europe were dispatched to the Baltics – including the 82nd Airborne, which is supposed to be ready to go on 24 hours’ notice – the US would lose.
“We just don’t have those forces in Europe,” explains a senior US general. “Then there’s the fact that the Russians have the world’s best surface-to-air missiles and are not afraid to use heavy artillery.”
The Russian ‘victory’ was not a one-off. The Americans conducted the exercise as many as 16 times, under various scenarios, all favourable to NATO, always with the same conclusion. The Russians were simply invincible.
In this backdrop, Turkey’s rash act of shooting down a Russian Air Force jet portends grave tidings for NATO. Because Turkey is a NATO member, if the Russian Air Force pounds the living daylight out of the Turks, at least in theory all the other members of the US-led military bloc are treaty-bound to come to its defence.
Although the chances that the Americans will risk New York for Istanbul are smaller than small – which leaves a very nervous Turkey on its own – one can never rule out the possibility of a NATO hothead wanting to attack Russia.
A nuclear exchange will undoubtedly have catastrophic consequences for both sides – and perhaps the entire planet – but there are certain factors that could skew the fighting field in Russia’s favour.
Megaton capability
According to data exchanged on October 1, 2014 by Moscow and Washington, Russia has 1,643 deployed strategic warheads, compared with 1,642 for the US. Marginal difference in numbers but Russian land-based strategic forces have an explosive yield that is an order of magnitude greater than anything in the US armoury.
Moscow’s primary deterrent weapon is the mighty SS-18, a single one of which can destroy an area the size of New York – the state, not just the city. To get an idea of the destructive power of the SS-18, just look at the nuclear weapon the US used to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The Hiroshima bomb was a primitive 15 kiloton warhead and yet it wiped out a city of 70,000 in a few seconds. The SS-18 – code named Satan by NATO – carries 10 warheads, each having a yield of 750 to 1000 kiloton). Some of these missiles carry a single 20,000 kiloton warhead – that’s 1333 times Hiroshima.
At the same time, 80 per cent of the American population resides on the eastern and western seaboards, so a few well-aimed nuclear missiles can end all human life in these densely populated coastal strips. Russia has a population only half of the US but it’s dispersed widely across the country’s massive landmass so that pockets of human inhabitation can survive both a first as well as a second strike.
Russia has another trump card up its sleeve – its supersonic bomber fleet of Tupolev Tu-160s. These Mach 2 plus aircraft can take off from well-defended airbases located deep in the heart of Russia, fly over the North Pole, launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles from safe standoff distances over the Atlantic, and return home to watch the destruction on CNN.
That’s assuming CNN will be around. For, the Russian strategic bomber fleet can singlehandedly wipe out every major city in the US.
It is because the Americans know the capability of Russia’s nuclear forces that they have tried hard to eliminate the doomsday weapons like the SS-18 through arms limitation talks.
Tactical warheads
Before the use of strategic weapons, Russia could cripple forward NATO bases with tactical – or battlefield – nukes.
Russian military doctrine emphasises the use of small-yield nuclear weapons as a war fighting tool early on in a conflict in order to stun and confuse NATO forces, impacting their ability to think and act coherently.
After tactical nuclear artillery decimates forward deployed NATO military troops, Russia could deliver small-yield warheads via intermediate range missiles that could devastate the next line of military bases, while limiting civilian casualties. At this point the US would be faced with the option of retaliating with strategic weapons and face a devastating response from Moscow. A good guess is the option won’t be used.
For, no American president would risk a single US city for a dozen European ones. John F. Kennedy didn’t risk it in 1962 for the same reason – the loss of even one city was too many.
State of US strategic forces
How reliable is the US Strategic Nuclear Command? If you are an American, you won’t feel so reassured after reading that Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both “reportedly lost the launch code cards that presidents are expected to have on them at all times – Clinton for months, according to a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Carter allegedly sent his out with a suit to the cleaners”.
In any conflict – more so in a high stakes nuclear standoff – morale, training and discipline are key factors. Russian officers who have the job of deciding when and where to aim their nuclear missiles include PhD holders who are required to think on their feet. On the other hand, American personnel who have the same role are beset with alcoholism, depression and cheating.
Nothing can sugar coat the crisis plaguing the US strategic forces. In October 2013, Major General Michael Carey, responsible for the command of 450 nuclear missiles, was fired after drunken behaviour on a visit to Russia. Days earlier, another military officer, Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, with high-level responsibility for the country’s nuclear arsenal, was relieved of his duties after he was caught using counterfeit gambling chips at an Iowa casino.
Think that’s frightening? Check this out. A US Air Force general who supported the command mission to provide nuclear forces for the US Strategic Command was an alcoholic. General David C. Uhrich kept a vodka bottle in his desk and repeatedly drank on duty, so much so that another officer told investigators that “if he did not have his alcohol, the wheels would come off”.
The rot has trickled down to US missileers who have a culture of cheating on competency tests, endangering the readiness off American ICBMs. Again, in February 2014, the US Navy revealed it was looking into allegations that enlisted sailors cheated on tests involving the nuclear reactors that power its submarines and aircraft carriers.
The US strategic forces are also suffering from systemic neglect, with its ICBM bases in North Dakota and Montana reporting “leaking roofs”. The missileers, who work in blast-proof bunkers located 60 feet underground, are forced to defecate in buckets and urinate in jugs, and bring it all back up at the end of 24 hours. How ready these personnel will be when they have to react to a Russian missile strike is questionable.
On the other hand, Russian Strategic Forces are treated as the very elites in the military. The quality of Russian personnel can be deduced from the actions of Russian strategic forces officer Lt Colonel Stanislav Petrov. On September 26, 1983, a Russian early-warning satellite indicated five US nuclear missile launches. Tensions were high between Washington and Moscow after the downing of a South Korean airliner weeks earlier, and Petrov had only minutes to respond. With little additional information to go on, he deemed the readings a false alarm, reasoning that “when people start a war, they don’t start it with only five missiles”.
