Interesting. I am certain that I read a pretty interesting report a while back that China had already developed misslies capable of sinking American air-craft carriers.
It is obvious that if they did not meet that threshold they would not be acting in such an aggressive manner re flying bombers over Taiwan and seizing American equipment outside the 9-yard line which is in dispute itself. That’s just basic Game Theory man.
^China doesn’t need to have the ability to sink American carriers to make the US back off. It only needs to make it costly to the point where the US decides it’s not worth it to mess with China.
Could the Aegis system defend against Chinese BMs? Maybe, but why risk it?
Thanks for that, I really need to start reading more about this stuff. That report also stated that the Chinese were developing a military who’se strengths would specifically target the weak-points of America and they had no intention of building a naval fleet to match the number of air-craft carriers America holds as they viewed it as unnecessary. As you mentioned they are/were just concentrating on nullifying them.
Lee also specifically mentioned that the ‘Chinese absolutely do not see themselves as disadvantaged in this fight’ so if Trump really meets that Taiwanese PM in person it will be interesting to see how far the Chinese push the envelope.
Yes, I’m familiar with those and in theory maybe a missile could. But in practice, it would be nearly impossible. These fleets travel deep into ocean and weather in a vast spaces that allow them to disappear and reemerge. So tracking them alone is difficult. Then you have the entire fleet defense that is formidable. Actually locating, penetrating and hitting a carrier is nearly impossible and you have 20 of them, each with an airwing the size of legitimate country. I’ve heard military analysts describe the center of a modern US carrier fleet as the single most impenetrable defensive point in the history of the world at any given time.
You’re reading far too much into the Taiwan flyovers and geological drone. China does these things because even though they lack the ability to hold even with the US in any manner (and actually impartially studying their current tech capabilities which are mostly borrowed off the Russians supports this fully) you don’t have to be capable of beating the US for a war to be not worthwhile. For the US, an outright conventional war is the easy part, it’s everything that comes after that is impossible. Plus, even a clean win against a large opponent is costly. If a war with Afghanistan or Iraq can cost $1T a piece, what would a war with a major country cost? How many lives? What about corporate interests? I mean, do you really think the average US citizen wants to go to war (with any country) over Taiwan or some RC boat?
We may be arguing the same point here, I guess what I’m saying is that the US could decisively win these conflicts, but at a high enough hurdle rate that it would have to be a dire need. I would think Europe, Russia, Japan, China and SK would be the high cost countries for the US to face in that order. Iran is very far from being a part of that club.
Why can’t you track them via satellite?
How are Japan and SK there when Israel, Pakistan and India are not? Even if their tech is more advanced they still don’t have nukes unless you are thinking that they could rapidly go so if they desire.
What resources are good places to start that deal with the nuances of the miltiaries of individual countries?
^Japan and SK are probably not in that group either. India and Pakistan are far from being discussed. Not even close.
Yep it shows how China thinks about this. China isn’t going to match the USN’s CBGs, but they’re going to think about how to asymmetrically deny them. There won’t be a shooting war unless one of them feels existentially threatened. And even if it happens, it will probably be localized and contained. But yes, to your original point, I believe nuclear weapons and their delivery are a big part of reaching that threshold.
IMO what it comes down to - Think of Syria or Georgia, both Russia and the US are on opposing sides, but Russia wants it more. Is it really worth it to shoot at Russia? Of course not. People who go on about how Putin is so “strong” don’t understand this.
I think it’s much easier for a modern high tech country with a strong autonomous economy to build nukes than it is to build a full military. I was almost entirely focusing on the conventional side of the equation. Launching nukes against the US (who has THAAD and Aegis systems and a huge arsenal) just doesn’t seem to be a useful endgame.
I just focused on reading about the tech, but I’ve been doing that since I was a kid pretty obsessively, then worked at a DoD contactor before winding up here where I cover aerospace and defense. I don’t really use any one source although I’m sure there have to be a few out there. I just read a lot about war and war tech in general.
Those three don’t need to build a full military do they? Israel already has 5’th gen aircrafts and India is building one with Russia. Is Aegis a missile defense system? If it is, Russia, Israel and India have them as well acccording to third paragraph in the introduction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ballistic_Missile_Defence_Programme
Any recommendations?
