Never too broke for more killing machines

Boeing Awarded Contract To Continue Developing Mobile Laser Weapon

The objective of the HEL TD program is to demonstrate that a mobile, solid-state laser weapon system can effectively counter rocket, artillery and mortar projectiles. The program will support the transition to a full-fledged Army acquisition program.

by Staff Writers

Boeing has been awarded a U.S. Army contract valued at approximately $36 million to continue developing a truck-mounted, high-energy laser weapon system that will destroy rockets, artillery shells and mortar rounds.

Under the High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator (HEL TD) Phase II contract, awarded Aug. 15, Boeing will complete the design of, then build, test and evaluate, a rugged beam control system on a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck.

Boeing also will develop the system-engineering requirements for the entire HEL TD laser weapon system. Boeing successfully completed the preliminary design of the beam control system earlier this summer.

"This contract award is an important win for Boeing because it supports a cornerstone of the Army's high-energy laser program," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems.

"HEL TD will give warfighters a transformational capability to counter the difficult threats posed by rockets, artillery shells and mortar projectiles."

"Boeing spent the past year developing the preliminary design of the HEL TD beam control system, and we appreciate the confidence the Army has shown in our efforts by awarding us these contract options to continue working on the program," said Gary Fitzmire, vice president and program director of Boeing Directed Energy Systems.

The objective of the HEL TD program is to demonstrate that a mobile, solid-state laser weapon system can effectively counter rocket, artillery and mortar projectiles. The program will support the transition to a full-fledged Army acquisition program.

Boeing leads the way in developing high-energy laser systems for a variety of warfighter applications. These systems include the Airborne Laser, the Advanced Tactical Laser, the Tactical Relay Mirror System and Laser Avenger.

Original article posted here.

Serving with honor

U.S. military reports 2,688 sex assault claims in 2007

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military recorded 2,688 cases of sexual assault involving its staff last year, 60 percent of which were allegations of rape, a Department of Defense report said Friday.

The majority of the cases -- 72 percent -- involved military victims, the report covering the period from October 2006 to September 2007 said.

Investigations resulted in 181 courts martial, while 201 cases resulted in non-judicial punishment and 218 cases led to administrative action or discharges.

Some 1,040 completed probes resulted in no action, either due to insufficient evidence or because those responsible were civilians, foreigners or unidentified.

A total of 112 reports of sexual assault were reported among forces serving in Iraq, and 19 cases among those serving in Afghanistan.

Among complaints by military staff, where the alleged victim agreed to an outside criminal investigation, 868 (57 percent) reported rape, 91 forcible sodomy -- defined as anal or oral sex -- and 551 indecent assault.

Of the 705 cases where victims asked to remain anonymous and for no further action to be taken, 489 (69 percent) involved rape, 39 alleged forcible sodomy and 125 indecent assault.

The report also recorded allegations by civilians against members of the military. Of a total of 574 cases reported last year, 391 involved rape, 33 forcible sodomy and 150 indecent assault.

Direct comparisons cannot be made with last year's figures because the department has since changed the reporting period from the calendar year to the fiscal year. However, the report notes the figures have remained broadly stable.

"The Department of Defense remains committed to eliminating sexual assault from military service," it said, citing a "robust" prevention and response policy, improved reporting procedures, better training and increased care provision.

A Department of Defense survey also released Friday revealed that 34 percent of women on active duty and six percent of men have experienced sexual harrassment, while 6.8 percent of women and 1.8 percent of men experienced unwanted sexual contact.

The problem was more widespread among women serving in the army, as was the problem of sexual discrimination, while unwanted sexual advances among men were more common in the navy, the 2006 gender relations survey reveals.

The majority of respondents who said they had had unwanted sexual contact did not report it, mainly because they felt uncomfortable doing so.

However, the vast majority were aware of complaint procedures and most expected reports of sexual harassment to be taken seriously. Some 93 percent also said they had received training on the subject in the past year.

Original article posted here.