This is precisely why highly qualified personnel matter. When you’re placed squarely in the cross hairs of the enemy’s nuclear missiles and you’re holed up in a bunker 60 feet below the earth’s surface, then nervousness, insomnia and depression are part of your daily life. Unable to cope, less educated personnel will abuse alcohol and drugs and even exhibit criminal behaviour. On the other hand, educated and motivated officers will keep their cool even in the event of a thermonuclear showdown.
For, a nuclear war may not necessarily involve a quick exchange of ballistic missiles. According to War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink, by Peter Vincent Pry, Director of the US Nuclear Strategy Forum, the Russian Strategic Forces are trained to “launch pre-emptive or retaliatory nuclear strikes, survive a hammer blow from a massive enemy nuclear attack, launch follow-on nuclear strikes, and supervise military operations in a protracted nuclear war, expected to last weeks or months”.
In such a drawn out, harrowing scenario, Russia’s nuclear warfare specialists clearly have the edge.
Reflexive Control: Ultimate Weapon
Disinformation, camouflage and stratagem are some of the ways one can influence the outcome of a war. The Russians have taken these ancient arts to another level through the use of the theory of Reflexive Control (RC).
Developed by Russian military strategists in the 1960s, RC aims to convey information to an opponent that would influence them to voluntarily make a decision desired by the initiator of the action. It can be used against either human or computer-based decision-making processors. Russia employs it not only at the strategic and tactical levels in war but also in the geopolitical sphere.
Russian Army Major General M.D. Ionov was among the early proponents of RC, having pursued it since the 1970s. In an article in 1995, he noted that the objective of reflexive control is to force an enemy into making decisions that lead to his defeat by influencing or controlling his decision-making process.
Ionov considers this a form of high art founded of necessity on an intimate knowledge of human thinking and psychology, military history, the roots of the particular conflict, and the capabilities of competing combat assets.
Timothy L. Thomas writes in the Journal of Slavic Studies: “In a war in which reflexive control is being employed, the side with the highest degree of reflex (the side best able to imitate the other side’s thoughts or predict its behaviour) will have the best chances of winning. The degree of reflex depends on many factors, the most important of which are analytical capability, general erudition and experience, and the scope of knowledge about the enemy.”
If successfully achieved, reflexive control over the enemy makes it possible to influence their combat plans, their view of the situation, and how they fight. RC methods are varied and include camouflage (at all levels), disinformation, encouragement, blackmail by force, and the compromising of various officials and officers.
According to Robert C. Rasmussen of the Center for International Maritime Security, “It is exactly this type of application of Reflexive Control that a young Vladimir Putin would have learned in his early development at the 401st KGB School and in his career as a KGB/FSB officer.”
Because every battle is first fought in the head before a bullet is fired on the ground, Russia’s long experience with RC would be a key factor in its existential struggle with the US.
Ever since President Richard Nixon entered into detente with the communist regime in China, America has doggedly assisted in the commercial and military buildup of the Marxist nation.
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have mollycoddled the Red Chinese to the point that now they have grown big enough to cause serious concern.
Both Bill Clinton and G.W. Bush have facilitated the transfers of billions of dollars of commercial assistance to Red China, not to mention vast amounts of technology which China has used to further its military machine. Each president refuses to identify China as an adversary, choosing rather to call it a "trading partner." However, China has not been hesitant to use this assistance to construct a formidable military apparatus. At the same time, the U.S. seems determined to reduce our military, especially our navy, to dangerously low levels.
For example, since Ronald Reagan left office, the United States has reduced its navy from a fleet of 600 ships and submarines to 288 and shrinking. To give the reader an idea of just how small our navy has become, our current navy fleet is equal in size to that when William Howard Taft was in office!
Beyond that, our carrier fleet is on its way to the elephant graveyard. Three of the five in service were built before 1975. Consider, too, that the number of fighter aircraft has dropped to fewer than 3,500 and is expected to fall to under 2,000. However, while the United States continues to mothball its military, Communist China is (with America's help) building its military like there is no tomorrow.
The Washington Times recently reported that "China soon will receive a new Kilo submarine from Russia, part of a naval buildup of modern warships and submarines that has triggered new fears for U.S. military planners.
"It is the first of eight advanced Kilos that China is acquiring, and intelligence officials say the submarine will be outfitted with advanced SS-N-27 cruise missiles, which are capable of attacking U.S. warships. Since 2002, China has built 14 submarines."
The Times report quoted one intelligence official as saying, "China's surface-to-air missile forces also are increasing, including new short- and long-range missiles, along with a new warhead that can maneuver to avoid missile defenses.
"If you take a step back and look at the entire array of Chinese weapons, the Kilos, the Songs, the Yuans, the ballistic missiles, this [maneuverable warhead] capability, more surface ships with anti-ship cruise missiles, these are all things that are going to give you capability to deal with any kind of naval force that comes toward you."
The China Reform Monitor recently ran a report saying, "Experts are warning that China is outpacing the United States in the development of attack submarines and could have as much as a three-to-one advantage over the United States by 2025."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently warned that "China's investment in missiles and up-to-date military technology posed a risk not only to Taiwan and to American interests, but also to nations across Asia that view themselves as China's trading partners, not rivals."
Most all China experts agree that the Marxist government in Beijing is planning to attack Taiwan and is preparing to take on the United States if we interfere. It has more than doubled its fleet of amphibious landing and troop-carrying ships. It has entered into an agreement with Russia which guarantees Russia will not help the United States should conflict erupt between the U.S. and China. And just weeks ago, China even participated in joint military maneuvers with Russia. But the Chinese threat is actually even more ominous.
Syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas, recently quoted from a new book written by former special assistant for national security affairs to Ronald Reagan and CIA national intelligence officer, Constantine Menges, entitled, China: The Gathering Threat. Thomas quotes Menges as noting that "China has defined America as its 'main enemy' and can launch nuclear weapons at the U.S. capable of killing 100 million of us.
Thomas continues quoting Menges as saying, "China has threatened to destroy entire American cities if the U.S. helps Taiwan defend itself against a military assault or invasion. China also buys Russian weapons designed to sink U.S. aircraft carriers. It controls more than $200 billion in U.S. debt and sells more than 40 percent of its exports to America, using the profits to strengthen its economy and advanced weapons systems aimed at the U.S."
