RED STORM RISING: It been a few days since China rolled some of its new ballistic missiles through the streets of Beijing in a parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of communist rule. And experts who have examined the video footage from the event are now warning China is beginning to surpass the United States in several areas, including developing nuclear missiles designed to evade U.S. defenses; a supersonic attack drone that is virtually unstoppable; and stealthy underwater drone.
“The parade featured a number of formidable weapons systems that demonstrate the growing capability of the Chinese military, the erosion of U.S. military superiority, and the need for continued action by Washington and its partners,” according to an analysis released yesterday by the The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“The U.S. military has struggled to receive the timely, sufficient, and predictable funding necessary to support current operations, maintain readiness, and modernize the force. Meanwhile, Beijing has studied how America fights and has modernized its military accordingly,” said the analysis, written by FDD’s Bradley Bowman and Andrew Gabel. “As a result, in some areas, U.S. military superiority has eroded or vanished.”
HYPERSONICS ARE HERE: Among the weapons on display was the Dong Feng-17, a ballistic missile booster and hypersonic glide vehicle, which appears ready to deploy.
Riki Ellison, of the independent Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, calls the DF-17, a first of its kind” weapon, “the first deployable Hypersonic Weapon System that is immune from any defensive system known to mankind.”
“China leads the world in developing, proving and deploying these indefensible offensive missile systems that can be fitted with nuclear warheads and can strike with invulnerability ... Taiwan and U.S. bases in South Korea, Japan and Guam as well as U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups operating within the first and second island chains,” writes Ellison
“The Chinese DF-17 defies ballistic trajectories by skipping to increase its speed and maneuvering at will during the majority of its flight time, operating in lower space and the upper atmosphere, and making it unpredictable in flight with speeds over 20 times the speed of sound,” Ellison says. “The United States nor any country in the world has space-based discriminating sensors that can locate and track a hypersonic glide vehicle from very long distances to establish battle space to engage this target.”
THE GROWING CHINESE ARSENAL: The DF-17 wasn’t the only advanced weapon on display. In addition, the parade included an array of missiles and new unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles aimed at ending U.S. military superiority.
No comments:
Post a Comment