The crumbling dollar and the US economy: Trying to avoid the unavoidable

The Dollar and US Hegemony: Suspended in Air

by Ingo Schmidt

Once again, speculation about a dollar crash abounds. The hegemonic roles of the US currency and economy have repeatedly been called into question since the 1970s. Skeptics saw each major economic downturn and depreciation of the dollar as the beginning of the end of US hegemony. In defiance of the often predicted decline, the US is still No. 1 within the capitalist world system, and the US-led cartel of imperialist world domination is still intact. That is why we have to ask whether the current weakness of the dollar and the US-triggered economic crisis are just another cyclical phenomena that will essentially reproduce US hegemony or indications of major power shifts among capitalist states and social classes.

Paul Krugman issued the catchword for the debate on the future of the dollar and the US economy, the "Wile E. Coyote Moment," comparing the dollar to Wile E. Coyote who has run off a cliff, standing on thin air. According to this analogy, the mortgage crisis is the last cliff for the dollar before its final plunge. Whether Krugman's grim prediction will come true remains to be seen.

What is noteworthy is that, at the same time as the dollar declined, the US foreign deficit reached record highs, contrary to the market logic that predicts a smaller current account deficit in the case of currency depreciation. This is a new development. In the past, depreciations and decreasing current account deficits actually went hand in hand. What does the current de-linking of dollar rates and the US current account position imply?

Irrationality of Capitalism -- Limits to Bourgeois Economics

To answer this question, we have to look at the dollar, the current account, and economic trends over the last three decades. Then, two things stand out. First, the dollar has gone through two phases of significant appreciation since the 1970s, peaking in 1985 and 2001. Second, only during the first of these two phases dollar rates and current account deficits moved, as market logic predicts, in opposite directions. Since the economic downturn of 1991, the deficit has increased constantly, showing almost no connection to dollar rates or the business cycle. If the foreign deficit depended on exchange rate developments, it would have been reined in by dollar depreciations since 2001. That did not happen.

Keynesian economists dispute the relation between exchange rates and foreign trade that figures so prominently in neoclassical economics. According to their view, trade flows, which are statistically recorded in the current account balance, depend on the purchasing power of companies and households. The 2001 crisis was followed by a recovery based on credit expansion and massive inflows of foreign capital. These two factors generated additional purchasing power, parts of which were happily spent on imported goods, causing ever higher current account deficits. In the Keynesian story, capital markets are in the driver's seat, generating and allocating the finances that can later be used to buy goods and services. Plausible as this explanation may be, it is not totally convincing, because capital inflows imply higher dollar demand and, therefore, should have eventually triggered currency appreciations. That didn't happen either.

Since neither the logic of goods markets nor that of capital markets can explain the development of dollar rates and US foreign deficits convincingly, some economists, the most prominent among them Yale professor Robert Shiller, have drawn the conclusion that economic agents' irrational behavior, such as herd behavior of financial investors, must be the reason for "market-adverse" developments of currencies and current accounts. This view is shared by Krugman, who fears that badly informed investors have taken the nominal dollar rate at its face value, i.e. as proper representation of the value produced in the US economy, for too long but will be forced to give up their imagined wealth once the dollar crashes.

New Keynesian economists like Krugman and Shiller view excessive greed and lack of information as the causes of irrational exuberance, to use Shiller's terminology, which, in turn, triggers economic crises. Accordingly, crises could be avoided if investments were calculated objectively, based on complete information, instead of, to use Keynes' term, animal spirits. The recognition of ignorance in economic decision-making, Keynes' point of departure from (neo)classical economics, is missing from the New Keynesian view. The New Keynesian search for proper governance structures to complete incomplete information also disregards the fact that the right to private property entails the power of property holders to withhold information from the public and that of top managers to provide sugarcoated information to shareholders. Equally neglected is the fact that capitalist competition not only is a breeding ground for the greed for profit but makes investment driven by such greed a precondition for survival, no matter that it causes over-accumulation and crises at the same time. Thus, Keynes' "animal spirits" had better be called "capitalist spirits."

Following Marx, we can see that individual capitalists are behaving more or less rationally within an irrational system. However, their socially uncoordinated behavior produces crises that look like the result of individual misbehavior in the eyes of capitalists and economists alike. The highest form of misbehavior, of course, is political intervention because it completely runs counter to the market logic. Thus, apologists of capitalism like Milton Friedman see political intervention as misguided shackles on the market's invisible hand. However, if we see both individual capitalists' appetite for profit and political intervention as indispensable parts of the capitalist mode of production, it is possible to explain the de-linking of dollar rates, current account deficits, and business cycles without swinging wildly between theoretical assumptions of complete information and the practical retreat from reason into irrational instincts.