Furthermore, a World Net Daily report dated Tuesday, September 13, 2005, quotes a Chinese dissident as stating unequivocally that Beijing is planning nuclear war. The WND report states, "Wei Jingsheng, who spent 18 years in detention for his pro-democracy activism, told a forum at the National Press Club in Washington that China needs the distraction of a war with Taiwan to turn attention away from the people's frustration with rampant corruption and failed policies at home."
The WND report also quoted Jingsheng as saying, "The Chinese Communist Party is considering nuclear war, because it is not afraid to sacrifice China's people." Jingsheng cited Chinese general Zhu Chenghu's recent public declaration that "we [China] will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian" which would include Shanghai and Beijing. When one considers that China could lose the equivalent of the entire U.S. population and still have over 700 million people left, General Chengu's threat cannot be taken lightly.
So, while the United States continues to spend its manpower and monies on a mouse-size threat in Iraq, it is virtually ignoring-no, worse than that, it is commercially aiding and abetting-our most serious threat: Communist China. Just about everything we buy these days is stamped "Made in China," major American corporations have moved and are moving their plants and operations to China, and all of this is being encouraged by our own government in Washington, D.C. Lenin was right: we are purchasing the rope which will be used to hang us!
Kai Yee CHAN
Author of Tiananmen's Tremendous Achievements, freelance Chinese/English translator
On August 26, Robert Farley, author of The Battleship Book and a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky, published on National Interest an article titled “US Military's Worst Nightmare: A War with Russia and China (at the Same Time)”, in which he asks the question that plagues him: What if China and Russia sufficiently coordinated with one another to engage in simultaneous hostilities in the Pacific and in Europe? (I reblogged the article on August 30.)
However, he does not think it likely that China and Russia may coordinate a pair of crises to drive two separate US military responses as each country has its own goal.
He believes, “More likely, one of the two would opportunistically take advantage of an existing crisis to further its regional claims.
For example, Moscow might well decide to push the Baltic States if the United States became involved in a major skirmish in the South China Sea.”
In such a scenario, Europe is strong enough to deal with Russia with some support from US navy and air force.
As a result the US may focus on dealing with China with almost all its navy and air force.
The article believes that US only has to win quickly in order to transfer its force to another theater as soon as possible.
According to current US military strength, it is indeed possible for the US to win first in Asia and then in Europe if China and Russia fight separately in two different theaters.
However, what if China and Russia joint force in fighting the US in one theater?
China and Russia Share a Common Goal: Resisting US Containment
Unlike US alliance with Japan, Australia or the Philippines, there is no treaty of alliance between China and Russia, but the alliance between the two is much stronger than US alliance with its allies.
Why?
The US has treaty obligations to fight for Japan, Australia and the Philippines but not willingly unless its interests are being hurt; therefore, it does not send its navy to help the Philippines counter Chinese navy in the Scarborough standoff. It just uses the excuse of taking no side in the disputes.
However, the saddest things for the US are that if the US fights a war with either China or Russia, its allies Japan, Australia and the Philippines will provide it with no substantial help as they are neither willing nor able to do so.
China and Russia, however, have no treaty obligations to help each other in a war between the US and either of them, but will join each other to fight the US.
When they join force, it is hard for the US to defeat them.
They will do that out ofnecessity as the US is now doing its best to contain both of them so that they shall ally with each other to resist US containment. If one of them has been subdued by the US, the other will be isolated and easily subdued by the US.
Why?
Because their alliance is an alliance of necessity, which is much stronger than a treaty alliance.
What necessity?
The necessity to resist US containment of them.
For example, if Taiwan declares independence, China tries to take Taiwan by force. The US concentrates all its navy and air force in the Pacific to save Taiwan as it believes it has legal obligation to do so. Will Russia exploit the conflict between China and US to pursue some gains in Europe?
Not likely.
Russia shall be clear that without its help the US may very likely subdue China.
When the US has subdued China, the US will certainly transfer all its force to subdue Russia; therefore, whatever Russia may possibly get by exploiting the conflict will be lost after the US has subdued China.
The conflict, however, gives Russia the golden opportunity to subdue the US jointly with China.
If it joins force with China and has defeated the US, it will be free to get what it wants in Europe without US intervention.
Remember, the de facto alliance between Russia and China is formed for their common goal to resist the US. That is their priority.
For another example, if the US and its European allies attack Russia to help Ukraine or any other formal member of the Soviet Union.
Will China be so short-sighted as to exploit the conflict for some gains in Asia?
No, China knows well that if Russia has been subdued, China will be isolated and easily subdued.
It has set up de facto alliance with Russia precisely for the purpose of using Russia’s strength to jointly resist the US; therefore, it sends its vast army and strong air force to Europe to help Russia.
That is much more convenient as there are railway connections through Russia and Central Asia, easier than the US across the Atlantic.
That will be a cruel war with heavy casualty, which China with a huge population can afford, but can the US and its European allies afford?
The article’s assumption of US fighting in two separate theaters with the help of its European allies is but the writer’s wishful thinking based on Chinese or Russian leaders’ lack of vision.
Comment by Chan Kai Yee on National Interest’s article that was reblogged in his blog on August 30.
More indication both Russia and China are planning to join forces on the battlefield to ensure victory.
Russia and China are holding “large scale” war games – and the Pentagon has taken notice.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced that war games would take place the final week of September, with military troops slated to undergo training to prepare them for “real war” conditions. The China war games will involve the use of ships, aircraft, trains and ground vehicles and involve both “civilian assets” and soldiers. Vehicles and aircraft utilized in the military exercise will also include civilian modes of transportation.
Meanwhile, in Russia, military training activities already were held, reportedly involving thousands of soldiers and taking place in both Asia and Europe.
NATO troops are scheduled to engage in equally massive war games beginning in November. United States officials say that the NATO military drills will focus on countering a westward Russian military encroachment.
