|
Writers Articles And Opinions |
|
|
|
8 March 2010 By Rick Rozoff So far this year
the United States has succeeded in inflaming tensions
with China and indefinitely holding up a new strategic
arms reduction treaty with Russia through its
relentless pursuit of global interceptor missile
deployments.
On January 29 the White House confirmed the
completion of a nearly $6.5 billion weapons transfer
to Taiwan which includes 200 advanced Patriot
anti-ballistic missiles. Earlier in the same month it
was reported that Washington is also to provide Taiwan
with eight frigates which Taipei intends to equip with
the Aegis Combat System that includes the capacity for
ship-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors.
The Aegis sea-based component of the expanding U.S.
interceptor missile system already includes Japan,
South Korea and Australia, and with Taiwan added China
would be justified in being apprehensive.
On February 28 the U.S. House and Senate foreign
affairs committees permitted the “sale to Taiwan of
missiles, helicopters and ships valued at about $6.4
billion” despite weeks of protests from China. “The
U.S. Defense Department wants to sell Taiwan the most
advanced Patriot anti-missile system….The system,
valued at $2.8 billion, would add to Taiwan’s network
of 22 missile sites around the country….” [1]
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang
recently stated “The responsibility for the current
difficulties in China-U.S. relations [belongs]
completely to the U.S. side” for failing to recognize
and respect China’s “core interests.” [2]
If the proposed placement of U.S. missile shield
components in Poland, the Czech Republic, Japan,
Australia, South Korea, Alaska and elsewhere were
explained by alleged missile threats emanating from
Iran and North Korea, the transfer of U.S. Patriot
Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles to Taiwan –
and, as was revealed in January, 35 miles from Russian
territory in Poland – represents the crossing of a new
threshold. The Patriots in Taiwan and Poland and the
land- and sea-based missiles that will follow them are
intended not against putative “rogue states” but
against two major nuclear powers, China and Russia.
The PAC-3, “one of the most comprehensive upgrade
programs ever undertaken on an American weapon
system,” [3] is in theory a strictly defensive
anti-ballistic missile system, targeting cruise and
tactical ballistic missiles. However, it has seven
times the range of its PAC-2 predecessor and with
plans for a yet further major upgrade, the Missile
Segment Enhancement, its operational capability will
be doubled again. With a future range of some 300
kilometers, the PAC-3 would be able to intercept and
destroy missiles over Chinese and Russian territory.
The English-language government newspaper China
Daily published an article on February 22 called
“China circled by chain of US anti-missile systems,”
which observed that “Quite a few military experts have
noted that Washington’s latest proposed weapon deal
with Taiwan is the key part of a US strategic
encirclement of China in the East Asian region, and
that the missiles could soon have a footprint that
extends from Japan to the Republic of Korea and
Taiwan.” [4]
The article cites a Chinese air force colonel and
military strategist as contending that “China is in a
crescent-shaped ring of encirclement. The ring begins
in Japan, stretches through nations in the South China
Sea to India, and ends in Afghanistan. Washington’s
deployment of anti-missile systems around China’s
periphery forms a crescent-shaped encirclement.”
Regular Pentagon military exercises in Mongolia,
the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Cambodia as
well as solidification of military ties with the
nations of the Indian subcontinent – Pakistan, India
and Bangladesh – are further cause for concern in
Beijing.
The China Daily feature also quoted an expert in
military affairs at the Institute of Political Science
and Law as saying “The US anti-missile system in
China’s neighborhood is a replica of its [the U.S.'s]
strategy in Eastern Europe against Russia. The Obama
administration began to plan for such a system around
China after its project in Eastern Europe got
suspended.”
In fact the current U.S. administration has by no
means abandoned plans to surround Russia as well as
China with a ring of interceptor missile installations
and naval deployments.