The First Recurrence of a Strong Dollar: the Second Cold War and Industrial Restructuring

The disintegration of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, economic crises, and an upswing of anti-imperialist and workers struggles in the 1970s challenged the capitalist world order, which largely had been shaped by the US in the aftermath of World War Two. The US bourgeoisie, after recovering from the shock of not being invincible, reacted to these challenges with a declaration of war against the Soviet Union, anti-imperialist movements, and the American working class. This war against the world's subordinated classes aimed at the expansion of world markets and a shift of income distribution from wages to profits. Propertied classes from all capitalist countries honored the strategic farsightedness and boldness with which the American bourgeoisie carried out the program for profit expansion through massive investments in the US. These capital inflows led to a rising dollar, indicating the trust that capitalists of all countries deposited in restored US hegemony.

Each increase in the dollar value from 1979 to 1985 pushed organized labor in the US further onto the defensive. Imported goods that became more competitive as a result of the rising dollar limited sales opportunities for domestic industries. US bosses eagerly used more competitive markets as a pretext to attack the incomes and working conditions of their workers.

The anti-socialist rollback (in this regard it should be remembered that American union bureaucrats and Soviet apparatchiks are nothing but varieties of the same socialist breed in the world view of US conservatives) soon started to bear fruits. Soviet interim leader Andropov already suggested, albeit vaguely, concession vis-à-vis the US-led West that would materialize under Gorbatchew. The AFL-CIO under Lane Kirkland, much more bound to class collaboration than the Soviet leaders, was at a loss in the face of the capitalist offensive right from its beginning. Under these circumstances, pushed by the US government, the American, German, and Japanese central banks heavily intervened in currency markets in 1985. Through this, the dollar was turned around, and competitive pressures were loosened, giving some relief to US industries. Increasing masses of surplus value that had been squeezed out of American workers thus could be realized through increasing market sales.

The Second Recurrence of a Strong Dollar: the New World Order and New Economy

The weak dollar from 1985 to 1995 was abandoned in the same way it was initiated, through coordinated central bank intervention. While industrial capital in the US enjoyed increasing sales and profits in the slipstream of the declining dollar, Wall Street became concerned about the future of the US as the world's financial center. In the early 1990s, the US, having just gone through recession, was manufacturing a new world order after the disintegration of the Soviet empire, so big money could persuade the government and central banks that the weak dollar was incompatible with the reputation of the last superpower. Steered by the emerging Wall Street-Treasury Complex, to use the term of liberal economist Jagdish Bhagwati, world capitalism entered a phase of multilaterally negotiated market expansion, computer-based reorganization of global supply chains, and financial explosion.

Profits were up for grabs again and the dollar was rising again, too -- until the New Economy bubble burst in 2001. After that, the military-industrial complex increasingly replaced Wall Street's threadbare capital fetish. Not the invisible hand of the markets but the iron fist of the US army was now declared the guarantor of profit. However, the US army's inability to end the insurrections in Iraq and Afghanistan has closed the circle between the crisis of US hegemony in the 1970s and the present day. Back then, the American Way of Life, having reached its limits of productivity and profit growth, also lost much of its appeal. Notably, the Vietnam debacle made the US seem a paper tiger ready to be overthrown, and the civil rights movement and labor unrest led the power elite to fear the loss of their control. Since that time, the US dollar hegemony has been restored twice, first in the name of a Second Cold War and after that under the slogans of the New World Order and New Economy. The continuation of this fragile hegemony currently depends on the absence of serious challengers, be they imperialist rivals or anti-capitalist movements. Until such challengers materialize, US hegemony, as well as the dollar, will remain suspended in mid-air.

---

Ingo Schmidt teaches economics at the University of Northern British Colombia in Prince George. He also works as a labor educator.

Original article posted here.

Mutiny on the Moron

Is Bush Losing Control of the Military?

Navy report undermines Bush's efforts to isolate Iran

Chris Gelken

TEHRAN — The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet has released a statement saying it cannot say with any certainty that threats to blow up its vessels actually came from Iranian Navy speedboats in Sunday's Straits of Hormuz incident.