The Russian’s Zapad-13 war games in Belarus reportedly included simulated attacks on states in the West. An American military said “the Russians are moving forces closer to Europe, and that is troubling,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Approximately 13,000 Belarusian and Russian troops participated in more than 60 helicopter and aircraft drills. The Russian war games also included “rapid reaction” drills as a part of the military training exercises. The military drills were designed to help troops improve their precision when conducting missile and air strikes.
In June, Russian Air Force Chief Lt. General Vladimir Bondarev announced that an air base in Belarus would be opened near the border of Lithuania and Poland. The Russian air base would be suitable for Su-27 warplanes. The base will be the first opened in Europe by Russia since the Soviet Union fell apart. Russian also has bases in Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Tajikistan.
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus President, has reportedly moved toward the ways of the former Soviet Union, and symbols associated with a Soviet Belarus are reappearing in the country. Russia has also installed a ballistic missile warning radar and a naval communications facility in Belarus. Such a facility could be used to communicate with submarines. Belarus was reportedly given Tor-M3 surface-to-air missiles and advanced S-300 missile defenses by Russia.
“The theme of the exercise is the training and the engagement of troops in order to ensure the military security of the Union State [of Belarus and Russia],” said Belarusian Deputy Defense Minister Major General Pyotr Tsikhanowski.“New weapons and military equipment will be tested during the exercises. At the same time, the conflicting states are hypothetically located within the actual borders of Belarus and the three western and northwestern regions of Russia.”
Polish officials disputed a press report that the Russia and China war games would simulate a nuclear strike on the country’s capital. A Polish government official identified as only a “high-ranking officer” called the supposed targeting of the capital “nothing but imagination” by local journalists.
Pentagon officials reportedly believe the war games are part of an effort by Russia to showcase their military might and enhance its standing in former Soviet Union nations. European NATO nations are not thrilled with the Russian war games and Belarus military enhancements. Although Russia has deemed the exercises and equipment part of “anti-terrorism exercises,” the Lithuanians remain unconvinced there is not something more sinister involved.
“If you look at the Baltic Sea region, the strategic balance has been changing quite drastically in the last decade, and not in our favor,” said Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks. “We are concerned because we see such large-scale exercises in context.”
The Cold War with Russian supposedly ended a long time ago. Do you feel that Russia and China are once again emerging as threats against America?
Pentagon seems aware in 2015 current triad forces may be lacking, looking higher for strategies.
On Tuesday, May 17, 2015, the House will begin consideration of H.R. 4909, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2017, under a structured rule.
The bill was introduced on April 12, 2016 by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), and was referred to the Committee on Armed Services, which ordered the bill reported, as amended, on April 28, 2016 by a vote 60 to 2.
Pentagon has increased its funding to more than $5 billion in order to develop the nation’s space war capabilities. The department is working with the intelligence community and private industry in developing command centers that will fend off attack in orbit from Russia and China.
Both Russia and China are emerging as great powers, according to Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work. And by great powers he means they now possess enough military assets to put up a serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the most powerful state in the world, Work said at the GeoInt Symposium held on Tuesday.
Russia and China now possess nuclear deterrent that can survive a nuclear strike, he said.
End of U.S.’s dominance in space
Work said the end to an era where the nation was the world’s only superpower in space technology has ended.
“Russia represents a clear and present danger,” Work highlighted. He said that for 25 years U.S. and the European Union have reached out to Russia but to no avail. At present, Russia is undermining NATO, dominating the Arctic and threatening many of U.S.’s allies, Work said.
China, on the other hand, will present “a significant and varied challenge over the next 25 years.”
“This doesn’t mean to suggest in any way, shape, or form that China and the United States are destined to become adversaries. There will be areas where the two sides will agree and cooperate and other areas where they disagree and won’t,” Work said.
Nuclear deterrence
The best response to any threat is a strong conventional and nuclear deterrent capabilities, Work said.
“First, we have to overmatch the technical capabilities of any potential adversary. Second, we have to maintain the ability to project power across transoceanic distances and defeat any adversary’s attempt to project power across inter- or intra-theater distances. Third, we have to routinely demonstrate both capabilities.”
Space is now a contested operational domain
Pentagon will build an operations center in six months, Work announced. This center will receive data from satellites belonging to all government agencies he said. Furthermore, Air Force secretary Deborah James would soon be designated as the principal space advisor to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
Work declared that the space that was once just a “virtual sanctuary” must now “be considered a contested operational domain in ways that we haven’t had to think about in the past.”
For superpower nations, there are a lot of ways to demonstrate its supremacy in military might, one of which is up in the space. Now, the Pentagon is reportedly eyeing to beef up its space war capabilities as China and Russia are busy honing its own.
As previously reported by Morning News USA, Pentagon is preparing for a World War 3 that can happen in space.
“I also want to mention space because at times in the past, space was seen as a sanctuary, new and emerging threats make clear that that’s not the case anymore and we must be prepared for the possibility of a conflict that extends in space,” Defense secretary Ash Carter told press in February this year.
At the time, Pentagon was already vocal about eyeing both Russia and China as the top strongest threat against America.
Now, a related report has surfaced, supporting the said possibility.
Over the past years, the United States has been embroiled in military arms flex between China and Russia. But lately, sins are indicating that the Pentagon should start looking up in the air as China has been doing launches in the past years, that could potentially obliterate the America’s “most valuable real estate in space,” the Washington Post reported.
The report was referring to highly sensitive satellite installed and parked by the US government in space, which was recently been endangered when a Chinese rocket approach at a dangerously close distance.
It was reported that the rocket launched by China some three years ago, had a close distance to US satellites about 22,000 miles. In the space, such distance is considered a dangerously close one, which experts consider as a wake-up call for the US government to beef up its space war security program.
Russia also raised the alarm for a possible space war when one of its satellites flew closely to two Intelsat communications satellites in 2014. The year after, Pentagon scrambled to have the U.S. Air Force Space Command in Colorado to simulate a futuristic World War set in 2025.
Throughout the years that followed, Pentagon ramp up all developments of its space war capabilities. At present, the Air Force secretary has his own “principal space adviser;” war games conducted involved simulation of battles in space; most recently, Pentagon begun developing “Space Fence,” according to the report from the Washington Post.
