Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance

[OakRidgeStars]

Uh-oh...

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_ ... ier_killer

By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer Eric Talmadge
Thu Aug 5, 5:43 pm ET

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON – Nothing projects U.S. global air and sea power more vividly than supercarriers. Bristling with fighter jets that can reach deep into even landlocked trouble zones, America's virtually invincible carrier fleet has long enforced its dominance of the high seas.

China may soon put an end to that.

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China — an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles).

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EDITOR'S NOTE — The USS George Washington supercarrier recently deployed off North Korea in a high-profile show of U.S. sea power. AP Tokyo News Editor Eric Talmadge was aboard the carrier, and filed this report.

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Analysts say final testing of the missile could come as soon as the end of this year, though questions remain about how fast China will be able to perfect its accuracy to the level needed to threaten a moving carrier at sea.

The weapon, a version of which was displayed last year in a Chinese military parade, could revolutionize China's role in the Pacific balance of power, seriously weakening Washington's ability to intervene in any potential conflict over Taiwan or North Korea. It could also deny U.S. ships safe access to international waters near China's 11,200-mile (18,000-kilometer) -long coastline.

While a nuclear bomb could theoretically sink a carrier, assuming its user was willing to raise the stakes to atomic levels, the conventionally-armed Dong Feng 21D's uniqueness is in its ability to hit a powerfully defended moving target with pin-point precision.

The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to the AP's request for a comment.

Funded by annual double-digit increases in the defense budget for almost every year of the past two decades, the Chinese navy has become Asia's largest and has expanded beyond its traditional mission of retaking Taiwan to push its sphere of influence deeper into the Pacific and protect vital maritime trade routes.

"The Navy has long had to fear carrier-killing capabilities," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the nonpartisan, Washington-based Center for a New American Security. "The emerging Chinese antiship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose."

Setting the stage for a possible conflict, Beijing has grown increasingly vocal in its demands for the U.S. to stay away from the wide swaths of ocean — covering much of the Yellow, East and South China seas — where it claims exclusivity.

It strongly opposed plans to hold U.S.-South Korean war games in the Yellow Sea off the northeastern Chinese coast, saying the participation of the USS George Washington supercarrier, with its 1,092-foot (333-meter) flight deck and 6,250 personnel, would be a provocation because it put Beijing within striking range of U.S. F-18 warplanes.

The carrier instead took part in maneuvers held farther away in the Sea of Japan.

U.S. officials deny Chinese pressure kept it away, and say they will not be told by Beijing where they can operate.

"We reserve the right to exercise in international waters anywhere in the world," Rear Adm. Daniel Cloyd, who headed the U.S. side of the exercises, said aboard the carrier during the maneuvers, which ended last week.

But the new missile, if able to evade the defenses of a carrier and of the vessels sailing with it, could undermine that policy.

"China can reach out and hit the U.S. well before the U.S. can get close enough to the mainland to hit back," said Toshi Yoshihara, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He said U.S. ships have only twice been that vulnerable — against Japan in World War II and against Soviet bombers in the Cold War.

Carrier-killing missiles "could have an enduring psychological effect on U.S. policymakers," he e-mailed to The AP. "It underscores more broadly that the U.S. Navy no longer rules the waves as it has since the end of World War II. The stark reality is that sea control cannot be taken for granted anymore."

Yoshihara said the weapon is causing considerable consternation in Washington, though — with attention focused on land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — its implications haven't been widely discussed in public.

Analysts note that while much has been made of China's efforts to ready a carrier fleet of its own, it would likely take decades to catch U.S. carrier crews' level of expertise, training and experience.

But Beijing does not need to match the U.S. carrier for carrier. The Dong Feng 21D, smarter, and vastly cheaper, could successfully attack a U.S. carrier, or at least deter it from getting too close.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned of the threat in a speech last September at the Air Force Association Convention.

"When considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the U.S. symmetrically — fighter to fighter or ship to ship — and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options," he said.

Gates said China's investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, along with ballistic missiles, "could threaten America's primary way to project power" through its forward air bases and carrier strike groups.

The Pentagon has been worried for years about China getting an anti-ship ballistic missile. The Pentagon considers such a missile an "anti-access," weapon, meaning that it could deny others access to certain areas.

The Air Force's top surveillance and intelligence officer, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, told reporters this week that China's effort to increase anti-access capability is part of a worrisome trend.

He did not single out the DF 21D, but said: "While we might not fight the Chinese, we may end up in situations where we'll certainly be opposing the equipment that they build and sell around the world."

