Armoredd.com

By Mike Soraghan
Posted: 06/06/09 12:52 PM [ET]

President Obama said Saturday he plans to “take a very hard look” at the country’s policy toward North Korea, saying the communist country’s provocations shouldn’t be rewarded.

“I don’t think that there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways by, after they’ve done these things for a while, then we reward them,” Obama said in a news conference after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

He noted that after recent nuclear test and missile launches, China and Russia have been notably less supportive than they had been in the past.

He said he prefers to take a “diplomatic approach,” but that goes only so far.

“Diplomacy has to involve the other side engaging in a serious way in trying to solve problems,” Obama said.

Source: The Hill

By Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday May 29, 2009 18:25:24 EDT

WASHINGTON — North Korea’s nuclear threats are grabbing the world’s attention. But if the North were to strike South Korea today, it would probably first try to savage Seoul with the men and missiles of its huge conventional army.

The attack might well begin with artillery and missiles capable of hitting South Korea’s capital with little or no warning. North Korea’s vast cadre of commandos could try to infiltrate and cause chaos while the South tried to respond.

The hair-trigger nature of the danger is reflected in the pledge of preparedness that American ground forces stationed just below the North-South divide have lived by for decades: “Fight tonight.”

If it came to war, destruction — civilian and military — would be heavy, even if the North held back whatever nuclear weapons it may have. The consensus American view, generally shared by allies, is that the South would prevail but at enormous human cost, including a refugee crisis on the Korean peninsula.

Fears of military conflict have increased this week, particularly regarding disputed waters off the western coast, after North Korea conducted an apparent nuclear test Monday and then renounced the armistice that has kept relative peace between the Koreas. The pact has held since the two sides fought to a standstill — with the U.S. and the U.N. backing the South and China and Russia supporting the North — in the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North is threatening to respond in “self-defense” if the U.N. Security Council imposes more sanctions as punishment for the nuclear test, which Washington and others say violated previous U.N. resolutions.

At the outset of the Korean War, which began 59 years ago next month, North Korean armor rolled across the border, catching the South by surprise. An emergency U.S. defense effort initially crumbled, and the North’s forces almost succeeded in pushing the Americans off the tip of the peninsula.

Spec ops attack?
U.S. and South Korean forces have had nearly six decades to anticipate how a renewed attack might unfold and how they would respond. The expectation is that the North would slip commandos, commonly called special operations forces, across the Demilitarized Zone that divides the North and South or into southern waters aboard small submarines to carry out sabotage and assassination.

In congressional testimony in March, the commander of U.S. forces in Korea, Gen. Walter L. Sharp, estimated that the North has more than 80,000 such commandos. He said it is the largest special operations force in the world, with “tough, well-trained and profoundly loyal troops” who are capable of clandestine missions such as sabotaging critical civilian infrastructure as well as attacking military targets.

The South has had glimpses of the commando capabilities. Until recent years the North would routinely infiltrate agents across the DMZ. One of its submarines ran aground in South Korea during a failed spying mission in 1996.

Sharp said North Korea’s army is the world’s fourth largest with 1.2 million troops on active duty, backed by as many as 7 million reserves, with an estimated 1,700 military aircraft, 800 naval vessels and more than 13,000 artillery pieces. The numbers do not tell the entire story, though. Much of the North’s equipment is old and decrepit, and it lacks the high-tech reconnaissance capabilities of the South.

Sharp did not mention chemical weapons, but it is widely believed the North has a chemical capability that it could unleash in the early stages of a land war to demoralize defending forces and deny the use of mobilization centers, storage areas and military bases.

Proximity to Seoul
Complicating the defensive calculations of the South and its American allies is the immutable fact that Seoul, with a population of about 10 million, lies about 35 miles south of the DMZ — within easy range of much of the North’s artillery.

It’s a very, very direct route. That’s always been the problem, right from the early days,” said Kerry Brown, an Asia analyst at London’s Chatham House think tank. “It’s very vulnerable to a sudden, savage all-out military attack.”

Robert W. RisCassi, a retired four-star Army general who commanded U.S. forces in Korea from 1990-93, said in a telephone interview Friday that the North’s navy is no match for the South’s and its air forces are weak and overmatched. Resources, including fuel, are a major limitation for the North.

“They don’t fly enough hours to be really proficient,” RisCassi said of the North Korean air force.

North Korea can be reached by U.S. Air Force F-16 jets from bases in northern Japan in about 30 minutes, and a squadron of new-generation F-22 fighters should deploy to the southern Japan island of Okinawa on Saturday. North Korea has been shrilly critical of the F-22 deployment, announced well before this week’s nuclear test, because the fighters — which are difficult to detect on radar and capable of cruising at supersonic speed — are seen by the North as a threat to its air defenses.

U.S. destroyers
The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, based just south of Tokyo, has two destroyers focused on North Korea at all times, meaning they are either in the Sea of Japan or can get there on short notice.

RisCassi said Kim Jong Il, the reclusive leader of North Korea, lost any “bolt-out-of-the-blue” invasion option he may have enjoyed when U.S. and South Korean forces were placed on heightened alert earlier this week.

“Whether he wants to play that card, no one knows, but I think he knows that if he plays it, he’s going to lose and he’s going to lose North Korea,” RisCassi said.

Although the U.S. has a relatively small ground force of about 28,500 troops in South Korea, the key to American support in the event of a sudden invasion would be air and naval power. The U.S. has fighters, bombers and an array of other Air Force and Navy warplanes not only stationed in South Korea but also at bases in Japan, Guam and elsewhere in the Pacific.

Source: Air Force Times

By Roxana Tiron
Posted: 05/31/09 03:32 PM [ET]

Lawmakers are so far taking a measured approach to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions as the Obama administration and the United Nations Security Council work on avenues to stymie potential nuclear proliferation or an arms race in the region.

The congressional recess in some ways has offered a respite from a barrage of statements on current events, but the panels that focus on foreign affairs are not rushing into offering any reaction into how the North Korea situation should be handled.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, helmed by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will hold a hearing on North Korea in the coming weeks, according to a Senate source, but the nature of the hearing is yet unclear. The House Foreign Affairs panel so far has no hearings scheduled on the issue for this week, and chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) has not yet issued a statement on North Korea’s most recent tests.

While lawmakers appear to take a backseat on North Korea’s renewed nuclear incursions, spy satellites have captured images that appear to show an intercontinental ballistic missile being moved by train from the capital to a launch pad at Musudan-ri in the northeast of the country. The missile is thought to be a Taepodong-2, which is in theory capable of hitting U.S. soil.

North Korea launched a long-range missile over Japan in April, sparking international outcry.

The United States is pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution that not only condemns last week’s nuclear and missile tests, but also calls for the implementation of strict sanctions against Pyongyang. But the United States still has to convince China, which exports food and energy supplies to neighboring North Korea, and Russia to agree to penalties. Russia said last week it was too early to talk about possible penalties.

This could mean a split in the Security Council, given that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday called for sanctions that would bring “real pain” to North Korea. Gates, participating at a security conference in Singapore over the weekend said that the United States will not accept a nuclear armed North Korea and promised to defend allies in the region.

“To say North Korea won’t use this weapon…is an illusion,” said Henry Kissinger, former President Nixon’s Secretary of State and a Nobel Prize winner.

He said on CNN Sunday that the United States and in particular China, which borders on North Korea, “must realize this is an untenable situation.” The U.S. and Chinese interests are “sufficiently” aligned, he said, not to want a nuclear arms race in East Asia.

Kissinger added, “North Korea should not have to worry about an American military attack.”

The Obama administration this week will send senior officials to Asia to talk with leaders of South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. All are original members of the Six-Party Talks, put in place to attempt a peaceful resolution to the security concerns of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. North Korea envoy Stephen Bosworth and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg are traveling to Asia for talks on how to respond to North Korea’s missile tests.