Read: World War 3 Could Happen In Space
Satellites in orbit play a crucial role, not only for sending information about happenings in the space, but it also served highly-sensitive military functions such as surveillance and in guiding missiles and bombs to ensure high-level precision.
According to a related report from Newsweek, a war in space, that could possibly erupt over the disputed South China Sea or over Eastern Europe, could also obliterate civilian and commercial satellites futile. This means that life back on Earth will also be directly affected – from cellphone satellites, banks, including GPS units.
“War in space would very quickly involve the civilian world,” Peter Singer, a prominent military strategist and author, told Newsweek.
He added that China, and Russia, are all in a race to dominate not only the world, but even the outer space.
“The U.S., China, Russia are all working on not just using space, but also taking it away from the other side.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
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Why does Russia place such emphasis and media attention on incredibly large military exercises with China?
September 9, 2018
Russia and China’s Growing Military Interaction; Surprised?
The drums are already rolling for the upcoming Russian “Vostok” (east) wargames commencing on September 11. With its focal point in the Trans-Baikal region of eastern Siberia adjoining Chinese Manchuria and Mongolia, this is a nationwide Russian military and societal event.
Touted by Russian minister of defense Sergei Shoigu as “unprecedented in scale, both in terms of area of operations and numbers of military command structure, troops, and forces involved,” Russian state press is declaring that up to three hundred thousand troops and one thousand aircraft will be involved, with the majority from the Eastern and Central Military Districts. This would be even larger than the near-legendary Zapad-81 maneuvers held in the western USSR during the depths of the Cold War.
Announcements about this type of event are not new to me. I’ve been to several of them. In July 2014, just before I departed Moscow as the U.S. defense attaché to Russia, news began to buzz concerning the upcoming Vostok 2014 wargames in the Far East. It was a tense time. Heralding new gray zone applications of so-called hybrid war, Ukraine’s Crimea had just been illegally annexed by Russia and battles raged between unattributed Russian regulars and beleaguered Ukrainian defenders across eastern Ukraine. At that time the upcoming Asian exercise was also billed as Russia’s largest military exercise since Soviet times, though its declared numbers turned out lower than proclaimed.
One important wrinkle this year is that reportedly up to 3,200 Chinese personal with ninety vehicles, including tanks and thirty fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, will participate. Most are coming from China’s Northern Command. This will be the first time the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will take part in this formerly purely Russian quadrennial Asia-oriented exercise. The bulk of participating Chinese personal have already transited from Manchuria into Russia, escorted by Russian military police to the Tsugol training range near Chita. The Mongolians have also sent a small contingent.
“From such it’s quite evident that the trajectory of Chinese-Russian relations have certainly improved since I encountered in 1997 a former Soviet T-54 tank gunner in Spassk, an old garrison town north of Vladivostok located on the eastern shore of sizable Lake Khanka. Besotted with vodka drunk from coffee cups in a gritty railway bar, the gnarled veteran spoke of the fierce Ussuri River border clashes in 1969 near Khabarovsk where he claimed his tank destroyed several Chinese vehicles – three men in his company also died. Other citizens in a familiar refrain complained of a major cross-border influx of Chinese traders and settlers, illegal Chinese logging, illicit fishing in Lake Khanka’s fresh waters where both nations share a common aquatic border, and poaching of the region’s revered Siberian Tigers. Despite local concerns of this nature, this was a period of improving diplomatic relations between the two nations, with China on a slow upward trajectory after the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 and Boris Yeltsin’s diminished Russia still struggling to regain its footing after the USSR’s break-up in 1991.”
It is important to note that Russia has no territorial claims in Asia. Rather, she is a status quo power in the Far East. With substantially fewer conventional forces along the Sino-Russian border than the Cold War, she is essentially in a strategic defensive posture. Her nuclear deterrent is her regional guarantor while a sophisticated anti-access, aerial denial network centered on the nuclear ballistic missile submarine bastion in and around the Sea of Okhotsk makes attacking the overall region a thorny proposition.
Russia’s burgeoning “strategic partner” Beijing, however, is distinctly revisionist in its behavior in Asia and the Pacific, much as Russia aggressively conducts its business in the West. A key generational question is how Russia manages the rising, resource-hungry hegemon that is looming China—one that has far-reaching aspirations throughout Asia, including its announced Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that runs in part though former Soviet Central Asian regions. China, the only “great power” with a seemingly long-term national vision, has also declared its interest in a Polar Silk Road as well.
The Russia-China military relationship continues to evolve and is a logical progression following deepening political and economic ties. Pragmaticallym the Amur-Ussuri territorial disputes were diplomatically resolved in 2004–5, enabling enhanced military cooperation though long-term generational issues remain. While Chinese-Russian military activities have in the past been mostly symbolic and representational, they appear increasingly interactive. The PLA, not blooded since its brusque 1979 defeat by Vietnam, likely hopes to learn from Russia’s newly gained fighting expertise derived since 2014 in eastern Ukraine and Syria. What is key to determine is if their interaction evolves more ominously into interoperability exercises where substantial and varied forces can operate in tandem and jointly in coordinated operations.
Dating back to 2005, Russia and China have exercised modest forces together in a mostly “counterterrorist” role in Central Asia and in Russia as part of the Chinese-driven Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Notably, SCO Exercise Peace Mission 2018, involving China, Russia and six other nations, including newly added India and Pakistan, is currently underway in Chelyabinsk (just east of the Ural Mountains). Bilaterally, they have participated in several small scale naval exercises in the Baltics (2017), South China Sea (2016) and eastern Mediterranean (2015), where they have been mostly “show the flag” operations designed more to convey sharp signals abroad and show partner support. Presaging Vostok-18, Russian air transport and elite airborne units conducted a snap readiness exercise in August in likely preparation of deployment east for the exercise. Additionally, a widely publicized Russian naval exercise in the Mediterranean to support Syria operations will be ongoing with twenty-five vessels of various sizes and likely will be included in the overall Vostok-18 personnel count.
