Even though
the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China's (with
a population more than four times as large) and Washington
plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year
compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year
for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the
U.S. and its allies.
China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small
handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South
Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands
of troops stationed in six continents.
While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
and responsible for almost half of international military
spending he was offended that the world's most populous nation
might desire to "deny others countries the ability to threaten
it."
On December 23 of last year Raytheon Company announced that it
had received a $1.1 billion contract with Taiwan for the
purchase of 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. In early
January the U.S. Defense Department cleared the transaction "despite
opposition from rival China, where a military official
proposed sanctioning U.S. firms that sell arms to the island."
[1]
The sale completes a $6.5 billion weapons package approved by
the previous George W. Bush administration at the end of 2008.
In the words of the Asia bureau chief of Defense News, "This
is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on." [2]
Defense News first reported on the agreement and reminded its
readers that "Raytheon already won smaller contracts for
Taiwan in January 2009 and in 2008 for upgrades to the Patriot
systems the country already had. Those contracts were to
upgrade the systems to Configuration 3, the same upgrade the
company is completing for the U.S. Army."
The source also described what the enhanced Patriot capacity
consisted of: "Configuration 3 is Raytheon's most advanced
Patriot system and allows the use of Lockheed Martin's Patriot
Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles [and] Raytheon's
Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical [Patriot-2 upgrade]
missiles...." [3]
The PAC-3 is the latest, most advanced Patriot missile design
and the first capable of shooting down tactical ballistic
missiles. It is the initial tier of a layered missile shield
system which also includes Terminal High Altitude Area Defense
(THAAD), Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-Based
Midcourse Defense (GMD), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD),
ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense equipped with
Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, Forward Based X-Band
Radar (FBXB) and Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) components.
An integrated network that ranges from the battlefield to the
heavens.
The system is modular and highly mobile and its batteries are
thus more easily able to evade detection and attack. It also
extends the range of previous Patriot versions several fold.
"[T]he PAC-3 interceptors, enhanced by [an] advanced radar and
command center, are capable of protecting an area
approximately seven times greater than the original Patriot
system." [4]
If like the rest of the world Chinese authorities anticipated
a reduction if not halt in the pace of American global
military expansion with the advent of a new administration in
Washington a year ago, like everyone they else have been
rudely disabused of the notion.
Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei urged the United States to
reconsider the Taiwan arms package in the sixth official
Chinese warning in a week earlier this month, telling his
nation's Xinhua News Agency that "China had strongly protested
the U.S. government's recent decision to allow Raytheon
Company and Lockheed Martin Corp. to sell weapons to Taiwan"
and "The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan undermine China's national
security." [5]
Later information added to the inventory and to China's ire
when it was revealed that "the Obama Administration would soon
announce the sale to Taiwan of a package worth billions of
U.S. dollars including Black Hawk helicopters, anti-missile
systems and plans for diesel-powered submarines in a move
likely to anger China." [6]
In addition, the China Times reported that Taiwan was to
obtain eight second-hand Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates
from the U.S. in addition to the 200 Patriot missiles. The
warships were designed in the 1970s as comparatively
inexpensive alternatives to World War II-era destroyers. The
new deal will double the amount of U.S. Perry-class frigates
that Taiwan already possesses to 16.
They will also factor into missile defense and at a higher
level, as "The island hopes to arm them with a version of the
advanced Aegis Combat System (see above), which uses computers
and radar to take out multiple targets, as well as
sophisticated missile launch technology...." [7]
While both Washington and Taipei will present the weapons
transactions as strictly defensive in nature, it is worth
recalling that last autumn Taiwan conducted its "largest-ever
missile test...launched from a secretive and tightly guarded
base in southern Taiwan" with missiles "capable of reaching
major Chinese cities." [8]
President Ma Ying-jeou observed the missile launches which "included
the test-firing of a top secret, newly developed medium-range
surface-to-surface missile with a range of 3,000 kilometres,
capable of striking major cities in central, northern and
southern China." [9]
The Patriot Advanced Capability and SM-3 interceptor missiles
the U.S. is providing Taiwan could well be employed to counter
a mainland Chinese counterattack or at the least protect the
launch sites of Taiwanese medium range missiles which, as
noted above, are capable of hitting most of China's major
cities.