The delegation will focus on finding a consensus between the five countries on North Korea sanctions, but they are reportedly expected to spend at least some time discussing possible defensive measures the U.S. and its treaty allies might need to take. The group is also likely to visit Moscow before the end of the week.

But some regional experts are urging the Obama administration to directly engage North Korea.

“Washington must offer North Korea the promise of immediate talks under the Six Party framework on ending the state of war. This symbolic step would provide significant reassurance to Pyongyang as the North Korean regime contends with a leadership transition,” Martin Malin and Hui Zhang with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed.

“The next step should be a return to the process of disabling and then dismantling North Korea’s nuclear facilities, as agreed previously. A new roadmap that links North Korean denuclearization with the gradual delivery of concrete benefits, based on the ‘action for action’ principle, would facilitate subsequent steps,” they wrote. “Destinations on this roadmap should include security assurances, full diplomatic normalization, economic reform, and Northeast Asian security cooperation. The United States must take the first step.”

Source: The Hill

Brendan Nicholson
May 2, 2009
The Australian

THE most potent and versatile weapons in the Australian Defence Force’s new arsenal will be 12 big submarines and 100 multi-role Joint Strike Fighters.

The planned new generation of submarines will give Australia the ability to strike an enemy far from its shores, with a missile or a team of special forces.

These “future submarines” will be armed with satellite-guided cruise missiles, most likely the US Tomahawk, which can be “flown” through a window in a building 2500 kilometres away.

The Government has noted the advice of the Australian Submarine Institute, which describes the submarine as “Australia’s strategic sting”.

The institute said that because of Australia’s particular requirements, very long-range operations in particular, no “off-the-shelf”‘ boat would do the job.

To allow them to carry 20 or more missiles, the submarines are expected to weigh about 4500 tonnes, much bigger than the Collins Class at 3030 tonnes.

They will be able to launch their missiles, submerged, against cities of any nation attacking Australia.

Still to be designed, they are likely to be based on the Navy’s existing fleet of six Collins Class subs, now widely considered the best conventional submarines in the world. They are likely to cost about $3 billion each and will be built in Adelaide.

They will be fitted with compartments and hatches to dispatch special forces, under water, onto hostile shores and to launch unmanned mini-subs and small unmanned spy planes.

The submarines’ missiles will make them a serious deterrent even to any big nation threatening Australia.

They will also be a potent defence against attacking submarines in the event of a war.

Defence planners have noted that China is building a large force of conventional and nuclear submarines and many other nations in the region are buying “off-the-shelf”‘ models from Russia and elsewhere.

Australia’s new submarines will be able to travel long distances, 15,000 to 20,000 kilometres where necessary, without refuelling, to carry out operations as far away as North Asia.

They will be able to operate underwater for weeks and a key role will be to gather intelligence undetected in peace and war.

The new submarines will work closely with large forces of US nuclear submarines as Washington increases its numbers in the Pacific to counter the Chinese build-up.

One problem remains, finding crews to man the larger underwater fleet.

The Navy can only find enough crew at present for three of its submarines and the ADF plans to increase pay and improve conditions for submariners dramatically.

The multi-role and stealthy US Joint Strike Fighter, the Lockheed’s F-35 Lightning II, has been chosen to replace the RAAF’s F-111 bombers and the F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bombers.

Four squadrons are expected to cost $16 billion.

The so-called “fifth-generation” jet carries very sophisticated radar and missiles designed to destroy enemy aircraft 50 kilometre or more away without the fighter being detected. It is favoured by the RAAF because it is a purpose-built strike aircraft able to sink ships and destroy land targets.

The new aircraft will be delivered progressively from 2015.

Critics of the JSF have claimed it will be outclassed in a dogfight by high-performance Russian aircraft, the Sukhoi Flanker and latest MiGs, being bought by Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and China.

That assessment has been strongly denied by RAAF experts who have examined the aircraft.

Copyright © 2009. Fairfax Digital

By ANDREI CHANG
Published: April 23, 2009 at 5:05 PM

HONG KONG, April 23 (UPI) — Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono visited China in November 2007 after a series of top-level discussions by other senior officials of both countries. These exchanges of top military officials evidence the steady escalation of military cooperation between the two countries.

Other high-level diplomatic visits were also exchanged. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla visited China in June 2007, and in July of the same year Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi paid a return visit to Indonesia.

As a political favor to China, on March 12, 2008, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda was the first among the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — with a combined population of half a billion people — to object overtly to Taiwan’s bid for membership in the United Nations. The foreign ministers of other ASEAN countries then followed suit.

In November, China sent Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo, to visit Indonesia to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between the world’s most populous nation and the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Indonesia is the richest in natural resources among ASEAN members, and China has been keen to develop economic cooperation in parallel with its strategic ties. China’s key imports from Indonesia currently include crude oil, petroleum refined from tar, petroleum byproducts, natural gas, coal and rubber.

Trade between China and Indonesia was valued at $28 billion last year. During a visit to Beijing by Indonesian Economic Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati last month, the two sides set a goal of $30 billion for 2010.

Starting this year, Indonesia will supply China’s southern coastal province of Fujian with 2.6 million cubic meters of natural gas every year; the contract is valid for 25 years.

China is particularly interested in Indonesia’s rich crude oil resources. In 2007, Sinopec, China’s top oil and gas company, announced it would invest $14 billion in Indonesia to develop crude oil and natural gas resources. China also plans to invest in developing Indonesia’s coal mines.

It is not clear how Indonesia has paid for the Chinese weapons it has acquired so far, but Jakarta’s practice in recent years in procuring weapons from Poland, Russia and South Korea indicates that many of its deals have been negotiated through barter trade.

It is safe to say that China’s efforts to strengthen military cooperation with Indonesia, as elsewhere around the world, are largely aimed at implementing its national energy-security strategy.

In addition to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei have all been targeted by China for weapons deals in exchange for oil. Increasingly, wherever there is oil, Chinese-made weapons can be found.

With the exception of Vietnam, which has a longstanding mistrust of China, more Chinese-made weapons can be expected to appear throughout Southeast Asia in the years to come.

–

(Andrei Chang is editor in chief of Kanwa Defense Review Monthly, registered in Toronto.)

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

World Tribune

— A classified assessment relayed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Obama and his senior advisers would incrementally diminish U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel developed over the last 20 years.

“Obama wants to make friends with our worst enemies and until now the worst enemies of the United States,” an Israeli source familiar with the intelligence assessment said.
“Under this policy, we are more than irrelevant. We have become an obstacle.”

[On April 21, Obama said he would meet Netanyahu in Washington as part of revived U.S.-led peace efforts in the Middle East, Middle East Newsline reported. The president said the summit would take place over the next few weeks.]

Israeli sources said the administration would reject Israel intelligence on such threats as Iran and Syria while advancing the Obama agenda to reconcile with the two states, both listed as state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Dept.
On April 20, Israeli military intelligence commander Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin warned the Cabinet that Obama was prepared to allow Iran to retain its capability to assemble nuclear weapons and support Hamas and Hizbullah.

“Obama wants to advance the peace process in the direction of realistic discussions with extremist elements,” Yadlin said.

The Israeli intelligence assessment envisioned that Obama would maintain his reconciliation policy with Iran and Syria through at least 2010. The sources said the assessment determined that Obama was convinced that such a policy would enable a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Obama will want to show Iran, Syria and radical Muslims that the United States could pressure Israel on a strategic level,” the source said. “The pressure has already begun and will intensify throughout the next year or two.”

The military intelligence chief said Obama was also courting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Yadlin said both Damascus and Teheran have not significantly reduced their support for insurgency groups throughout the region.

