“The intelligence estimates were correct,” he said, of China. “And I became, I think it’s fair to say, alarmed as soon as I started seeing technical intelligence reports on China’s modernization programs.”I've been beating this drum for awhile now.
“And I can say the same with Russia’s modernization programs as well,” he added.
The U.S. military was dominant following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he said, and the U.S. action in the Persian Gulf war demonstrated the nation’s conventional force prowess.
But beginning in 2001 the military has focused on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns against a very different kind of threat.
“No one observed more carefully the dominance that we demonstrated in 1991 than the Chinese,” Kendall said, referring to U.S. precision arms capabilities, stealth forces, and ability to conduct wide area surveillance.
“And what I’m seeing [now] in foreign modernization, again, particularly China’s, is a suite of capabilities that are intended, clearly to me, at least, to defeat the American way of doing power projection, [the] American way of warfare when we fight in an expeditionary manner far from the United States,” Kendall said.
China is doing its best to match us.
If you don't believe me then believe Kendall. They're trying to drink our milkshake.
From what I have read they don't even have to match us. They just have to make it costly enough for us to think otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI saw some comments on militaryphotos.net speculating that you were never in the Marine Corps, Sol. Could you write a post to finally put that BS to an end?
ReplyDeleteno Red Eagle. there is no need. irespond to some clowns on military photos or F-16.net? no. not worth the time or the space on the blog.
Delete1. I believe that people who can't properly discern a Marine from a non-Marine just aren't paying attention. --(from a non-Marine)
Delete2. Those who believe that the Pentagon doesn't get directly involved in social media, to discredit those they dislike, likewise aren't paying attention.
3. Anything that's written on the web, or in newspapers for that matter, ought to be individually judged using whatever criteria one thinks appropriate, as long as it is not automatically accepted at face value.
this is another one of those troll Don. i ran a simple program search to see if anyone named "Red Eagle" has ever posted on my blog before and he never has. i don't know the motivation but he's definitely playing games. if i were to guess its an attempt to destroy my credibility...as if that really needs to be done for a small backwater blog....or are more people reading than i know? ;)
DeleteIt is just odd that someone that posts so many photos has never posted any that they took during their time in the Corps. Military-photos.net, f-16.net, Aviation Week, Information Dissemination, CDR Salamander...readers on all those sites have question whether you were really in the Marine Corps.
DeleteWhy not just prove you were and shut them all up?
readers on all those sites question? really? well to be honest my ass is hanging out so far on the internet that i simply refuse to hang it out any further. additionally what you want matters not one bit. and last. while i appreciate your most heartfelt concern, its not necessary. i can handle people talking shit. it comes with having an opinion and posting a blog.
DeleteF16.net crowd have special thread where they put don bacon , eric palmer, APA, mr Kopp and Solomon in one insult thread. One have to question why some ppl feel the need to smear people just because they are against F35. Maybe the F16 crowd tried the clasic character assasination because they surely cant counter the arguments ..
Deletebasically the F16 forum is useless if you want a real discussion on facts..
i rather read Solomon's blog because most of the commenters are pretty reasonable (barring some bad apples)..
"To defeat the American way of doing power projection, [the] American way of warfare when we fight in an expeditionary manner".
ReplyDeleteThis is the most important part of the whole statement. Too many people think that since China won't be coming to our shores, its fine and dandy that everyone be equal. This is a side effect of the almost anti-any foreign policy movement that is becoming popular, particularly among younger Americans. First it's Area-Denial advancements (Anti-Ship missiles) and now they are spreading into Area-Control (Refit of Air Forces, Refit of Navy, Armor advancements)...bad
A little sidestep about Chinese and other equipment.
ReplyDeleteWhen you want to know how good a car is, even if you can not drive it yourself for 500.000 miles you can find the information. Numerous publications and (consumer)organizations test and compare.
There is no such thing for military gear, the closest you get is some competition to provide new stuff and then that is often full of secrecy, politics and such. A war can give some insight, Israel and its neighbors equipment being compared , but as those who read about these wars know human skill and lack there of play a huge part.
Now to China, I would love to know how good, or not, these planes, tanks and specially this allegedly very fast amphibious light tank are, but I think no one really knows except maybe a few insiders who will not talk or if they do it is impossible to check their validity.
You can not judge military equipment just on claims or numbers. Look only to the miserable real life results for A2A missiles at a time when they were supposed to be THE weapon of choice. They still are not that reliable..
When I read about things like he ZBD 2000, I wonder: why can China make something, at least on paper, this good when the USA can not get a successor for the AAV on the road? What are the compromises they were willing to accept that the USA could or would not? Is it really that good, or will it end up useless in practical application?
I know..I am not saying much, more asking an expressing my believe that it is impossible to judge how dangerous China's modernization really is.
One only has to look at the operational use of Chinese systems by Pakistan. If reliability and user practicality is the question, the Pakistani Military can answer most of those questions. You do have many links inside their military so getting to know how good or bad the JF-17 is should not be too much of a problem. Ditto for other systems.
Deleteis it bad for the world , if China become par with US in military and economic and influence ? is it bad for the world if china's military become the biggest in the world eclipsing US military ?
ReplyDeleteCan american accept the reality of a stronger , bigger and more succesfull China ? OR will america fight to retain it's top position / hegemony in the world ?
The Great Roman empire at it's height of power , cannot defeat the Persian Empire. Thus they have to accept that fact and tried to live with it , especially after the slaughter of Crassus's Legions by the outnumbered persians..