Beijing responded on January 11 by conducting a ground-based
midcourse interceptor missile test over its territory.
Professor Tan Kaijia of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA)
National Defense University told Xinhua "If the ballistic
missile is regarded as a spear, now we have succeeded in
building a shield for self-defense." [10]
Time Magazine characterized the significance of the test in
writing: "There's no chance China's gambit will deter the U.S.
from backing Taiwan....But the test does signal a ratcheting
up of tensions between Beijing and Washington...." [11]
Both China and the U.S., the first in 2007 and the second the
following year, with a Standard Missile-3 fired from an Aegis-class
frigate in the Pacific Ocean in the American case, destroyed
satellites in orbit. The dawn of space war had begun.
A January 15 feature on a Russian website titled "Possible
space wars in the near future" provided background
information. "It is hard to overestimate the role played by
military satellite systems. Since the 1970s, an increasingly
greater number of troop-control, telecommunications, target-acquisition,
navigation and other processes depend on spacecraft which are
therefore becoming more important...The space echelon's role
is directly proportional to the development level of any given
nation and its armed forces." [12]
China and Russia for years have been advocating a ban on the
use of space for military purposes, annually raising the issue
in the United Nations. The U.S. has just as persistently
opposed the initiatives.
To comprehend the context in which recent developments have
occurred, Washington has for three years increasingly and
tenaciously included China and Russia with Iran and North
Korea as belligerents in prospective future conflicts.
The campaign began in earnest in February of 2007 when then
and still Pentagon chief Robert Gates testified before the
U.S. House Armed Services Committee on the Defense Department
Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request and said among other matters:
"In addition to fighting the global war on terror, we also
face the danger posed by Iran and North Korea's nuclear
ambitions and the threat they pose not only to their neighbors,
but globally because of their record of proliferation; the
uncertain paths of China and Russia, which are both pursuing
sophisticated military modernization programs; and a range of
other flashpoints and challenges....We need both the ability
for regular force-on-force conflicts because we don't know
what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in
North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere." [13]
If it be objected that Gates was only alluding to general
contingency plans, ones that could apply to any major nation,
neither his comments nor any by U.S. defense officials since
have mentioned fellow nuclear powers Britain, France, India
and Israel in a similar vein, but have reiterated concerns
about Russia and China with an alarming consistency. In fact
China and Russia have been substituted for Iraq in the former
axis of evil category.
Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that
of China's (with a population more than four times as large)
and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for
next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion
last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as
threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops
outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former
territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and
Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops
stationed in six continents.
Russia and China both reacted harshly to Gates' statements in
February of 2007 and only three days afterward, with Gates in
the audience, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a
speech at the annual Munich Security Conference in which he
warned:
"[W]hat is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this
term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of
situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of
force, one centre of decision-making.
"It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And
at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all
those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself
because it destroys itself from within."
"Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not
resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human
tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for
yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have
not diminished....And no less people perish in these conflicts
- even more are dying than before. Significantly more,
significantly more!
"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of
force - military force - in international relations, force
that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent
conflicts."
"One state and, of course, first and foremost the United
States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.
This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and
educational policies it imposes on other nations...." [14]
The warning was not heeded in Washington.
Three months later the Pentagon chief resumed his earlier
accusations. In May of 2007 the Defense Department issued its
annual report on China’s military capability, citing "continuing
efforts to project Chinese power beyond its immediate region
and to develop high-technology systems that can challenge the
best in the world."
"U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says some of China’s
efforts cause him concern."
The report said "China is pursuing long-term, comprehensive
transformation of its military forces” to "enable it to
project power and deny other countries the ability to threaten
it." [15] While Gates was in charge of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of
international military spending he was offended that the
world's most populous nation might desire to "deny others
countries the ability to threaten it."
A year after Gates linked China and Russia with surviving
"axis of evil" suspects Iran and North Korea, National
Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell singled out China,
Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) as the main threats to the United States,
even more than al-Qaeda.
The Voice of Russia responded to McDonnell's accusations in a
commentary that included these excerpts:
"Russia has demanded an explanation from America over a report
by the Director of American national intelligence in which
Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida are
described as sources of strategic threats to the U.S....Quite
possibly, the report by the U.S intelligence community amounts
to accounting for the staggering sums of money that is
allocated yearly for its upkeep. There could be other reasons
to explain why Russia has been included among states posing a
threat to America." [16]
Gates has remained as defense secretary for the new American
administration and so has the anti-Chinese and anti-Russian
rhetoric.