“President Bashar Assad hopes to turn over a new leaf with U.S. President Barack Obama,” Yadlin said. “However, while Western powers are being hosted at the palace in Damascus, Syria is continuing to be used as the back yard of the axis of evil. Assad is letting Hizbullah and Iranian forces freely conduct their affairs in Syria and use its territory for Hizbullah deployment.”

Yadlin said Obama’s policies have generated dismay among Arab allies of the United States. He said Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia were concerned that U.S. reconciliation efforts would merely encourage Teheran and its proxies to intensify destabilization efforts. In April 2009, Egypt reported a Hizbullah network that operated in Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula.

“The Arab world is starting to understand that Iranian proxies are a threat to the region,” Yadlin said. “The Hizbullah activity in Egypt is not an isolated incident. Iran has infrastructures across the world seeking to perpetrate terror attacks against Israel.”

At the same time, the Obama administration was expected to restrict U.S. arms exports to Israel in an effort to deny systems that could be used in any attack against Iran or Syria. The intelligence sources said this policy was implemented during the last year of the Bush administration and would intensify under Obama.

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 23 Apr 2009 17:00
Defense News

WARSAW - A radar early warning network being set up by Poland, Norway and Turkey will facilitate information exchange between NATO and Russia on air-borne threats to their respective territories, Poland’s defense ministry said April 23.

“This is a trilateral initiative by Poland, Norway and Turkey,” Polish defense ministry spokesman Robert Rochowicz told AFP, but declined to provide further details other than confirming the network would be headquartered in the Polish capital Warsaw.

Related Topics
Europe
“This centre will certainly be created. We consider it to be an important element of cooperation with our partners in the East,” Poland’s Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said April 23 in Bialystok, eastern Poland, quoted by the Polish PAP news agency.

According to Poland’s Dziennik daily, the Warsaw headquarters of the project will collect data transmitted from radar bases in Norway, Poland and Turkey and inform Moscow should it detect airborne threats.

In return, Russia would provide NATO with its own information on similar airborne menaces to the territory of the Western defense alliance.

Klich said the project was an example of relaunched dialogue between Russia and NATO “which is not only political.”

NATO suspended dialogue with Moscow after its incursion into Georgia in August 2008. In March, NATO member decided to reactivate relations with Russia.

On Thursday Russia’s ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin announced that the next NATO-Russia council held at the level of foreign ministers will take place May 19 in Brussels.

Czech lawmakers April 22 put off indefinitely a vote on whether to allow a U.S. radar base on Czech soil as part of a planned anti-missile system which was to see interceptor missiles placed in Poland.

All content © 2009, Army Times Publishing Company

April 21, 2009
by Ray Walser, Ph.D.
WebMemo #2401
The Heritage Foundation

President Obama has completed a grip-and-grin opportunity with hemispheric counterparts at the recently concluded Fifth Summit of the Americas. At the summit, billed as a listen-and-learn event, President Obama modestly offered U.S. assistance to Latin American nations hardest hit by the economic crisis via lending from the International Monetary Fund and Inter-American Development Bank, as well as promising a $100 million Microfinance Growth Fund. Obama made no public mention of trade, foreign investments, or global trade negotiations as potential solutions.

The President reiterated the need to confront transnational drug and security challenges, but offered little more than a promise of $30 million in aid for Caribbean nations. He will press for Senate ratification of an inter-American arms treaty that promises symbolic relief. Finally, a voluntary energy-climate partnership agreement will serve as a conceptual framework for future green actions in the Americas.

When it came time to sign the summit’s declaration, however, Venezuela and other nations balked because it failed to demand an end to U.S. trade sanctions against Cuba or Cuba’s inclusion in hemispheric institutions.

The New Good Neighbor Policy

Often fascinated with things Rooseveltian, President Obama appeared to be rekindling FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy:

I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values. So I’m here to launch a new chapter of engagement that will be sustained throughout my administration.

In the post-summit press event, President Obama promised to break free “from the stale debates and old ideologies.” He noted that while the U.S. is governed by universal values, the U.S. sometimes falters.” Yet, when the President had a chance to deliver a strong message on democracy and human rights, he gave lukewarm one.

For the moment the U.S. seeks friendship with all, regardless of political coloration or economic persuasion. And, as it did during FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy, the U.S may enter a new period of non-interventionism in the Americas–learning to live in relative harmony with the contemporary equivalents of nationalists, corporatists, and tyrants of the 1930s.

Mesmerized by Cuba

The Administration largely kept Cuba off the immediate agenda, despite a reported offer by Cuba’s Raul Castro to open talks. On April 16, speaking before the Latin American left clique of Chávez and company, Raul said, “We are willing to discuss everything,” but then he inserted all sorts of caveats. President Obama tried to lower expectations of rapid change, noting, “I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking. But I do believe that we can move U.S.–Cuban relations in a new direction.” The President will face renewed domestic pressure to start direct talks with the Cubans, end the ban on general U.S. travel, and throttle back business and commercial restrictions.

Bolivarian Arm Twisting

Venezuela’s populist strongman Hugo Chávez pursued the paparazzi approach to the event but generally controlled his oversized enthusiasm. He gained a photo-op: all handshakes and smiles. During a general meeting, he thrust a popular pro-left history of exploitation and repression in the Americas into the President’s open hands.

Later, President Obama claimed the encounters were no big deal, that U.S. security interests had not been compromised, and that better relations with Venezuela might be advantageous. In his press conference, he registered concerns about Venezuela’s foreign policy and economic policy but failed to mention a mounting assault on Chávez’s political opposition.

Breaking the diplomatic norm of privately requesting host country acceptance of an ambassador-designate before making a public announcement, Chávez announced he will name Roy Chaderton, current Venezuelan ambassador to the OAS, as ambassador to the U.S. Chávez’s proposal short-circuits the normal diplomatic process and limits Washington’s ability to respond privately on the fitness of a potential ambassador. Chávez also created the expectation that Washington will follow suit with a new ambassador to Caracas. Overall, President Obama has clearly opened the door to renewed relations with Venezuela–without a great deal of preconditions.

The Next Hundred Days and Beyond

The initial impression of the summit is that all nations came away feeling they were winners. There were no riots, no counter-summits as in Mar del Plata during the Fourth Summit attended by President Bush. Contentious issues like free trade, serious governance reforms, or free versus unfree markets were relegated to the background. Overall, the latest iteration of the Summit of the Americas was long on idealism and upbeat rhetoric and short on accomplishments.

The summit marks the end of the Administration’s first 100 days in regional diplomacy. Two things have been accomplished:

Critical importance, but limited resources, are being attached to Mexico’s difficult battle against powerful drug cartels; and
A path to increased and uncertain interaction with Cuba’s Communist regime and its aging leadership is being opened.
As it continues to put a Latin American team in place and comes down from the rare air of the summit, the Administration needs to concentrate on four basic challenges

Exercise Caution on Cuba. President Obama must now give his new policy time to work and discourage Congress from seeking to unilaterally lift restrictions on U.S. tourism and end the embargo. He should continue to press for reform, drawing high-level attention to Cuba’s human rights situation and emphasizing the need for a democratic transition on the island.
Keep Mexico on the Front Burner. Mexico is by far the most pressing regional challenge, one that requires the steady application of the Oval Office’s influence. The Administration needs to focus on the delivery of promised anti-drug assistance. It can help by using the President to deliver a powerful message against drug abuse in the U.S. as a first step toward demand reduction.
Complete Free Trade Deals. The Administration should avoid shadowy rhetoric about “partnerships” and “a new era in the hemisphere” and seal the deal by working with Congress to deliver approval of free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.
Tough Love for Chávez, Morales, and Ortega. Latin America’s populist-authoritarian left says it wants good relations and its own “restart button.” The Obama Administration must develop a results-oriented, “show-me” policy in response. Security concerns, economic policy issues, and the loss of democratic freedoms are challenges that must be addressed if there is hope for genuinely constructive relationships to develop between the U.S. and nations governed by the Latin American left. Photo-ops and populist dramatics make good media story, but they accomplish little.
True Reform or Mere Rhetoric?

