China Conducts Ballistic Missile Intercept Test

[REALHumanRights]

China to strike US bases in Indo-Pacific, aircraft carriers in war over Taiwan

Every Pentagon war game has shown the PLA beating America with its biggest arsenal of longest-range missiles

www.firstpost.com

This AFP report: "China to strike US bases in Indo-Pacific, aircraft carriers in war over Taiwan."
I believe in India journalist Andida Day's report, I believe the key operating phrase is "Though the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan and an American counterattack is remote for now, "... but it is a significant article on security issues.

-- "Chinese defence minister Wei Fenghe reiterated Xi’s stand during a meeting with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on 10 June. Warning the US defence secretary that China would “not hesitate to start a war”, he said, “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan... If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese Army will definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost.” In an aggressive speech delivered to the summit on 12 June, Wei repeated China’s determination to “fight to the very end” to stop Taiwanese independence."

The difference from today and the past is the possibility that the CCP regime may genuinely mean such remarks on Taiwan.

Strategically, little Taiwan poses minimal threat to CCP regime PRC, although PRC may be tired of its U.S. support.

PRC dictator Xi, like dictator Putin, may decide that the unique period of an 80-year-old POTUS (in November) and dysfunctional USA government for multiple administrations may provide a unique oppotunity for CCP to strike against Taiwan, in the face of a weak USA regime. What will the USA do, use financial sanctions against PRC, when PRC organizations have significant ownership in USA capitalist companies, food production companies, etc.? It would lead to the destruction of the international capitalist market, and a ***LOT*** of nations would end up on PRC's side.

To the moderators, I believe there is value in having a topic on this article on its own. You may have one and I missed it.

 

[Obreid]

That's great, Obreid.
In the DMV area, we can roll out THAAD defenses regarding extremists with box-cutters hijacking passenger jets. (That is, unless we have plane-loads of brave martyrs like 2001's Flight 93, willing to give their lives for a country that does not care about their lives or safety.)
In the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific, our ships have Aegis systems from the last century too. It will help take down reachable missiles from the last century.
But we have untold billions of dollars for foreign wars and for the military-industrial complex to build weapons for foreign wars. Like a football team spending lots of money on a QB and RBs, but no defense team, so the other team can just rack up points on the team, basically at will.

I’m assuming you are implying the THADD system has no capabilities against missiles that they are only for planes.
There primary use and purpose is against close in missile defense. Not aircraft. Up to 150 kilometers in orbit.
So your snark is misplaced.
The Ageis system SM-3 is for the mid-flight sub orbital part of a ballistic flight.
Your completely ingnoring what has been done instead of encouraging growth in what is already there.

And as I pointed out I wasn’t claiming our defensive capability was where it could or should be. Only that is was not nonexistent.
That and pointing out that the probabilities any current tech could protect against all inbound missiles in a major ballistic launch is improbable.
It’s important but it will never be Thor’s hammer to stop all threat of nuclear war.
As we’ve seen the shoulder launched Anti-armor missiles change the nature and abilities of main battle tanks in combat.
When a new military tech is deployed a counter technology is usually quickly designed to negates the old techs advantages.

And what’s with the semantics it hasn’t been called the department of war since the turn of the last centrury. We have a DOD not a DOW.

Regarding foreign wars I too want to significantly diminish our involvement.
But there is validity in the argument that some aggression is better countered when it is localized and small.
We have not done a good job of prioritizing those missions I completely agree. But they cannot be ignored completely either.
My solution for minimizing US presence in the pacific and Europe would be to encourage and aid our aliens to develop and deploy their own nuclear deterrent.
China and Russia are going to do nothing to minimize the DPRK’s nuclear program. So tell, help or give The ROK and Japan and Taiwan nuclear weapons and bring out troops and ships home.
Real solutions are never that easy thou are they.
The reality is non-proliferation has failed.

 

[REALHumanRights]

I’m assuming you are implying the THADD system has no capabilities against missiles that they are only for planes.
There primary use and purpose is against close in missile defense. Not aircraft. Up to 150 kilometers in orbit.
So your snark is misplaced.
The Ageis system SM-3 is for the mid-flight sub orbital part of a ballistic flight.
Your completely ingnoring what has been done instead of encouraging growth in what is already there.

I am unfortunately familiar with THAAD (note spelling) and Aegis. They are good 20th century tools for finite 20th century problems in limited and/or conventional warfare. They were well-intended complements for their time with an offensive war strategy, in what was the build-up of a primarily offensive strategy. It is like deciding to only hire an offensive football team, and when people complain "there is no defense," the team also hires Dick Butkus to be the entire defense. And we stick with the Dick Butkus strategy. "See, we did something." The fact that the legendary Chicago Bears LB is now 79 years old doesn't matter. We should stop asking such inconvenient questions. And after all, isn't our POTUS 79 years old too? (And USA literally see nothing wrong.)