On May 1 of last year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
that "The Obama administration is working to improve
deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American
nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian
influence in the Western Hemisphere...." [17] The month after
she spoke those words a military coup was staged in Honduras
and two weeks after that the U.S. secured the use of seven
military bases in Colombia.
In September Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair
issued the U.S.'s quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy
report which said "Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose
the greatest challenges to the United States' national
interests. [18]
Agence France-Presse said that "The United States on [September
15] put emerging superpower China and former Cold War foe
Russia alongside Iran and North Korea on a list of the four
main nations challenging American interests" and quoted from
Blair's report:
China was fingered for its "increasing natural resource-focused
diplomacy and military modernization."
"Russia is a US partner in important initiatives such as
securing fissile material and combating nuclear terrorism, but
it may continue to seek avenues for reasserting power and
influence in ways that complicate US interests." [19]
China is not allowed to deny other nations the ability to
threaten it and Russia is not permitted to complicate U.S.
interests.
The trend, ominous in its relentlessness, continues into this
year.
The vice president of Lockheed Martin's Missile Defense
Systems, John Holly, touted his company's role in the Aegis
Ballistic Missile Defense System - components of which are
being delivered to Taiwan - as "the shining star" of
Lockheed's interceptor missile portfolio, and according to a
newspaper in the city which hosts the Pentagon's Missile
Defense Agency "Pointing to missile programs in North Korea,
Iran, Russia and China, Holly said, 'the world is not a very
safe world ... and it is incumbent upon us in industry to
provide [the Pentagon] with the best capabilities.'" [20]
Three days afterward the Pentagon's Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Wallace Gregson
"voiced doubts about China's insistence that its use of space
is for peaceful means" and stated "The Chinese have stated
that they oppose the militarization of space. Their actions
seem to indicate the contrary intention." [21]
The next day Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific
Command, stated in testimony before the House Armed Services
Committee that China's "powerful economic engine is also
funding a military modernization program that has raised
concerns in the region — a concern also shared by the U.S.
Pacific Command." [22]
The U.S. Navy has six fleets and eleven aircraft carrier
strike groups in or available for deployment to all parts of
the world, but China with only a "brown water" navy off its
own coast is a cause for concern to the U.S.
As Alan Mackinnon, the chairman of the Scottish Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament, wrote last September:
"The world of war is today dominated by a single superpower.
In military terms the United States sits astride the world
like a giant Colossus. As a country with only five per cent of
the world's population it accounts for almost 50 per cent of
global arms spending.
"Its 11 naval carrier fleets patrol every ocean and its 909
military bases are scattered strategically across every
continent. No other country has reciprocal bases on US
territory - it would be unthinkable and unconstitutional. It
is 20 years since the end of the Cold War and the United
States and its allies face no significant military threat
today. Why then have we not had the hoped-for peace dividend?
Why does the world's most powerful nation continue to increase
its military budget, now over $1.2 trillion a year in real
terms?
What threat is all this supposed to counter?
"The US response has been largely military - the expansion of
NATO and the encirclement of Russia and China in a ring of
hostile bases and alliances. And continuing pressure to
isolate and weaken Iran." [23]
Observations to be kept in the forefront of people's minds as
China is increasingly presented as a security challenge - and
a strategic threat - to the world's sole military superpower.
Related articles:
U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia
Stop NATO, October 16, 2009
Broader Strategy: West’s Afghan War Targets Russia, China,
Iran
Stop NATO, September 8, 2009
U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009
Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009
Notes
1) Reuters, January 7, 2010
2) Ibid
3) Defense News, December 23, 2009
4) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.41/system_detail.asp
5) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January
9, 2010
6) Taiwan News, January 4, 2010
7) Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2010
8) Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009
9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
10) Asian Times, January 20, 2010
11) Time, January 13, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 15, 2010
13) http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=908
14) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html
15) Voice of America News, May 26, 2007
16) Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008
17) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
18) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
19) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
20) Huntsville Times, January 10, 2010
21) Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2010
22) Washington Post, January 14, 2010
23) Scottish Left Review, November 17, 2009