The Fifth Summit of the America’s was characterized by feel-good rhetoric and the resurrection of FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy. However, the real impact of the summit–if there is to be one–will not be clear until the Administration addresses these four basic challenges.

Ray Walser, Ph.D., is Senior Policy Analyst for Latin America in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

© 2009, The Heritage Foundation, conservative policy research since 1973.

MUMBAI (AFP) — France on Friday gave its backing to India developing a nuclear attack submarine fleet, with a senior naval officer saying it was a “legitimate” step as the country emerges as a major global force.

The commander of the French Joint Forces in the Indian Ocean, Vice Admiral Gerard Valin, said India’s military assets had to develop to reflect its position as a key world player, including in maintaining world stability.

Asked if that meant having nuclear attack submarines, he told reporters in Mumbai: “For me it’s legitimate.”

“A nuclear-propelled submarine gives you mobility. France has a nuclear deterrent. To have a nuclear deterrent you must have submarines capable of ensuring the security of a large area,” he added.

“I think that India will be in the same situation” in the future, he said.

India’s naval chief said in 2007 that the country’s first domestically built nuclear-powered submarine would be ready for sea trials by this year.

The vessel is expected to be an adaptation of the Russian Charlie II class submarine and capable of firing nuclear warheads.

Since then, India has test-fired nuclear-capable ballistic missiles from undersea platforms as part of an ongoing programme to develop land and sea-borne nuclear and conventional missile systems.

France and India have been steadily developing military ties.

Last week the Indian and French navies took part in anti-submarine exercises off the coast of the western state of Goa, said Valin.

India’s navy is also involved in the international effort to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa. Part of Valin’s mandate is marine law enforcement, including targeting high seas hijacks by armed bandits in the same area.

In October 2005 India signed contracts worth 2.4 billion euros (3.8 billion dollars) with Armaris, which is owned by France’s Thales, and European defence firm MBDA to buy six Scorpene submarines.

They are being assembled in India and are slated to begin operations from 2015.

French companies are also looking to make inroads into India’s civilian atomic energy market, following the lifting last year of an embargo on nuclear deals with India imposed in 1974 after New Delhi staged nuclear tests.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Alliance leaders hold an anniversary summit in France and Germany.

03 April 2009
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is sixty years old. On April fourth, nineteen forty-nine, twelve countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. They were allies from World War Two. They promised to protect each other from the growing threat they saw from another former ally, the Soviet Union.

Leaders from NATO countries have gathered for two days of meetings through Saturday in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany. The summit meetings also brought thousands of troops and police for security and to control protests.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the main subject at the sixtieth anniversary meetings would be the NATO operations in Afghanistan. President Obama announced a new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan last week.

About thirty-eight thousand American troops are currently in Afghanistan. The president is moving to raise that to about sixty-eight thousand by the end of the year.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia in the nineteen nineties challenged NATO’s traditional position as a defensive alliance. Ten years ago at this time, NATO was bombing Serbia to end its violent campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

NATO first brought together the countries of Western Europe with Canada and the United States. Today it includes former enemies of NATO that were members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. NATO’s expansion to the east, toward the borders of Russia, has raised Russian concerns.

This week, Albania and Croatia officially joined NATO — bringing the alliance to twenty-eight nations. And French President Nicholas Sarkozy has decided to return France to NATO’s military command for the first time in more than forty years.

Looking to the future, spokesman James Appathurai says there are questions that NATO must answer.

JAMES APPATHURAI: “What do we need to do: Should we do more to fight cyber attacks? Should we do more to engage in energy security? How far should NATO’s reach be for operations? Who should our partners be and how should we engage them?”

On Thursday, leaders of major industrial and developing countries met in London to battle the world recession. The Group of Twenty agreed to finance one trillion dollars in additional loans and credits for struggling countries. The money will go to the International Monetary Fund and other lenders.

President Obama said there is no guarantee that all the steps agreed to at the meeting will work, but:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “I think we applied the right medicine. I think the patient is stabilized. There are still wounds that have to heal. There are still emergencies that could arise. But I think you have some pretty good care being applied.”

The American president will meet with European Union leaders in the Czech Republic on Sunday. He talked about the summit at a meeting of mainly French and German students in Strasbourg on Friday. He says that in Prague he will lay out a plan to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Then Barack Obama heads to Turkey for the last stop on his first trip to Europe as president.

And that’s IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I’m Steve Ember.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair’s remarks are the most pointed yet from the U.S. that Pyongyang is really planning to send up a missile next month.

By Greg Miller
7:21 PM PDT, March 26, 2009
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington — North Korea’s threatened missile launch is intended to demonstrate its ability to carry out an intercontinental military strike, a top U.S. official said Thursday, brushing aside the country’s claims that it is merely sending a satellite into space.

“Most of the world understands the game they are playing,” National Intelligence Director Dennis C. Blair said. “I think they’re risking international opprobrium and hopefully worse if they successfully launch it.”

Blair’s comments represented the most pointed U.S. challenge so far to Pyongyang’s repeated assertions that its upcoming rocket launch is for peaceful purposes.

Recent satellite images indicate that North Korea is in the final stages of assembling a multistage rocket on a launch platform along the country’s east coast.

The move is seen by some experts as an effort by Pyongyang to command attention from Washington at a time when the Obama administration is focused on other international issues, including the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

Blair’s remarks are the latest in an exchange between the countries that has heightened concerns about whether talks aimed at convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program can be restarted. The multiparty talks called for the West to supply North Korea with much-needed aid and other concessions in return for Pyongyang’s dismantling of the program.

North Korea has said it intends to launch the missile between April 4 and 8, a period when President Obama will be meeting with world leaders abroad.

Last week, Pyongyang informed international aviation and maritime agencies that it expected the first stage of its rocket to splash down in the Sea of Japan, and the second to land in the Pacific Ocean.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned this week that “there will be consequences” if North Korea goes forward with the launch. In turn, Pyongyang has threatened to reverse the steps it has taken on disarmament if any sanctions are imposed.

The U.N. Security Council banned North Korea from engaging in nuclear weapons activities in 2006, after the country detonated its first nuclear device.

But North Korea argues that the ban does not apply to a satellite launch for civilian purposes.

Blair rejected that position during a briefing with reporters.

“They’re trying to use the rationale of a legitimate space launch for a missile, which is in its foundation a military missile,” Blair said, describing the rocket as a Taepodong, a multistage missile that may be capable of reaching Alaska.

During the briefing, Blair also condemned the human rights record of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, pointing to the widespread lack of food and fuel.

“I think when that regime finally cracks and the books are written about North Korea, it’s going to be one of the saddest episodes in human history,” he said.

“The statistics on the stunted growth — physical and mental — of the overall population in North Korea are just awful, unspeakable.”

Despite persistent shortages, as well as a possible stroke that sidelined Kim last year, Blair indicated that U.S. intelligence agencies do not see a threat to the regime’s hold on power.

“In the near term, at least, we can’t expect some powerful alternative to Kim” to emerge, Blair said.

greg.miller@latimes.com

By Tony Capaccio and Michael Forsythe

March 26 (Bloomberg) — China is altering the balance of power in Asia by continuing to develop “disruptive” military capabilities, including cyber and anti-satellite technologies, the U.S. Defense Department said in a report to Congress.

“China’s ability to sustain military power at a distance remains limited, but its armed forces continue to develop and field disruptive military technologies” such as missiles that would hinder adversaries from entering a battle zone, the Defense Department said in the annual report, released yesterday.