It is important to understand that the Russians have a declared four-year cycle with long-planned exercises rotating annually between four Military Districts: Zapad (Western), Vostok (Eastern), Kavkaz (Southern) and Tsentr (Center). They are widely advertised, command major media attention domestically and abroad, and numerous international military attaches are invited as observers as I was to Kavkaz (Black Sea region) in 2012 and Zapad (Kaliningrad) in 2013. These are much different than the potentially more dangerous and destabilizing unannounced “snap” readiness exercise that have proliferated in recent years. The newly established Northern Fleet Military District focused on Russia’s “High North” also sorties assets during these exercises. The ramp-up for these major “Cecil B. DeMille” type extravaganzas are widely choreographed and involve much more than just conducting maneuvers and a big concluding firepower demonstration. They are in fact, major Russian national endeavors involving many thousands of civilians and support personnel, such as railway troops that figure into the exercise’s overall numbers. They include marshalling and moving forces and supplies over Russia’s vast railway, air and immature road networks, mobilizing reserves, organizing logistics including medical facilities, laying tactical fuel pipelines, sortieing ships and even exercising nuclear command and control as occurred in last year’s Zapad 2018. Quarterbacking the effort will be senior leaders and general staff operating within Moscow’s new National Military Command Center. Amidst heavy media coverage, President Vladimir Putin will also assuredly visit the exercise. In sum, these are society-wide efforts in which the full civil-military go-to-war apparatus of the Russian state is exercised. This does not mean Russia wants war, but is preparing for such in a way that is difficult for our more liberal-democratic societies to comprehend.
Why does Russia place such emphasis and media attention on these large set-piece exercises? Why this expensive, resource burning annual effort that unnerves Russia’s neighbors while both motivating and unsettling Russian citizenry?
One way to tackle this dichotomy is to go back to fundamentals regarding a Russia that lives through a prism of real, perceived . . . and contrived . . . existential threats. When wondering what drives the Russians to their seemingly counterintuitive and even self-defeating xenophobic behaviors, we must remember to review their geography, history and demography from which flow the nature of their regime and resultant social system and economy. Today’s resource-rich Russia, with its relatively small, western-weighted population, is set within a gigantic eleven-time zone Eurasian landmass that was mostly cut from the hide of nations and civilizations by former Czarist and Soviet rulers over the past five hundred years or so. As such, Russia has immensely long terrestrial borders . . . think of them as exposed flanks . . . with the melting Arctic widening into a northern flank as well. Its approximately 145 million citizens are about 40 percent of the population of the United States (320 million), one-third of the European Union (500 million) and about one-ninth of China (1.3 billion). China’s ground border with Russia alone runs over 2,300 miles, and while not an issue today, much of Moscow’s Far East was annexed from a weak Qing dynasty in the mid-1800s. This demographic imbalance between Russia and China is starkly apparent in the Russian Far East and Siberia, and as domestic Chinese natural resources inexorably diminish could be a major factor in the years ahead.
Again, to remind, Russia—in part due to its own imperial and Soviet expansion—has throughout its millennia of history been at war along its borders with massive loss of life. She barely survived several bouts of near annihilation including the Mongols from which some Russians organically still retain a visceral phobia of the East. Bookending this medieval horror, within the lifetime of today’s older grandparents, came the merciless Nazis from the West, from whom a staggering twenty million to twenty-six million Soviets perished. These factors clearly play in how the Russian people view external threats and how the regime leverages these perceptions to help mobilize the population. They should not, however, be used, or accepted as a pretext for aggressive revisionist actions.
Challenges regarding its smaller population and sanctions hobbled finances mean that Russia is hard-pressed to field in peace-time a one-million active duty military force. Additionally, over 30 percent of its personnel consist of difficult to manage one-year conscripts. This main force competes with robust security services and an approximately 250,000-strong National Guard. While a considerable force, Russia’s vastness, and widespread military commitments in places like Syria, Eastern Ukraine, Transnistria, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan rapidly diffuse it’s standing force, requiring major mobilization and training exercises such as this year’s Vostok-18 that will entail rapid shunting of forces across Russia’s colossal Eurasian landmass. This is a major reason Russia regularly drills as it does for potential war in a nationwide effort and why so much emphasis is put on territorial mobilization and defense.
All these factors reveal why it was absolute prudent, transactional foreign policy for China and Russia to resolve the border disputes that plagued their relations. While vulnerable to potential future problems including an increasing resource imbalance especially with oil and natural gas, both nations have bigger fish to fry, whether Russia’s issues to the west and south, and in China’s case, in the southeast Pacific, and with India to a lesser extent. Both needed calm borders and a more insulated trading relationship such as their massive $400 billion natural gas deal signed in 2014. Making increased military interaction more attractive is also the shared perception that the United States and its allies are squarely blocking their more autocratic aspirations and directly threatening their regimes. Neither have major allies or are part of a well-organized security alliance as is NATO. They are loath about being internationally isolated or contained, which explains why both, even while pursuing different agenda, are usually lockstep with each other on major security issues in the UN and other international fora.
Therefore, U.S. and allied policy regarding both Russia and China should continue to be strong and predictable focused on the specific issues that both challenge and benefit relations. Allies must be firmly defended and partners supported. Legal international boundaries and protocols must be respected and if need be enforced. What we should not do, however, is default toward treating both nuclear-tipped Russia and China as a conjoined threat thereby creating a future potential “self-fulfilling prophecy” where they could—especially if they perceive being isolated—temporally ally in some type of powerful, transactional pact. We should watch and learn from these military exercises, assure allies and partners, but not overreact to their actions and rhetoric nor appear to try to drive a wedge between them. The wedges are already there, those of the vast regions history, geography demography and resources which will inevitably play out in the generations ahead.
BEIJING: China's decision to buy fighter jets and missile systems from Russia is a normal act of cooperation between sovereign countries and the United States has "no right to interfere", defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Saturday (Sep 22).
On Thursday, the US State Department imposed sanctions on China's Equipment Development Department (EED), the branch of the military responsible for weapons procurement,
The sanctions are related to China's purchase of 10 SU-35 combat aircraft in 2017 and S-400 surface-to-air missile system-related equipment in 2018, the State Department said.
The sanctions will block the EED and its director, Li Shangfu, from applying for export licenses and participating in the US financial system.