For a long time, the THAAD tests were a disaster. In terms of the successes, most of them are missiles that have been "dropped" from a C-17, and they find a way to make them look more "successful," and that ensures they get more funds. I know they are campaigning for the THAAD-Extended Range (THAAD-ER) and maybe my brother's children will live to see them someday.

Maybe enemies of USA will find a way to slow down their ICBMs to be speed of low-Earth orbit degrading satellites, so that our Aegis defense system can hit them. That would be very nice of Russia and CCP PRC to do for us, so our Aegis missile defense was more productive. Maybe we could start an Internet petition urging Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to slow down their missiles for us, so we can compete better.

In the meantime, the USA needs an actual Department of Defense. It could be start by creating a Department of Defensive Strategies (DDS) and move the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) under it. Then it could actually have a place and a Department level-agency to prioritize funds, while the former "Department of Defense" (aka the renamed "War Department") continues its mission of focusing on offensive weapons and foreign wars. But if not, our enemies won't care; they would be glad for USA to continue to stumble along as it has been doing - they are glad the USA de-prioritizes defense and bankrupts itself with foreign wars that it sees literally nothing from.

 

[REALHumanRights]

Threats of an armed invasion of Lithuania are proliferating in the Russian media Yevgeny Satanovsky, a prominent Russian commentator, and the Prigozhin-aligned Federal News Agency are amplifying these threats.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1538569092839481347

And on the history of the USA's Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)'s Ground-Based Interceptor RKV...

Cost tripled for missile defense warhead, despite prior warnings, GAO finds

The cost to develop the now-canceled Redesigned Kill Vehicle program for homeland missile defense more than tripled, and the program’s schedule slipped by four years, a new U.S. government watchdog report reveals.

www.defensenews.com

And regarding USA's Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI), the MDA has been looking for White Papers... and may be someday they will be able to develop a systems requirements review

Missile Defense Agency dials up the speed in quest for hypersonic interceptor

The Missile Defense Agency is focused on developing a Glide Phase Interceptor and is working toward a system requirements review later this year.

www.defensenews.com

But hey, USA has $40 billion to defend other countries.

 

[ZedBoy]

Not when there are hundreds to thousands of them raining down at once. No matter how good any system is, it can be overrun/overwhelmed hence why we have thousands of them to make any anti ballistic system pretty much useless in a full scale nuclear exchange.

MAD & the nuclear triad. Sure you could get some out of the thousands of nuclear weapons before they launch in a first strike.

Say you manage to strike a nations ICBM'S before they launch, won't make a lick of difference for US or Russia as they have subs with just as many nuclear missiles and bombers. Impossible to get them all let alone even 10% being a gracious figure.

Well Subs also are able to be exploited via when they trail their antenna. There have been a few people within the IC that have proved this and currently we don't know of a way to stop or mitigate what the *Nic..or network receives. Sure you can say bla bla...protected bla bla...one facebook file can lead to a sub being compromised, one file can be a deployment for an agent on board to sabotage or setup a relay back home.

 

[Deleted account]

They could have started decades earlier if some group wasn't so opposed to it.

Uh, no, they couldn't have. ABM is fiendishly complicated, hideously expensive, and easily defeated by decoys - as well as other technologies that were available decades ago. There's a good case to be made that it's not viable even today - at least in the context of an all-out nuclear exchange between superpowers.

 

[william]

This is the difference between a Department of War and a Department of Defense. A Department of Defense would have the budget, resources, programs, milestones, and specific near-term goals for actual DEFENSE of its people. This would of course include a priority of real, working missile defense system against ICBMs. After all, who would be engaged in a War Department's foreign wars, without a Defense Department's defensive systems to protect its public at home. It is not rational. The USA War Department can use symantics to call itself a "Defense" Department, but a Defense Department's mission priority is to "defend" its people, which would of course include a missile defense system (among many other defense-centric investments).

But a military-industrial "captialist" complex that has a profit system based on building weapons and services for foreign war, rather than priorities for national defense, would not find as much profit in national "defense." This is the Achilles Heel in the USA capitalist system. In the end, it works similar to shark-like racketeer gangs who would bleed their marks dry, and then move on to find new marks, rather than care about their survival. Serious discussions on defense raises serious questions that they don't want the public to discuss. (You can't even call this military-industrial "capiitalist" complex as laissez-faire capitalism, as laissez-faire capitalism (by definitiion) has a minimal concern for societal peace.)