The term disruptive technology describes products or processes that marginalize older technologies. In the military, cyber warfare can disable computer-based weapons systems. In 2007, China destroyed one of its weather satellites in space with a kinetic weapon, leading lawmakers to question the safety of U.S. surveillance and communications satellites. China is also developing anti-satellite lasers and has the ability to jam some satellite transmissions, the report said.

The report “provides a very professional, factual description of what we see with the Chinese military,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters. “It provides some new details, some additional specificity, but there are no new major strategic insights or capabilities revealed,” he said.

The report said China’s lack of transparency in detailing its military spending and capabilities “poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.”

Rise in Spending

China’s defense spending has increased by more than 16 percent a year for the past decade, according to Chinese government figures. The Pentagon report puts China’s defense spending at the second-highest in the world after the U.S., with total spending at between $105 billion and $150 billion in 2008. The U.S. military’s budget in 2008, not including supplemental spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was $488 billion.

China’s government said earlier this month that its military spending will rise to 480.6 billion yuan ($70.4 billion) this year, up 14.9 percent from 2008. The Pentagon report said the Chinese budget “does not include major categories of expenditure.”

China’s military is increasingly taking part in military exercises with other countries, the report said. This year three Chinese navy ships participated in anti-piracy patrols off Somalia.

Earlier this month five Chinese vessels confronted a U.S. surveillance ship in the South China Sea.

‘Relatively Low’

Li Zhaoxing, the spokesman for China’s legislature and a former foreign minister, said March 4 that “China’s defense spending is relatively low in the world.”

“China’s limited military power will be used solely to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Li said.

The Pentagon report said China is continuing to pursue military capabilities aimed at deterring Taiwan from declaring formal independence from the mainland. China considers Taiwan to be a renegade province. The U.S. is required by law to sell the island weapons for its defense.

In the past year, China and Taiwan ended a six-decade ban on direct shipping, air and postal links following the election of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who abandoned his predecessor’s pro-independence stance.

“This modernization and the threat to Taiwan continue despite significant reduction in cross-Strait tension over the last year since Taiwan elected a new president,” the Pentagon report said.

“Tensions are reduced but they have not vanished,” Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told the House Armed Services Committee March 24. Talks between the countries are “richer today and more productive” than before the election of Ma, he said.

Balance of Power

The report says that Taiwan no longer enjoys air superiority over the waters separating the mainland and the island, reversing a conclusion the Pentagon first voiced in 2002.

“Since 2000, the military balance in the Taiwan Strait has continued to shift in Beijing’s favor, marked by the sustained deployment of advanced military equipment to the regions opposite Taiwan,” the report said.

“In 2002, the department assessed that Taiwan ‘has enjoyed dominance of the airspace over the Taiwan Straits for many years.’ This conclusion no longer holds true,” the report said.

In particular, China has increased its force of mobile short-range missiles based in garrisons opposite Taiwan to as many as 1,150 in September from up to 790 in late 2005, the report said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anthony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Forsythe in Washington at mforsythe@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 25, 2009 18:13 EDT

By Dune Lawrence

March 24 (Bloomberg) — China’s flash of maritime muscle earlier this month against a U.S. Navy ship has put its neighbors and America on watch against a bolder push to exert sovereignty in regional waters.

After a decade of increases in defense spending that averaged 16 percent a year, China has the military means to enforce claims in the energy-rich and trade-heavy South and East China Seas — and to challenge U.S. activities there, as it did March 8 when five Chinese vessels confronted the USNS Impeccable.

“China is looking to expand” its sphere of influence towards Guam and to the Philippines, says Tai Ming Cheung, a senior fellow at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation in La Jolla, California. “The maritime arena is one of the most fluid and strategic for China in terms of how it’s going to defend and expand and protect its interests internationally.”

China’s move reflects its increasing international political and economic clout, which may lend it confidence in challenging the U.S. — and complicate America’s response. President Barack Obama needs China’s support in dealing with North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs, not to mention its financial help in the form of continued purchases of U.S. government debt to support stimulus plans.

“There are much bigger factors at play, notably the need to keep China on board in cooperating in resolving the financial and economic crisis,” says Tim Huxley, executive director in Asia for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

‘Dangerously Close’

Just eight weeks after Obama’s inauguration, the Chinese boats crowded “dangerously” close to the American surveillance ship and demanded it leave waters about 75 miles south of Hainan Island, China’s southern-most province, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, which sent a warship escort.

China said the U.S. broke international law by spying close to its shores. The U.S. said its activities are allowed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

For Shane Osborn, the row seemed all too familiar. Osborn piloted a U.S. Navy surveillance plane that collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the same area in April 2001 — just weeks after the start of George W. Bush’s first term as U.S. president. The Chinese pilot died. Osborn had to make an emergency landing on Hainan, a beach resort and military base, where the Chinese detained him and his crew for 11 days, claiming they entered China’s airspace without permission.

‘Déjà Vu’

The Impeccable’s encounter “was a little bit like deja vu,” says Osborn, 34, now treasurer of Nebraska. While tension died down soon after the 2001 incident, Osborn says he’s concerned that won’t happen this time, and he’s quick to point out how China’s military has changed in the past eight years.

“They’ve made large investments in upgrading their equipment, and it’s starting to show now,” he says. “They were just at the beginning of it” then.

According to a Feb. 4, 2009, report by the Council on Foreign Relations, China had a “bare bones” military in the 1990s, “basic capabilities but nothing sophisticated or top-of- the-line.” While the U.S. Navy remains far more powerful, the gap has narrowed. In 2008, China had 57 attack submarines, up from 50 in 2002, and 74 destroyers and frigates, compared with 60 six years earlier, according to U.S. Defense Department annual reports.

Anti-Piracy Patrols

Its fleet now has the capacity for missions far from China’s shore; in December three ships participated in anti- piracy patrols off Somalia, where its cooperation with the U.S. spurred praise from American officials.

Still, the two countries disagree on international law governing a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone extending into the ocean from coastal nations’ shores. The U.S. says its military surveys don’t require Chinese permission; China says they do. Analysts note the U.S. would never allow similar activity off its coast.

“We haven’t gone to Hawaii and done surveillance,” Zhao Guojun, former commander of China’s East Sea fleet, said March 12. “If the U.S. takes provocative actions, it’s hard to say what will happen.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates downplayed the contretemps on March 18, saying he didn’t think China was moving to push America’s navy from the area.

‘Troubling Indicator’

A day later, Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, sounded a strong alarm, calling the incident “a troubling indicator” that China isn’t “willing to abide by acceptable standards of behavior or rules of the road.” The country’s “behavior as a responsible stakeholder has yet to be consistently demonstrated,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Some of China’s neighbors may be similarly concerned. On March 11, Xinhua News Agency reported that China dispatched a 4,450-ton fisheries patrol boat to protect its interests in the South China Sea, which include the disputed — and potentially oil-rich — Spratly Islands. More vessels may be added to the mission, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported.

That may harm China’s bilateral relations in the region, according to Taylor Fravel, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“There’s a baseline of low-level tension that can always escalate, and the increasing Chinese presence may raise that baseline,” he says.

Conflicting Claims

In the past few weeks, the Philippines and Malaysia have restated conflicting claims to the Spratlys, where, in 1995, the Philippines and China came to the brink of open conflict over alleged Chinese military installations on Mischief Reef.

Filipino lawmakers reportedly called the fisheries patrol- boat deployment “gunboat diplomacy” and said the U.S. needs to clarify what position it might take in the dispute.

The U.S. may also face decisions about getting involved in quarrels among China, Taiwan and Japan in the East China Sea if China tries to push its sovereignty there. All three claim the Senkaku Islands, giving them rights to energy deposits. Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso said in response to lawmakers’ questions last month that the U.S. would be bound by their mutual security agreement to help it defend the islands.

Bernard Cole, an expert on China’s navy at the National War College in Washington, says he wouldn’t be surprised to see more assertive moves by China. Conflict with Taiwan, the main driver of China’s naval development for decades, now looks less likely as ties warm, and, with China’s economic growth slowing, the military needs to justify its budget, Cole says.