EDIT : France also, more holistic link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_defense_systems_by_country
*To my knowledge*, the Aegis is the only one that’s considered remotely effective against a real ballistic threat because most that have been successfully tested have very low success rates or have only succeeded in test tube environments as well as none having the 2000 mile detection range of the THAAD and AEGIS Systems. Even the Aegis was considered a practical failure until around 2014. Russia in particular has said even within the last few years that Aegis has created nuclear asymmetry and a risk to world peace.
My reasoning with Israel ranking so far below the others and not a significant deterrent to the US is that 1) they’re too small and 2) all of their technology and manufacturing is sourced from the US. So without the US they’re relatively weak, particularly w/r/t manpower and production. I mean, they have a total population of 8 million. Also, without US support, their list of committed allies to fill the gap in production and support is very short.
The PAK FA to me (India’s 5th gen plane) remains to be proven. They haven’t even successfully developed an engine for it yet (they’re using an old stand in), the stealth capabilities are expected to be next to nothing given the design of the engine housing and lack of parallel geometry. While it may work out in some form, to date it’s only existed as a theoretical boogieman with a total of $8B in funding (vs $400B in development funding for F35). A lot of people look at the fact that Russia cut its total expected orders to less than 12 from more than 150 this year (while instead buying existing 4th gen planes) as a clear indicator of the expected strength of the program (vs 2,500 F35’s ordered and 180+ delivered for the US + 200 F22’s already produced). India’s order is expected to be less than 150 as well. This is a very indicative description of most of these giant boogiemen threats you hear about in popular mechanics. They are either just prototype rumors or boondogles that get axed after a production run of 10-20 while the US winds up with 2,000+ functional examples sitting on runways.
With Pakistan I’d just point to a very weak economic engine and outdated equipment as well as small population and a 25-34 year old literacy rate of 57% which does not bode well for combat expertise and discipline in a high tech environment.
Honestly, wikipedia isn’t a bad source for just reading a lot. I also read things like stuff from the TEAL Group, newspapers, sites like military.com and militaryaerospace.com, any aerospace news sites and then books and pieces on combat. I’m not really picky, I honestly do things like read top news hits from google news under keyword topics like (f35, aegis, littoral, china military, russia military) every day. I also grew up watching a ton of discovery channel and stuff like that. It’s super theoretical, but I thought the marine corps warfighting manual (MCDP 1) was interesting:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/usmc/mcdp/
What’s wrong with the engine housing for the PAKFA? You’re not referring to the picture of the “fan blades” visible near the intake?
No, I’m referring to the fact that the entire rear portion of the engine both protrudes from the body (rather than being blended) and lacks (at this point in time) a stealth vector nozzle. Not to mention the entire aircraft is large. But these things may all change. It’s also worth realizing that these jets are using a 30 year old interim engine that doesn’t meet requirements for the Russian military and don’t project a completed new engine to be available until 2025-2027. Also realizing that the engine is the biggest portion of development (US started the F119 engine development as early as the 1980’s). It basically boils down into a bunch of hypotheticals with Russia cutting it’s order to less than a dozen after billions spent while F35’s continue to roll off the assembly line and the Navy and Airforce have already begun preliminary work on the next gen aircraft.
2000 miles is somewhere b/w 3000 and 4000 km? This doesn’t sound very impressive, that same link above says India has tested it with a range of 2600 km with a 99% hit accuracy and the second phase will have a range of 5000 km. Safe to say, that tech. will be accessible to Russia as well.
What am I missing and is there any particular reason China does not feel the need to develop such a program of their own?
Pakistan has some pretty surprising robust growth numbers, nothing spectacular but chugging along nicely. Their population is greater than Russia and they have extensive combat expertise. Just thought I’d point that out even though your statements have some credence.
Thanks for the links.
Russia’s per capita GDP is 10X that of Pakistan and most of their power comes from the Soviet Era when both the scale of their economy and their population were much greater than they are now. Russia’s story is one of riding on past strength even if it is aging.
India’s missile defense program actually uses the Russian S400 missiles as do most of the others in those regions. The issue most people have with the is that similar to the PAK FA programs, much of it is heresay with very few publically released tests with the Indian system still not having been actually commissioned. Anyhow that’s just always been my impression, I’m not as big into the missile defense stuff. I do know these programs typically take at least 20 years to develop until they’re put into practice (as well as a lot of money) which is the main barrier. As usual, while most countries are discussing plans to develop or order, the US has the fully functional system in place and has for some time.