Questions remain over when — and if — China will perfect the technology; hitting a moving carrier is no mean feat, requiring state-of-the-art guidance systems, and some experts believe it will take China a decade or so to field a reliable threat. Others, however, say final tests of the missile could come in the next year or two.

Former Navy commander James Kraska, a professor of international law and sea power at the U.S. Naval War College, recently wrote a controversial article in the magazine Orbis outlining a hypothetical scenario set just five years from now in which a Deng Feng 21D missile with a penetrator warhead sinks the USS George Washington.

That would usher in a "new epoch of international order in which Beijing emerges to displace the United States."

While China's Defense Ministry never comments on new weapons before they become operational, the DF 21D — which would travel at 10 times the speed of sound and carry conventional payloads — has been much discussed by military buffs online.

A pseudonymous article posted on Xinhuanet, website of China's official news agency, imagines the U.S. dispatching the George Washington to aid Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

The Chinese would respond with three salvos of DF 21D, the first of which would pierce the hull, start fires and shut down flight operations, the article says. The second would knock out its engines and be accompanied by air attacks. The third wave, the article says, would "send the George Washington to the bottom of the ocean."

Comments on the article were mostly positive.

[VBshooter]

Quick someone go get Obama out from under the bed and tell him that he now has to stop pretending to be a President and actually do something for the country that is right........makes ya wonder where the hell our weapons designers and intelligence folks have been and what have they been doing.. They are just finding this out now????Would seem to me that someone other than some political appointed pinhead needs to be installed in place of the waste that's supposedly doing it now.

[VaGunTrader]

How does such an overcrowded poor country afford such a thing? Makes me think about all those MADE IN CHINA products I see on the Walmart shelves.
China realy isnt that poor of a country anymore. They are a superpower in many ways !!! They have many of our manufacturing jobs. They are on a big upswing right now.

[OakRidgeStars]

Makes me think about all those MADE IN CHINA products I see on the Walmart shelves.

Something for all of us to think about the next time we're loading up the shopping cart at Mao-Mart.

[gunderwood]

How does such an overcrowded poor country afford such a thing? Makes me think about all those MADE IN CHINA products I see on the Walmart shelves.
China realy isnt that poor of a country anymore. They are a superpower in many ways !!! They have many of our manufacturing jobs. They are on a big upswing right now.

It is important to understand the two China's. They are economically very split.

The vast majority (nearly a billion) live in poverty (practically). The Chinese government subsidized low skilled manufacturing jobs/plants to get these people out of poverty. We complained about child labor and such, but failed to realize that those children must either work or starve. If they weren't working at the factories, they would have been working the fields. The children are generally more desirable because they learn manufacturing much faster than their parents (who are still working the fields or else they would starve too). It is a luxury to not require child labor in first world countries and it wasn't always so here in the US.

The other 300-400 million Chinese are economically equivalent to a western first world country in many ways. In some ways they exceed even our standard of living. E.g. internet broadband in Hong Kong is working towards standardizing at 1Gbps (100-1000x faster than our best home services) and cost in US dollars what we pay for dialup. http://www.geek.com/articles/news/hong- ... -20100420/


Those manufacturing jobs we lost are now beginning to be lost by the Chinese. Apparently they can't compete with India and several other low cost labor countries. It isn't talked about much because the political parties here have a convenient scapegoat and the Chinese government is working hard to make it appear as if everything is ok.

[t33j]

2 things:

Without getting into a discussion on the relationship between IQ and intelligence:
China has more people with an IQ higher than the average IQ of the US, than the total US population. (Calculations available upon request ) Or, simply... they have a much larger number of "smart" people than we do. Best not to take this at more than face value.

Aircraft carriers have missile defense systems, but I can't comment on how effective they would be against a threat like the one in the article. There are projects in the works involving the use of lasers to destroy missiles (and other things) at very long ranges... I'm currently working on such a project. They have been ongoing since before Obama.

[DWinter]

Aircraft carriers have missile defense systems, but I can't comment on how effective they would be against a threat like the one in the article. There are projects in the works involving the use of lasers to destroy missiles (and other things) at very long ranges... I'm currently working on such a project. They have been ongoing since before Obama.

They also have additional protection from our own aircraft and the rest of the battle group. They typically don't cruise alone especially in areas of elevated threats. Not saying it can't happen but there are a number of layers of defenses that would need to be penetrated. However, this a perfect example of why we should not be cutting defense budgets especially in the R&D department.