The naval command may be saying “see, here’s the value to the country quite apart from Taiwan: We can fight piracy, we can guard the sea lines of communication, we can defend our sovereignty,” he says.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dune Lawrence in Beijing at dlawrence6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 23, 2009 13:49 EDT

By Hari Sud
Column: Abroad View
Published: March 20, 2009
UPI Asia

Toronto, ON, Canada, — The Strait of Malacca is where the Pacific Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. It is the route that China-bound oil shipments take. All India must do to prevent a Chinese invasion of its northeast or Kashmir is to block this route. With its naval build-up of the last 10 years, and especially its recently announced purchases, India could do this.

India has U.S.-made submarine hunter-killer planes – Boeing P-8s equipped with Harpoon missiles – one Russian and one Indian-made aircraft carrier, French Scorpene attack submarines and an Indian-built nuclear submarine with missiles reaching hundreds of miles. It can arm its Russian and Indian-made destroyers and frigates with Brahmos sea-denial missiles, and has shore-based naval attack capability. The Chinese could not cope with this formidable force.

Add to this India’s growing network-centric capability and the Chinese are completely outmaneuvered.

If China put together a large force to neutralize India at the western end of the Strait of Malacca, it would weaken its home naval defenses in the South China Sea. Hence, China will continue to posture and send its navy on Indian Ocean cruises – but a formidable opposition is already building.

Moving into the Indian Ocean prematurely was a wrong move on China’s part. It alerted India and prompted a defensive build-up to counter China’s advances. China’s recent deployment of naval destroyers in the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy missions revealed its newly acquired naval capability. An incident concocted by the Chinese press, in which an Indian Kilo-class submarine allegedly confronted a Chinese Aegis-class ship in the Gulf of Somalia, indicated China’s deep concerns about the growing prowess of the Indian Navy.

All China’s moves in the Indian Ocean – such as acquiring Coco Island from Myanmar and building up Gawadar Naval base in Pakistan – have been to intimidate India. India got the message and has begun building up its own naval forces. Its naval base in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, at the mouth of the Malacca Strait, gives India a big advantage.

China’s offensive naval capability away from home has grown exponentially with the acquisition of nuclear submarines. It is refitting a Russian and a homemade aircraft carrier, which may be ready in seven years. Surveillance capability from Coco Island off the Myanmar coast has also enhanced its effectiveness.

Chins has four Sovremenny-class destroyers purchased from the Russians and delivered in 2000 and 2006. These are its most potent warships. Originally designed by the Soviets to attack U.S. naval flotillas on the high seas, the Moskit anti-ship missile is a very potent weapon. But its limited range of 10 to 120 kilometers is lower than the Indian Brahmos sea-denial missile, with a range of 300 kilometers. Sovremenny-class ships also carry long- and short-range ship-to-shore missiles – effective if the Chinese get too close to Indian coastal bases.

China has launched its own “total weapons system” in its Aegis-equipped destroyers, developed from stolen and copied Russian technology to counter U.S. Aegis-class ships on Taiwan patrol duty. Its capability to launch long-range anti-aircraft missiles and sea surveillance is noteworthy, but how closely the Chinese copy resembles the original is unknown.

Most noteworthy in China’s naval arsenal is its fleet of submarines. In the last 10 years China has taken delivery of 12 Russian Kilo-class submarines. These, together with two new nuclear-powered submarines – the Jin class to carry ballistic missiles and Shang class attack submarines – are more potent than their ships. Nuclear ballistic missiles on board the Jin-class submarine are meant to intimidate the United States and Japan.

A large mix of these ships and submarines could travel to the Indian Ocean from China’s newly built naval dock facilities on Hainan Island and confront India or the United States.

The private intelligence agency Stratfor has concluded that by 2015 China will have two aircraft carriers – one Chinese and one Russian, but refitted by China – and two to four nuclear submarines. But China faces immense challenges in building these. Without outside help, their reliability and effectiveness are in doubt.

India’s naval expansion is not far behind. It is adding six conventional submarines from France and 33 other ships in the next five years. In addition, one or two nuclear submarines plus an aircraft carrier of Indian design and a refitted Russian one should be ready in the next two and eight years respectively.

Overall, India currently operates 134 ships, 16 submarines and two, possibly three aircraft carriers. Indian submarines are relatively modern. The French Scorpene submarines are stealth and independent propulsion and can stay under water for long periods. The nuclear submarines will carry 700-kilometer-range missiles.

One Indian nuclear submarine with its indigenous missile system is in the final phase of construction. If the Chinese position a nuclear submarine off the coast of India, the Indians can send their own nuclear submarine into position off the southern coast of China. This tit-for-tat deployment will deny China the advantage.

India’s destroyers and frigates are equipped with longer-range supersonic Brahmos missiles and carry Barak-1 anti-missile defense systems. Its aircraft carrier is presently equipped with Sea Harrier jump jets, but these will be replaced with highly lethal naval version MIG-29Ks. The newer aircraft carriers will have more advanced weapons and aircraft.

It is the Indian P-8s, the newly ordered surveillance and submarine hunter-killer planes, that are a force to reckon with. They can pick out a submarine hundreds of miles from Indian shores and “kill” it with Harpoon missiles. Add to this the shore-based defense network and the enemy will have no place to hide or get away.

In addition, India’s network-centric battlefield interconnectivity has greatly enhanced the navy’s reach. It is a strategic force multiplier. Its availability to any navy enhances the entire spectrum of management including diplomacy, humanitarian assistance, strategic deterrence, trade and commerce and security.

India made its first inroads into network-centric warfare immediately after the Kargil War of 1999. The United States is the leader in this new concept but India, with its vast software development capability, is not far behind. At the moment the Indian navy is just about network enabled and is moving progressively toward the network-centric concept. A huge software and hardware development effort is underway.

Also India’s newly constructed Kadamba naval base matches China’s newly built facility on Hainan Island. When completed, it will be a naval base, air force station and naval armament depot with long-range missile silos. It is a US$8 billion facility, the third in a series of integrated navy bases on the country’s east and west coasts. Kadamba will berth 42 ships, including aircraft carriers and submarines. It will repair and refit all navy ships and naval planes. It is a giant base with easy access to the Indian Ocean.

Hence, by 2015 India will have a formidable naval defense. Most of the Indian hardware has been built with outside help and is highly sophisticated, outclassing China-built hardware.

Therefore, a smaller but deadlier force is what China will face in the Indian Ocean. There is one wild card however – Pakistan, which could take advantage of India’s preoccupation with the Malacca Strait to gain mileage for its own strategic aims.

In short, nobody can say that China’s navy 10 years hence will be a pussycat. But in the Indian Ocean, China will face a much bigger challenge than it anticipated.

–

(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)

Hamish McDonald Asia-Pacific Editor
March 14, 2009
Sidney Morning Herald

THE Great Recession is having at least one positive spin-off for the navy: recruitment is up and meeting targets.

Which is just as well. The submarine HMAS Farncomb that came into Sydney Harbour as part of the fleet yesterday is one of just three of the navy’s six Collins Class subs that currently can be crewed at any one time, despite hefty pay bonuses.

The submarines are the long-range sharp end of the defence forces, with a potential offensive role that will become even more important when the F-111 strike bombers are retired next year.

At least until the navy gets its new Spanish-designed air warfare destroyers, they are Australia’s only combat asset that the Americans see as useful in the war scenario that everyone hopes will not happen - a fight with China in defence of Taiwan.

In the preliminary lobbying before the Rudd Government’s imminent defence white paper, the navy is signalling that it wants to stay in the submarine game by starting work on a new generation of ultra-quiet and otherwise capable boats to replace the Collins subs in a decade or two.