The need for defense, and of course a real ICBM missile defense system, is so obvious that even a dictatorial regime repressing the most fellow human beings (1.4 billion) on Earth, the Communist Chinese Party regime of the PRC, can understand and ACT on this. A regime that persecutes and tracks its people without freedoms. A regime with concentration camps of Uighurs and other religious/ethnic minorities. A regime where political freedom is non-existent. A regime where freedom of expression and religious freedom are crimes. A regime so oppressive and cruel it would run over its citizens with tanks when they protest for democracy. A regime that, in writing , views universal human rights with contempt. Even that CCP regime understands the basic need for a working ICBM missile defense system. And despite the criminal CCP regime's contempt for universal human rights, on big threat to Chinese lives (COVID-19, ICBM missile defense), it does understand that the human rights of human life matters for the majority of its citizen.

To be clear, I am a long-time, very vocal, very active opponent of the CCP criminal regime. But when that criminal regime understands national defense better than the USA, then U.S. public need to start asking themselves really hard questions.

The CCP is working on defensive capabilities because it has always been the US's strategy of "the best defense is a good offence". Holding ground on defense does not win wars per say. Just look at history. Germanys blitzkrieg that conquered Europe, Then the D day landing and Patton's dash through France from the west and russia's attack to Berlin from the east. General MacArthur's rout of the north korean military all the way to the yalu river, and the thunder runs of allied tanks and infantry in the Gulf wars to topple Saddam Husseins regime and the rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Then you have the defensive failures. Korea is divided today because the allies went on defense instead of taking it to the CCP like MacArthur wanted, the 10 year quagmire in Vietnam because we didn't want to offend russia and china, (do you really think the US and it's allies couldn't have overrun north vietnam in less then a month, with a full scale invasion, if we wanted to), then of course you have the 20 year fiasco in iraq and afghanistan after we occupied those countries and went on defense.

The US does have robust missile defense capabilities, here is a report from 2019 https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/usmissiledefense. On top of that you have this https://www.foxnews.com/tech/navy-electronic-warfare-stops-multiple-enemy-missile-attacks-at-once, the US and it's allies have the advantage in electronic warfare capability.

Sure it's great to have good defensive strategy and by all means it should be pursed but the US and it's allies should continue the policy of "Close with and Destroy your Enemy". IMO

 

[Obreid]

Uh, no, they couldn't have. ABM is fiendishly complicated, hideously expensive, and easily defeated by decoys - as well as other technologies that were available decades ago. There's a good case to be made that it's not viable even today - at least in the context of an all-out nuclear exchange between superpowers.

It’s viable to some measure.
And there have been advances and implementation on a small scale.

One thing that I worry about is what has been done in the realm of space.
The really big question for a major war with a major power is the risk to all sides satellite coms and signals intel.
This gives me more pause than lack of missile defense.
Security of satellite intelligence gathering and satellite coms.

 

[william]

It’s viable to some measure.
And there have been advances and implementation on a small scale.

One thing that I worry about is what has been done in the realm of space.
The really big question for a major war with a major power is the risk to all sides satellite coms and signals intel.
This gives me more pause than lack of missile defense.
Security of satellite intelligence gathering and satellite coms.

That was my concern also until Mr. Musk came along with his hundreds of satellites the size of a bread box. We also have the space plane or planes, who knows how many we actually have, up there doing who knows what.

 

[REALHumanRights]

The CCP is working on defensive capabilities because it has always been the US's strategy of "the best defense is a good offence". Holding ground on defense does not win wars per say. Just look at history. Germanys blitzkrieg that conquered Europe, Then the D day landing and Patton's dash through France from the west and russia's attack to Berlin from the east. General MacArthur's rout of the north korean military all the way to the yalu river, and the thunder runs of allied tanks and infantry in the Gulf wars to topple Saddam Husseins regime and the rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Then you have the defensive failures. Korea is divided today because the allies went on defense instead of taking it to the CCP like MacArthur wanted, the 10 year quagmire in Vietnam because we didn't want to offend russia and china, (do you really think the US and it's allies couldn't have overrun north vietnam in less then a month, with a full scale invasion, if we wanted to), then of course you have the 20 year fiasco in iraq and afghanistan after we occupied those countries and went on defense.

The US does have robust missile defense capabilities, here is a report from 2019 https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/usmissiledefense. On top of that you have this https://www.foxnews.com/tech/navy-electronic-warfare-stops-multiple-enemy-missile-attacks-at-once, the US and it's allies have the advantage in electronic warfare capability.

Sure it's great to have good defensive strategy and by all means it should be pursed but the US and it's allies should continue the policy of "Close with and Destroy your Enemy". IMO

"Holding ground on defense does not win wars per se."
Absolutely agree 100 percent.
But the wafer thin level actual defense that the USA has - is not a solution either.
My analogy is offering the great Dick Butkus as the entire defensive team in a football game.
You need an actual defense, even in a game where adult men throw a ball around.
Surely for human life as well.