[gunderwood]

Aircraft carriers have missile defense systems, but I can't comment on how effective they would be against a threat like the one in the article. There are projects in the works involving the use of lasers to destroy missiles (and other things) at very long ranges... I'm currently working on such a project. They have been ongoing since before Obama.

They also have additional protection from our own aircraft and the rest of the battle group. They typically don't cruise alone especially in areas of elevated threats. Not saying it can't happen but there are a number of layers of defenses that would need to be penetrated. However, this a perfect example of why we should not be cutting defense budgets especially in the R&D department.

Hence: Carrier Battle Group.

[allingeneral]

Quick someone go get Obama out from under the bed and tell him that he now has to stop pretending to be a President and actually do something for the country that is right........makes ya wonder where the hell our weapons designers and intelligence folks have been and what have they been doing.. They are just finding this out now????Would seem to me that someone other than some political appointed pinhead needs to be installed in place of the waste that's supposedly doing it now.

Just because you haven't heard about this missile until now doesn't mean that our intelligence and weapons folks have been in the dark as well.

Just because China has such a threat - how nuts would they have to be to use it against one of our carriers in international waters?

[VBshooter]

Im sure the intel boys have been on the job..Just seems odd or maybe convenient that we are hearing about it so close to an election..I don;t put it past the Dems to be using this as a scare tactic to keep people off gaurd while they raid the treasury a little more ..China is our biggest debt holder and though I doubt they would toss one of those things at one of our carriers or threaten us just to call a marker due ,I think its better to be on the side of caution rather than just assuming they wouldn't be nuts enough to dare .....

[OakRidgeStars]

From May 2009: U.S. Naval Institute

http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedin ... me-changer

[totes6]

This is not the first time we have seen weapons such as this. We do actually have weapons systems already deployed to counter threats such as this. The youtube clip below shows such a weapons system. It basically went back to the old gatling gun system. And throws up a wall of lead in front of the incoming missile. And there have been tests of Counter Missile systems. Read through magazines like Popular Mechanics and Popular Science and you will find more. Of course all this is the unclassified material, so you can imagine what they have locked up behind the wall of classification.

[gunderwood]

This is not the first time we have seen weapons such as this. We do actually have weapons systems already deployed to counter threats such as this. The youtube clip below shows such a weapons system. It basically went back to the old gatling gun system. And throws up a wall of lead in front of the incoming missile. And there have been tests of Counter Missile systems. Read through magazines like Popular Mechanics and Popular Science and you will find more. Of course all this is the unclassified material, so you can imagine what they have locked up behind the wall of classification.

Except the phalanx system has never worked for anything other than a contrived test. They are deployed on more than just our ships and ships have been hit because they generally don't work. Neat, but to date they are a complete failure.

[t33j]

AEGIS is a carrier strike group's primary missile defense

[zephyp]

Phalanx is close in last resort and if they are busy then you are probably in trouble anyway. Aegis is the reach out and touch em before they get close system.

[gunderwood]

Phalanx is close in last resort and if they are busy then you are probably in trouble anyway. Aegis is the reach out and touch em before they get close system.

Exactly. We use them because even a small probability that they will actually work is worth it if your other defenses have already failed.

[chfaunce]

2 things:

There are projects in the works involving the use of lasers to destroy missiles (and other things) at very long ranges... I'm currently working on such a project. They have been ongoing since before Obama.

This. I imagine our companies do some similar things. I really see directed energy technologies as being the next big thing, both defensively and offensively. Laser beams - Dr. Evil would approve

[Vahunter]

The last thing China want's to do is blow up a US ship or anything belonging to the US. Who would pay back the big debt we owe them then ? We could shut down all the wal marts and really screw up China's economy.

[zephyp]

Hey Henry. In general I would agree with you but...China has a huge surplus right now. They dont need our money, especially with the present value of the dollar. They really dont need anything right now. IMO what they want is to expressly be the big dog of the world militarily, politically, and economically. Being able to blow up our ships at will would accomplish the first and leave a big door open for accomplishing the other two things...and, why would they want "worthless" American dollars when they can take real estate instead...

[alby]

How does such an overcrowded poor country afford such a thing? Makes me think about all those MADE IN CHINA products I see on the Walmart shelves.
China realy isnt that poor of a country anymore. They are a superpower in many ways !!! They have many of our manufacturing jobs. They are on a big upswing right now.

Here is the big kicker... If we go to war against China, who's going to make all the stuff we need to fight the war?