Last month’s revelations that Washington is going
to station land-based interceptors in Bulgaria and
Romania were followed by a report that in addition to
the Patriot missile batteries that will be set up in
eastern Poland next month “The US is still looking to
build missile silos in northern Poland” and, even more
alarming, “The US is also interested in building
longer-range missile silos near the Poland-Kaliningrad
border. These would be capable of shooting down
missiles from as far as 5,500 kilometers away….” [5]
The distance between the capitals of Poland and
Iran is less than 4,000 kilometers, so American
missiles with a range of 5,500 kilometers are designed
for other purposes. They could take in a broad stretch
of Russia.
The above-cited Chinese feature noted in addition
that “the ring encircling China can also be expanded
at any time in other directions….Washington is hoping
to sell India and other Southeast Asian countries the
Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-3 missile defense
system.”
The U.S. has had Patriot interceptor missiles
deployed in Japan, South Korea and in Taiwan even
before the planned delivery of 200 more to the third
state.
“Analysts say that China is closely monitoring
US-India missile defense cooperation since any
integration of India into the US global missile
defense system would profoundly affect China’s
security.” [6]
On February 24 Russian Lieutenant General Yevgeny
Buzhinsky was paraphrased by one of his nation’s main
news agencies as stating “China could strengthen its
nuclear capability in response to U.S. global missile
defense plans.”
Indicative of what reaction U.S. missile shield
deployments in China’s neighborhood could provoke, he
said: “At present, China has a very limited nuclear
potential, but my recent contacts with Chinese
military representatives indicate that if the United
States deploys a global missile defense system, in
particular in the Far East, China will build up its
offensive capability.” [7]
In response to U.S. insistence on supplying Taiwan
with hundreds of Patriot missiles, Blackhawk
helicopters and Harpoon missiles, on February 23 the
Pentagon announced that China had delivered on its
pledge to postpone military contacts with Washington
by canceling scheduled exchanges, including “a visit
by Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of U.S. Pacific
Command, and visits to the U.S. by China’s chief of
the general staff, Chen Bingde, and a Chinese regional
commander.” [8]
A Russian commentary on March 2 placed the
developments in stark perspective. “The differences
between the USA and China have gone so far that some
time ago Beijing announced that all contacts with
Washington in this field would be stopped….The visit
to China by Pentagon Chief Robert Gates, which was set
for the first half of this year, is also put into
question. Besides, bilateral consultations on
strategic security were also delayed on Beijing’s
initiative.” [9]
Another analysis from the same country added a
historical dimension to the burgeoning crisis in
U.S.-China relations.
“This winter has been a cold one for China-US
relations. So many serious disagreements between the
two countries have not surfaced simultaneously for
decades….In the past China and the US avoided taking
harsh measures against each other serially, but
evidently things have changed beyond recognition over
the past several months.” [10]
As mentioned above, the U.S. is implementing plans
to replicate the interceptor encirclement of Russia in
regards to China. China’s sense of alarm and its
government’s response, then, can be expected to
parallel those of Russia.
In late February Polish President Lech Kaczynski
ratified a Status of Forces Agreement for American
troops to be based at the Patriot missile battery near
Russia’s Kaliningrad district.
All American and NATO claims to the contrary,
“Poland’s former Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski
and the Polish president himself earlier admitted that
they are not concerned about threats from Iran, but
they are interested in establishing an ‘American
umbrella’ above Poland, thus trying to show that they
see Russia as an aggressor and a threat to Poland.”
“According to the agreement, about 100 American
soldiers will service up to eight US Patriot missile
launchers” [11] in an installation that “will be
equipped with elements allowing it to be integrated
with the Polish defense system.” [12]
Early last month General Nikolai Makarov, chief of
Russia’s General Staff, warned that American
interceptor missile plans jeopardize his nation’s
national security and have sabotaged the finalization
of a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
(START), which has been in limbo since December 5.
Makarov said of the U.S. project, “We view it very
negatively, because it could weaken our missile
forces.” [13]
Echoing his fears over the fate of START talks, on
February 19 Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei
Ryabkov said that Washington’s missile project “in the
most immediate sense” is negatively influencing
negotiations on a replacement to a Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty. [14]
Five days later Konstantin Kosachev, head of the
State Duma committee for international relations, said
“If the connection between the strategic arms
reduction treaty and missile defense is not
exhaustively fixed by the sides in preparing the
treaty… this would automatically create obstacles for
subsequent ratification of the document in the State
Duma and create additional difficulties for further
advance[s] in cutting strategic offensive weapons.”