"The US approach is a blatant violation of the basic norms of international relations, a full manifestation of hegemony, and a serious breach of the relations between the two countries and their two militaries," Wu said in a notice posted on the Chinese defence ministry's official Wechat account.
He warned that the United States would face "consequences" if it did not immediately revoke the sanctions.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
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China's defense minister has pledged his country's support to the Russian army in the latest in a series of high-level contacts between the top U.S. military rivals.
Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe met Tuesday with Russian Ground Forces Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleg Salyukov in Beijing. The meeting came less than a month after Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the capital city and Fenghe emphasized that the military leaders "expand and deepen cooperation in all areas, and push for greater development of China-Russia relations on a higher level in the new era," according to a statement by the official China Military Online.
"Gen. Wei noted that under the care and guidance of the heads of state of both countries, the friendly cooperation between Chinese and Russian militaries has maintained a sound momentum of high-level development, and the two armies have yielded great results in such fields as personnel training, joint training and exercises, and military competitions," the statement read.
"He expressed the hope that the two sides would firmly support each other, strengthen all-round cooperation, jointly deal with threats and challenges, and safeguard regional and world peace and stability," it added.
Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe (R) shakes hands with the visiting Colonel General Oleg Salyukov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Land Forces, in Beijing on the morning of July 3, 2018. The two military leaders pledged to continue forging a stronger Sino-Russian relationship. Li Xiaowei/China Military Online
Salyukov reportedly concurred, saying "Russia attaches great importance to developing the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, and will continue doing so."
"Russia stands ready to work with China to fully implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, further deepen pragmatic exchanges and cooperation, and push forward friendly relations between the two militaries," Salyukov said.
Related: Russia will take China's side against U.S. in world trade war
The U.S. has accused both leaders of undermining Western democracies and challenging the Pentagon's own expansive military posture across the globe. Washington has also condemned Moscow for its involvement in conflicts such as Ukraine and Syria and Beijing for its military development in the contested South China Sea.
In the latest international dispute, Russia has joined China and others—including Canada, the European Union, India and Mexico—in introducing retaliatory duties and a World Trade Organization case against the U.S. after Trump declared a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin reviews a military honor guard with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 8. The two leaders met ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Leaders Summit held in the eastern Chinese port city of Qingdao. GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images
China and Russia also have unique relationships with their mutual neighbor, North Korea. North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un made a historic effort to meet President Donald Trump face-to-face last month and has met Xi three times, as well as South Korean President Moon Jae-in twice. While Kim has yet to meet with Putin, Trump was scheduled to sit down with the Russian leader later this month in Helsinki.
Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Monday that China and Russia attempted to persuade the United Nations Security Council last week to introduce measures that would gradually remove tough sanctions against North Korea amid a thawing in its relationship with the U.S., but Washington refused, citing a lack of progress in Pyongyang's denuclearization.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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General Jack Keane (Ret.) on the military strength of Russia and China.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
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“You Americans are so gullible.
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China has brought to market a hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile, said to be the first of its kind on the international market for buyers seeking a "reliable and affordable deterrence against threats from the sea," according to China.org.
"The system is intended for rapid and precision strikes against medium-size ships, naval task forces, and offshore facilities," said a representative from China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) in November.
According to CASIC, the CM-401 is fitted with a terminal radar guidance unit featuring a nose-mounted gimballed antenna. Once launched, the missile flies along a ballistic trajectory, reaching a near-space altitude. The weapon is stated to have an average speed of Mach 4 and a peak of Mach 6, although it is not clear at what altitudes these speeds are reached. -Janes.com
The missile flies between 20 and 100 kilometers above earth (12 - 62 miles) and maneuvers at hypersonic speeds.
Once fired, the missile ascends to a predetermined altitude until its target is identified, before entering an "ultrafast terminal dive" towards the target at hypersonic speeds according to the CASIC.
...the missile flies at an average speed of 1,360 meters per second - 4,900 kilometers per hour - or four times the speed of sound, during most parts of the flight, and reaches a maximum velocity of more than 2,000 m/s, six times the speed of sound as it approaches the target. It can carry a 290-kilogram warhead and has a maximum strike range of 290 km and a hit rate of 90 percent, meaning there will be nine effective hits on target out of 10 shots. -China.org
The missile - unveiled at the the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, Guangdong province - can be mounted to a variety of platforms, such as ships or land-based launch vehicles according to the company.
We wonder how China's new hypersonic missile competes with Putin's new toys?
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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Beijing is stepping up efforts to seek support from regional and global players such as Russia and Central Asian nations as its geostrategic rivalry with Washington heats up.
President Xi Jinping is expected to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next month, when he will also address the St Petersburg International Economic Summit, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told state-run TASS news agency earlier.
The Chinese president will also visit the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in June, as well as another regional security forum in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Wang Qishan is visiting Pakistan before he heads to the Netherlands and Germany, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The latest flurry of diplomatic activity comes as competition between China and the US intensifies on several fronts including trade and technology, the South China Sea and the Arctic, where Beijing’s partnership with Moscow –funding and building ports, berths and icebreakers off Russia’s shores – has drawn criticism from Washington.
It will be Xi’s second time at the St Petersburg forum, and observers expect the Chinese leader will reaffirm Beijing’s commitment to multilateralism and promote the nation as a champion of openness and cooperation.
It will also be his second meeting with Putin in two months, after talks on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in late April, when the Russian president offered his support for the controversial China-led infrastructure and investment initiative.
With China and Russia edging closer, the latest meeting is likely to see efforts to coordinate their strategies on a range of issues – including Venezuela, North Korea, nuclear weapons and arms control, according to observers. Xi has met Putin more times than any other foreign leader since he took power in 2013.
“This time it is very likely that the latest anti-China moves by the US, such as new tariffs and the Huawei ban, will feature prominently in their conversations,” said Artyom Lukin, an associate professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.
Lukin said Russia’s stagnating economy and sanctions imposed by the West limited its role as a substitute for the foreign markets and technologies China could lose access to because of the US crusade. But he said Putin would “provide political and moral support to Xi”.