While a lot of attention has focused on the plans of the Chinese and Indian navies to build their naval air capabilities, events last Sunday at a point in the South China Sea about 75 nautical miles south of Hainan suggest the navy’s new recruits should think underwater about their career path.

According to the US Navy, the auxiliary ship Impeccable, manned by a civilian crew, was carrying out “routine operations” in international waters. These operations, it emerged, involve towing passive and active sonar arrays to pick up and record the acoustic signatures of submarines, detect mines and other obstacles, and generally get to know the seabed topography. The ship is one of five specially designed vessels used to assist the navy in this task.

The waters around Hainan are of special interest in two ways. Satellite images have recently confirmed the building of a big new submarine base at Yulin on the island, including a cave-dock. Where the Impeccable was sailing is right in the vast stretch of the South China Sea that China has long claimed as territorial waters, regardless of the UN Convention on Law of the Sea and claims by other littoral states.

Five Chinese-flagged vessels - including three government patrol boats and two trawlers - came close to the Impeccable, cutting across its bows. When the Impeccable’s crew responded with fire hoses, Chinese crewmen stripped to their underpants to keep up the close-range jostling.

Compared with the hijacking of the US Navy spy ship Pueblo by the North Koreans in 1968, or the jostling by Chinese fighter aircraft of the American EP-3 electronic spy plane in April 2001 - also over the South China Sea - it was history repeated as farce, with no harm done. But the incident has analysts all around the Asia-Pacific region worried about its portents for a more serious challenge.

It followed several incidents in previous days where Chinese coast guard planes buzzed US surveillance ships. It came shortly after the first visit to Beijing by the new US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, where she said worries about human rights would not halt co-operation in dealing with the economic crisis. And it came just a few days before the visit to Washington of the Chinese Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, where he prepared for President Barack Obama’s first meeting with the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, at the G20 summit in London next month.

Hu is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, the top command of the People’s Liberation Army. Either he is trying to test the new President’s mettle, or the Chinese military is doing it off its own bat.

“The reporting points out that the Chinese party involved included one PLA navy vessel and four civilian vessels from different bureaucracies, which strongly suggests that this was not a rogue military operation, but a well-orchestrated joint civil-military undertaking,” says Tai Ming Cheung, an expert on the Chinese military at the University of California, San Diego.

“The use of fishing trawlers and civilian patrol vessels … harks back to the People’s War at Sea approach to naval defence when you mobilised civilian assets to overwhelm the enemy.”

The motive appears to be to claim territorial sovereignty over the entire 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, giving China the right to control activity in this zone. Chinese domestic laws and maps assert this, but have no standing internationally, according to experts on the Law of the Sea. Chinese territory extends 12 nautical miles from shore, like that of every other nation.

Up to that boundary, foreign navies can manoeuvre and listen as much as they like, and the US Navy shows every intention of wanting to exercise that right to the full.

According to US Navy literature, 30 planned Virginia-class submarines “will expand on the ability of submarines to operate inside an enemy’s defences not only for surveillance, but to deliver powerful precision weapons to targets on land or sea”. New systems “will build on our robust deep-ocean capabilities to provide even greater sensitivity to slow, quiet targets in shallow, coastal waters”.

In the EP-3 incident, one Chinese pilot died after colliding with the bigger and slower American plane, which then limped into Hainan itself for an emergency landing. The crew was returned after President George Bush’s administration sent a letter now known to the Chinese as the “two sorries” expressing regret for “the entering of China’s air space and landing without permission”.

To the Americans, that meant an apology for the flight into Hainan. To the Chinese, it meant an acknowledgement the plane was in Chinese air space when the interception occurred. The Impeccable incident suggests the Chinese are returning to the issue.

“This appears like an early Chinese effort to establish strategic maritime bastions in which its submarines and naval forces can operate without interference from the US,” says Cheung.

“The US is adamant not to allow this as it has enjoyed command of the high seas in the Asia-Pacific for such a long time.

“So these increasingly competitive strategic impulses from the two navies points to much more friction in the future.”

Copyright © 2009. Fairfax Digital

By DAVID NOWAK
Asssociated Press Writer

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian air force chief said Saturday that the country could base some strategic bombers in Cuba or on an island offered by Venezuela, the Interfax news agency reported, but a Kremlin official quickly said the military had been speaking only hypothetically.

The U.S. and Russia have been trying to reset their relationship, severely strained over U.S. plans to position missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic and by Russia’s invasion of U.S. ally Georgia last year.

Russia has nothing to gain strategically from basing long-range craft within relatively short range of U.S. shores, independent military analyst Alexander Golts said, calling the military statement a retaliatory gesture aimed at hitting back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters near Georgia.

The chief of staff of Russia’s long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, was quoted by Interfax as saying Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had offered “a whole island with an airdrome, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers.”

“If there is a corresponding political decision, then the use of the island … by the Russian Air Force is possible,” Zhikharev was quoted as saying.

Interfax reported he said earlier that Cuba has air bases with four or five runways long enough for the huge bombers and could be used to host the long-range planes.

But Alexei Pavlov, a Kremlin official, told The Associated Press that “the military is speaking about technical possibilities, that’s all. If there will be a development of the situation, then we can comment,” he said.

Mike Hammer, spokesman for President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, said, “We do not comment on hypotheticals.”

Officials at both Venezuela’s presidential administration and Defense Ministry refused immediate comment and Cuban officials could not be reached for comment.

Venezuela and Cuba, traditionally fierce U.S. foes, have close political and energy relations with Russia, which has been working to reassert itself as a military force. Russia resumed long-range bomber patrols in 2007 after a 15-year hiatus.

Venezuela hosted two Russian Tu-160 bombers in September for training flights and later joined Russian warships for exercises in the Caribbean.

Cuba has never permanently hosted Russian or Soviet aircraft, though Soviet short-range bombers often made stopovers there during the Cold War.

In the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba pushed the world to the brink of nuclear conflict after U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced their presence to the world. After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev removed the missiles.

The military analyst Golts said basing Russian bombers in Venezuela or Cuba “has no military sense. The bombers don’t need any base.”

He said the bombers are considered strategic because they are capable of reaching an attacking range of the United States from Russia without the need for stopovers.

“This is just a retaliatory gesture,” he said, adding that Russia wanted to hit back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters.

Moscow and the new Obama administration have appeared to want to mend their relations,

U.S. plans initiated under former President George W. Bush to put elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic had particularly irked Russia, although the United States insists they are intended to counter potential future threats from Iran.

Russia has welcomed Obama’s apparently more cautious approach to the divisive issue.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva earlier this month to push a symbolic red “reset” button, another sign of the desire for a clean slate.

Cuban authorities made no comment last summer when a Moscow newspaper reported that Russia could send nuclear bombers to the island. While neither confirming nor denying the report, ailing former President Fidel Castro at the time praised his brother President Raul Castro for maintaining a “dignified silence” on the report and said that Cuba was not obligated to offer the United States an explanation.

—

Associated Press Writers Anita Snow in Havana, Cuba, and Rachel Jones in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

The Australian

JAPAN is considering trying to knock out a North Korean missile if it approaches Japanese territory, Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said yesterday.

Under questioning by reporters as North Korea intensified preparations for a long-range missile launch, Mr Hamada did not say whether activating Japan’s ballistic missile defence system was a serious option - but it was under consideration.

“The Defence Ministry has long been considering such a thing,” Mr Hamada said.

“It’s not something we have to comment on in one way or another just because we have a situation like this.”

The Japanese BMD system was developed in co-operation with the US and limited testing has produced mixed results.

There would be serious diplomatic and international legal ramifications if a Japanese anti-ballistic missile was launched against what North Korea insists will be a communications satellite launch for its so-called peaceful space program.

The three-stage Taepodong-2 ballistic missile the North Koreans have under development, and are expected to test within a fortnight, can carry either a warhead or a small satellite.