An interesting analogy, basically saying the USA is just an other in a succession of empires and eventually every one of them is succeeded.
DeleteI would like to ad two things:
- being an ex- empire is not actually a total disaster, Britain has actually become more affluent after, because being an empire also consumes huge amounts of resources.
- I would non the less, as someone from Western Europe, hate to see the USA surpassed by China. With all its inevitable flaws we are talking about a democracy with checks and balances and a ( sometimes failed) committal to human rights, all things you can not say about China.
In fact China is like us, as former colonial powers, on steroids, not beyond strip mining other nations without even the pretends of having positive motives.
Buntmiester-
DeleteAbout Marcus Crassus and his legions-
At the current rate of Chinese making friends and enemies, its more likely that a Chinese army and a Chinese general get massacred in Africa or someplace rather than a US one. You do know how the Chinese conduct "Diplomacy" dont you?
Name me 1 country which has been satisfied with the Chinese way of doing things. And dont qoute me Pakistan. Every Pakistani Entrepreneur and business man who is not into tne Import business curses the Chinese for flodding their market with cheap chinese goods. Whenever a Pakistani businessman tries to establish a factory or a business....he cant because its just cheaper to import from China or local chinese business grind him to dust.
The only countries that like to do business with China are the ones that can match the Chinese or ones that are new to the functioning of China....like all the newfound African and South American countries that Sol keeps posting about here.
A business, any business cannot function without Finance from a Bank. Most of the nations courted by China as you can see do not have strong Banking and Finance fundamentals. That restricts local businessmen. When the Chinese enter.....sure they make headlines that they will give 10 billion, 20 billion, 30 billion etc. of finance for developing host countries. But all that money is reserved for Chinese companies and not host country domestic enterprises.
If you want an elaboration of this then all you have to do is to look at how we restricted Chinese investment and financing in my country when Xi Jinping visited India. Look at and study how they give different interest rates to host country companies and Chinese companies.
The Roman-Persian wars were NOT a matter of 'acceptance' by anyone, after the Romans threw back the Parthians and sacked Ctesiphon. Already suffering their own civil war in the wake of Commodus' assassination and the beginning of the Year of Five Emperors and with uprisings in Britain as well as Dacia, the Romans simply did not choose to exploit their victory over the Parthians but instead withdrew, allowin the Sassanid dynasty to rise in the Parthians ashes.
ReplyDeleteThis led to /two centuries/ of raiding and border state warfare in which the Goths and Trans Caucasus Huns were the driving 'outside force' modifier with close seconds played by the traitorous turncoat states of Lazica and Armenia Magna/Iberia which constantly facilitated their own defeats to seek 'better protection elsewhere' only to find the tributary taxes and occupation of the other side to be just a onerous and flip back.
Truces and 'Eternal Peaces' seldom lasted more than 5-7 years and indeed the entire setup of the Sassanid raiding system bears eery similarities to that of Mohammed's later 'desultory attacks until paid off' Jizya raiding which is what largely prevented the Romans from consolidating their Empire, and moving West to annihilate the Goths and regain Rome.
Both Rome and Sassanid Persia were bled white when Islam finally rose and overran the lot of them, ruining the Golden Horn's Mediterranean holdings and all but wiping out the Persians.
Point Being: Nation Groups of fractious, rebellious and ultimately useless (with one exception, unable to defend themselves and unwilling to cooperate under Roman or Persian SOIs) dictated the constantly fluctuating extent of an unstable region while Roman interests across the Empire prevented them from fully concentrating upon their stabilization mission as outside forces tilted the balance, one way and then another.
While the long term consequences of fighting to a paid-off draw were what ultimately led to both sides being too weak to continue yet it was largely the Romans who were the victim of Eastern aggression in seeking this payoff and always the East which demanded and eventually got payoffs amounting to several hundred centenaria of gold (10-15,000lbs) per year.
The U.S. cannot do more than maintain a tenuous foothold in the Western Pacific as a threat to maritime trade because we simply don't have the base-in and the Chinese can move by internal rail networks (the 'Silk Route II' lines being urgently built as we speak) if they need to. We are not and indeed /will not/ build up a client state cage of nuclear armed border states because those nations (ROC, ROK and Japan) are themselves critical suppliers of export commercial goods whose pricing is directly tied to our protection.
While it is the /threat/ of large scale war and damage to China's 'face' that keeps them from pushing demands for payoff like this-
China wants vestment in U.S. interests to secure continued deficit lending
Deletehttp://www.wnd.com/2013/01/china-poised-to-play-debt-card-for-u-s-land/
The outside force modifier could come from increased Chinese presence in South America and/or Africa or from the Euro-Arab Dialogue states finally making the Mediterranean into a transnational shared economics region and then turning on and off the Suez as they like.
The U.S. has no competitive industry as a means to push cheap trade goods as influence of our own and MFN market access is so bloated that it also doesn't mean much.
We cannot afford to abandon agreements like KORUS as the Chinese WILL throw their weight around and WILL further increase the pricing of export consumer goods, removing the competitive pricing angle we now have..
Like it or not, the U.S. military is a defacto economic policy enforcement tool as much as a national defense provider.
The proof of which likes in their refusal to do the right thing and divest this nation of it's no-borders-welfare-state traitors (threats foreign -and- domestic) as we are increasingly living a bread and circuses lifestyle.
China's strategy has largely followed "Unrestricted Warfare" as written back in 1999. Not a bad read if you have a few hours to spare. http://www.cryptome.org/cuw.htm
ReplyDelete