“That is also significant as Russia has been withstanding intense US-led sanctions pressure for more than five years already,” Lukin said, referring to sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Xi and Putin are also expected to talk about Venezuela, where US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido is attempting to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has the support of China and Russia.
“Moscow and Beijing are not able to seriously hurt Washington by raising tariffs or denying access to high technology. However, there are plenty of areas where coordinated Sino-Russian policies can damage US interests in the short term or in the long run,” Lukin said. “For example, Moscow and Beijing could intensify their joint support for the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro, frustrating Washington’s efforts to dislodge him.”
China and Russia would also be seeking to boost economic ties. Bilateral trade, dominated by Chinese imports of gas and oil, reached US$108 billion last year – falling far short of the target set in 2011 by Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, of US$200 billion by 2020.
Li Lifan, an associate research professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said bilateral trade was a sticking point. “This is one of the potential hindrances in China-Russia relations and Beijing is hoping to [address this] … in the face of a possible global economic slowdown,” Li said.
Given the escalating trade war with Washington, he said China would seek to diversify its investments and markets to other parts of the world, particularly Russia and Europe.
“China will step up its investment cooperation with Europe and Russia and focus more on multilateral investment,” Li said.
But Beijing was not expected to do anything to worsen tensions with Washington.
“China is currently taking a very cautious approach towards the US, trying to avoid heating up the confrontation and further aggravation of the situation,” said Danil Bochkov, a contributing author with the Russian International Affairs Council. “For China it is important to demonstrate that it has a reliable friend – Russia – but that should not be done in an openly provocative manner.”
Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, said Beijing and Moscow would also seek to contain US influence “as far as possible” from Central Asia, where China has increased its engagement through infrastructure building under the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
Leaders from the region will gather in Bishkek next month for the SCO summit, a security bloc set up in 2001 that now comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. Those members account for about 23 per cent of the world’s land mass, 45 per cent of its population, and 25 per cent of global GDP.
There is growing speculation that Xi will meet newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of that summit.
Independent analyst and author Namrata Goswami said India would be seeking a commitment to a WTO-led and rules-based multilateral trading system during the SCO talks.
“This is interesting and significant given the current US tendencies under President Donald Trump focused on ‘America first’ and the US-China trade war,” Goswami said.
Counterterrorism will again be a top priority at the SCO summit, amid concerns among member states about the rising number of Islamic State fighters returning from Syria and Iraq. Chinese scholars estimated last year that around 30,000 jihadists who had fought in Syria had gone back to their home countries, including China.
Alexander Bortnikov, chief of the main Russian intelligence agency FSB, said earlier that 5,000 fighters from a group affiliated with Isis had gathered in areas bordering former Soviet states in Central Asia, saying most of them had fought alongside Isis in Syria.
War-torn Afghanistan, which shares a border with four SCO member states – China, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – is also likely to be high on the agenda at the Bishkek summit.
“With the Trump administration drafting plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, the SCO will assess the security situation there and decide whether to provide training for Afghan troops,” Li said.
Eva Seiwert, a doctoral candidate at the Free University of Berlin, expected the security bloc would also discuss Iran after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and ordered new sanctions against the country.
Iran, which has observer status with the SCO, was blocked from becoming a full member in 2008 because it was subject to UN sanctions at the time. But its membership application could again be up for discussion.
“The Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 made it easy for China and Russia to present themselves as the proponents of peaceful settlement of conflicts,” Seiwert said. “Discussing the possibility of admitting Iran as a full member state would help the SCO members demonstrate their support of multilateral and peaceful cooperation.
“This would be a strong signal to the US and enhance the SCO’s standing in the international community,” she said.
As well as security, Xi’s visit to Central Asia is also likely to focus on economic ties. Meeting Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov in Bishkek last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would continue to “provide support and help national development and construction in Kyrgyzstan”.
Li said China may increase investment in the Central Asian region, especially in greenfield projects.
“China will continue to buy agriculture products from Central Asia, such as cherries from Uzbekistan, and build hydropower projects to meet local energy demand,” Li said. “Investment in solar and wind energy projects is also expected to increase too.”
Vladimir Putin’s government is strengthening research ties with China. That should not be at the expense of other global links.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are both looking to stay in power beyond their usual term limits.Credit: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
This week, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, asked the courts to allow him to change the nation’s constitution, so it would no longer prevent him from standing for re-election beyond 2024. If he succeeds — and keeps winning elections — Putin could remain president until 2036, more than 35 years after coming to power.
The move to extend Putin’s power has major consequences for Russian society — including science. Putin’s government helped to stabilize research after the chaos of the early 1990s that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Papers authored by Russian scientists more than doubled in the decade between 2006 and 2016. And in 2018, the government allocated 170 billion roubles (US$3 billion at the time) for fundamental research and development, a 25% rise over the 2017 basic-science budget.
But, as we report this week in a News Feature, Russia still has a long way to go before it reaches its full potential in research and innovation. And as the president looks to strengthen his grip on power, some researchers are rightly concerned. Research funding — at 1% of gross domestic product — is far below that of advanced industrialized nations, and promises to increase this have not been kept. Furthermore, bureaucratic and political interference in research is strong
Coincidentally, China is pursuing closer scientific contacts with Russia, and at a time of economic crisis, these are being welcomed. This year has been designated as the year of Russian–Chinese science cooperation: 800 activities are planned, including joint research in fields ranging from archaeology to artificial intelligence.
In addition to this, Russia is a leading participant in China’s global network of science organizations in the countries that are part of its Belt and Road initiative, known as ANSO (Alliance of International Science Organizations). The organization’s next annual meeting is due to take place in Moscow in May — although this will probably be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Two years ago, we remarked in these columns how China could help to awaken “the sleeping bear of Russian science”. China seems to be doing that, but it is happening as both China and Russia are being isolated by some Western countries. For example, most official US–Russian scientific ties have been suspended since 2014 after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula. That is a short-sighted strategy. Even at the height of the cold war, researchers from Eastern and Western nations were encouraged to keep collaborations going. It is not too late to change course.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Re: Russia, China Solidify Disturbing Alliance
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Some common sense in the brass is always good to see. Semper Fi!
Originally Posted by vector7
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