A Seoul newspaper, quoting South Korean government sources, yesterday reported North Korean technicians had started testing missile-tracking radar and other electronic monitoring equipment at the launch site, Musudan-ri, on the northeast coast.

Similar activity started about two weeks before both of the previous long-range missile launches, in 1998 and July 2006.

A South Korean news agency, Yonhap, also reported a senior official at North Korea’s UN mission, Kim Myong-kil, confirming that final preparations for a launch were under way.

The launch was “not an issue subject to negotiations” between North Korea and the US or other countries, Mr Kim said, but “our independent right”.

It was North Korea’s Taepodong-1 test in 1998 that forced a previously unwilling Japan to join the US in BMD development.

The inter-operable Japanese and US systems are based on two levels of missile defence and the powerful Aegis ship-borne radar and missile guidance technology. The first layer, which would be used in the case of a North Korean missile approaching Japan, is targeting it with SM-3 interceptor missiles from Aegis destroyers.

The task is extremely demanding, likened to “shooting a bullet with a bullet”, and in the two Japanese tests so far, one interceptor struck its target and the other missed.

<---End of Quote--->

Related Article:
Japan may deploy missile defence ships - Kyodo

Tue Mar 3, 2009 7:30am IST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo is considering deploying both its ballistic missile interceptor warships to the Sea of Japan ahead of a possible test launch of North Korea’s longest-range missile, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.

North Korea has racked up tensions in past weeks with what is believed to be preparations for a test flight of its Taepodong-2 missile, capable of striking U.S. soil, in what is seen as a move to put pressure on Washington to review its Pyongyang policies.

North Korea has said it was preparing to launch a satellite and it had the right to do so as a part of a peaceful space programme.

If preparations become more active, Japan will send two naval destroyers with high-tech Aegis radar systems and Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors to the Sea of Japan, between Japan and the Korean peninsula, Kyodo quoted a defence ministry official as saying.

Japan will be cooperating with U.S. forces, Kyodo quoted the official as saying. The U.S. has also stationed anti-ballistic missile ships in Japan.

A spokesman for Japan’s Defence Ministry said nothing had been decided as yet.

Prime Minister Taro Aso indicated earlier this week that Japan should be able to use its missile defence capabilities even if North Korea insists that it is launching a satellite, domestic media reported.

Failure to shoot down a target could undermine faith in Japan’s defence system, which was introduced with U.S. help after North Korea fired a missile over the country in 1998, stunning the region.

Apart from SM-3s, which are designed to shoot missiles down in the mid-phase of flight, Japan has a second layer of defence in the form of land-based PAC-3 interceptors, positioned at military bases mostly close to Tokyo.

A missile heading towards the United States from North Korea would likely be travelling too high for Japan’s SM-3s to shoot down, officials have said.

Last November, a Japanese warship failed to shoot down a ballistic missile target in a joint test with U.S. forces because of a glitch in the final stage of an interceptor.

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Tuesday, Feb 24, 2009
Your Defence News

North Korea in 2007 deployed ballistic missiles with a range of more than 3,000 km capable of reaching U.S. key strategic base Guam and has increased the number of special forces from 120,000 to 180,000.

The Defense Ministry’s 2008 white paper published Monday reveals changes in the North Korean military’s war capabilities over the past two years. The new medium-range missiles are an improved version of the old Soviet SS-N-6 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and can be transported by truck. Measuring some 12 m by 1. 5 m, they are shorter than the Rodong missile (15 m long) or the Taepodong-1 missile (23 m), but have a longer range.

The longest-range North Korean missile deployed war-ready until recently was the Rodong with a range of 1,300 km that can reach Japan. Experts say that the North has drastically improved its attack capabilities against U.S. strategic bases by deploying the new mid-range missiles, which can reach Guam as well as Okinawa where a large U.S. military base is located. The North is also reportedly deploying new short-range surface-to-surface KN-02 missiles with a range of 160 km.

The white paper also said North Korea increased the number of special forces by about 60,000 and stepped up their nighttime, mountain and street-fighting exercises.

As for the North’s nuclear capabilities, the white paper said, “We presume that North Korea has extracted about 40 kg of plutonium by three reprocessing methods. It already conducted a nuclear test in October 2006.” The amount would make six to seven nuclear weapons.

Despite economic difficulties, North Korea has been boosting its war readiness by stockpiling two to three months worth of oil and ammunition, the document adds.

Sources: Chosun

Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:48pm GMT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday it was watching the extent of militarization in the Arctic as global warming makes potentially valuable resources in the polar region more accessible and would plan its strategy accordingly.

Russia has already staked its claim to a majority of the Arctic waters, which it shares with four NATO countries and planted a Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole 18 months ago to reinforce its position.

“Overall, we are looking at how far the region will be militarized. Depending on that, we’ll then decide what to do,” Interfax news agency quoted General Nikolai Makarov, the head of Russia’s General Staff, as saying during a visit to Abu Dhabi.

Makarov was in the United Arab Emirates for an international arms fair.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer last month asked whether the Western military alliance should increase its focus on the region, saying that it was necessary to build confidence and trust among the five Arctic states — four NATO members and rival power Russia.

Private explorers in a Russian mini-submarine dived 4,200 meters (14,000ft) to the North Pole’s seabed, to symbolically plant their national flag in August 2007, to the annoyance of other Arctic claimants, such as Canada.

Russia air and naval power in the region has also become more visible. Long-range strategic bombers fly over the Arctic and are frequently shadowed by NATO aircraft. Russia’s Northern fleet based in Murmansk has expanded patrols, after a period of relative inactivity after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Moscow is counting on the United Nations to grant it access not just to the seas of the Arctic, but the right to exploit its seabed for valuable fossil fuels and mineral reserves.

NATO members with Arctic Sea coastlines — and in some cases competing claims — are Canada, the United States, Norway and Greenland, an autonomous island within the kingdom of Denmark.

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that about 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its undiscovered gas lie under the Arctic seabed.

New sea routes could also be opened up if, as expected because of climate change, ice continues to retreat from Arctic waters, shortening voyages between Europe and the Pacific.

Makarov also said in Abu Dhabi that Russia had not yet received any official proposals from Washington on significant cuts in strategic nuclear forces.

The Times of London reported earlier this month that President Barack Obama would convene ambitious arms reduction talks with Moscow, aiming to slash the number of intercontinental nuclear missiles on both sides by 80 percent.

“When there is a proposal, there will be a discussion,” Interfax quoted Makarov as saying. “It is much too early to speak about that now.”

(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman, writing by Conor Sweeney)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved.

21:08 | 20/ 02/ 2009

WARSAW, February 20 (RIA Novosti) - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer reiterated on Friday that the alliance would keep its doors open to Georgia and Ukraine, but both countries still had much work ahead of them.

The two former Soviet republics have long sought membership in NATO, but the alliance refused at its April summit to let Georgia and Ukraine into Membership Action Plan (MAP), a key step for membership in the 26-nation bloc.

Scheffer said after NATO defense ministers’ talks in Poland on Friday that the alliance would help speed up reforms needed for the countries’ eventual membership but made clear that membership was still a long way off.

At the meeting, the ministers reaffirmed their condemnation of Russian military intervention in Georgia following the attack on South Ossetia by Georgian forces last August, and reiterated their concern over Russia’s plans to build military bases in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, former Georgian regions which Russia has recognized as independent states.

Relations between Russia and NATO last year reached their lowest point since the Cold War after the brief military conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi.

In response to NATO’s decision to halt cooperation, Russia put on hold a number of programs, including the Partnership for Peace program, a high-ranking visit to Moscow, some joint naval training and NATO visits to Russian ports.

However, NATO foreign ministers agreed in early December at a meeting in Brussels to gradually restore contacts with Moscow.