[15]
The provocative decisions by the U.S. on missile
deployments in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria since the
expiration of the START last December lead to no other
conclusion than the White House and the Pentagon
intend the indefinite postponement if not the aborting
of any comprehensive agreement to limit and reduce
nuclear arms.
Russia’s permanent representative to NATO, Dmitry
Rogozin, has recently voiced the concern that the U.S.
still plans to base anti-ballistic missile facilities
in Poland and the Czech Republic [16] in spite of
statements by President Barack Obama and Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates last September 17 that previous
plans for both countries are being replaced by
“stronger, smarter, and swifter” deployments.
The U.S. has not substituted the missile
encirclement of Russia with that of China. It is
conducting both simultaneously.
As it is doing so, the Pentagon announced on
February 12 that “A U.S. high-powered airborne laser
weapon shot down a ballistic missile in the first
successful test of a futuristic directed energy
weapon, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said….” [17]
A Reuters report of the test launched from a base
in California over the Pacific Ocean, one which has
been touted as finally realizing the Ronald Reagan
administration’s plans for the Strategic Defense
Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars, described
its purpose: “The airborne laser weapon is aimed
at…providing the U.S. military with the ability to
engage all classes of ballistic missiles at the speed
of light while they are in the boost phase of flight.”
[18]
One of weapon’s manufacturers, the Boeing Company,
issued a press release for the occasion which said in
part: “This experiment marks the first time a laser
weapon has engaged and destroyed an in-flight
ballistic missile, and the first time that any system
has accomplished it in the missile’s boost phase of
flight….The laser is the most powerful ever installed
on an aircraft….” [19]
Northrop Grumman, another partner in the project
(Lockheed Martin being the third), added: “While
ballistic missiles like the one ALTB [Airborne Laser
Testbed] destroyed move at speeds of about 4,000 miles
[6,500 km] per hour, they are no match for a
superheated, high-energy laser beam racing towards it
at 670 million mph [one billion kph].” [20]
The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency was no less
enthusiastic about the results, stating “The
revolutionary use of directed energy is very
attractive for missile defence, with the potential to
attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a
range of hundreds of kilometres….” [21]
The airborne laser weapon is mounted on a modified
Boeing 747 commercial airliner. Its potential range is
global.
Ten days later it was reported by the U.S. Army
that the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at
the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico will
receive a new laser weapon and “The Army may soon
blast missiles out of the sky with a laser beam.” The
weapon contains “100-kilowatt lasers that can rapidly
heat a target, causing catastrophic events such as
warhead explosions or airframe failures.”
Pentagon officials said it has “successfully worked
in the laboratory and on the battlefield and now they
want to begin shooting down missiles with it.” [22]
Airborne laser anti-missile weapons will join the
full spectrum of land, sea, air and space interceptor
missile components to envelope the world with a system
to neutralize other nations’ deterrence capacities and
prepare the way for conventional and nuclear first
strikes.
1) Bloomberg News, March 1, 2010
2) Bloomberg News, March 2, 2010
3) Wikipedia
4) China Daily, February 22, 2010
5) Warsaw Business Journal, March 2, 2010
6) China Daily, February 22, 2010
7) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 24,
2010
8) Stars and Stripes, February 25, 2010
9) Voice of Russia, March 2, 2010
10) Roman Tomberg, Collapse of the G-2 Myth, or
Stalemate in China-US
Relations
Strategic Culture Foundation, March 2, 2010
11) Russia Today, February 27, 2010
12) Polish Radio, February 28, 2010
13) Associated Press, February 9, 2010
14) Associated Press, February 19, 2010
15) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 24,
2010
16) Voice of Russia, February 23, 2010
17) Reuters, February 12, 2010
18) Ibid
19) Defense News, February 12, 2010
20) Associated Press, February 13, 2010
21) The Guardian, February 12, 2010
22) MyStateline.com, February 22, 2010
EsinIslam.Com
|
Save
Add Comments To This Story