The revelation tacitly supports the Iranian version of events, in that it was a normal challenge by Iranian naval officials for the American vessels to identify themselves, and at no time was there any serious danger of an escalation or any hostile action.

According to the commander of the Iranian naval forces, the patrol boats were on a regular patrol when they challenged the three American vessels to identify themselves and declare any helicopter activity in the area.

The U.S. quickly released a video showing Iranian speedboats in close proximity to the warships, with audio that the Iranians claimed was fake.

On Thursday the Iranian Navy released its own footage, taken on board one of the speedboats, showing a radio operator making clear requests in English for identification and activity reports. One of the American vessels can be heard to reply; "This is coalition warship 73, I am operating in international waters."

Shortly after the challenge and the response, the Iranian speedboats left the area.

The incident came as President George W. Bush began his first ever visit to Israel, where he frequently cited the Hormuz incident as further evidence of Iran's belligerence.

The latest U.S. Navy report, however, appears to suggest quite the opposite, and undermines current efforts by Bush to isolate Iran and build an anti-Tehran alliance among its Arab neighbors.

But the question is: Did the naval commanders deliberately rob their Commander-in-Chief of a timely stick to beat the Iranians with?

"There may have been tendency among the command levels to assume that those radio messages came from the Iranian boats, and their initial reports were based on their assumptions rather on what their equipment actually told them," said Carl Osgood, a Washington-based writer and political analyst.

"I think one possible reason why the admission was made is because there is concern in the American military command about going to war by accident," he said.

There is resistance among the highest levels of the United States military against a war against Iran, Osgood said, "and that could be a source, or a source, of that admission."

He pointed out that Admiral William Fallon, head of the U.S. Central Command, had expressed his opposition to escalating tension with Iran.

Fallon told al-Jazeera television in September, "This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful. I expect there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for."

In February 2007, Fallon had expressed strong opposition to the deployment of a third carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf. According to an article written by respected analyst Gareth Porter and published in May 2007, Fallon had once confided that "there would be no war with Iran while I am head of Central Command."

The electronic warfare and signals intelligence teams on the American warships should, at the very least, have been able to instantly identify the direction and relative distance from source of each and every signal coming in. Therefore, it is fair to assume that they knew the Iranians were not responsible for the threats even as the first U.S. Navy reports of the incident were being released.

The U.S. Navy's subsequent admission would suggest that rather than being a correction to a report that was made in haste, in the heat of the moment; an order had come down the line to release the real facts of the incident, whether or not they damaged or contradicted statements being made by the President of the United States.

So is Bush, the Commander-in-Chief, losing control of the U.S. military? Perhaps, given the growing opposition in the armed forces to expanding the war, and the fact that Bush's rhetoric against Iran is frequently at odds with reality.

"What we have to keep in mind is the intention of the Bush administration, particularly from Vice President Dick Cheney that for at least the past two years their intention has been to trigger another war in the region, this time targeting Iran," said Osgood, "and that's the background for this latest incident."

Osgood noted the historical precedents, such as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident that broadened America's involvement in South East Asia and the Vietnam War.

"In the United States there is definitely a political faction that is very concerned that this administration is looking for any pretext for war, and it is one of the elements of an impeachment resolution that was introduced into the House a couple of months ago in November, calling for the impeachment and removal from office of Vice President Dick Cheney," Osgood said, "so there are political splits over the question of war with Iran."

Original article posted here.

Training our Christian soldiers

Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought

By Jason Leopold

Soldiers at Fort Jackson Army Base pose with their rifles and Bibles.
A Hamas suicide bomber posing with a rifle and a copy of the Koran. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation says the two photos show how the infiltration of fundamentalist Christianity in the US military is starting to mirror Islamic fundamentalism. For US Army soldiers entering basic training at Fort Jackson Army base in Columbia, South Carolina, accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior appears to be as much a part of the nine-week regimen as the vigorous physical and mental exercises the troops must endure. That's the message directed at Fort Jackson soldiers, some of whom appear in photographs in government issued fatigues, holding rifles in one hand, and Bibles in their other hand. Frank Bussey, director of Military Ministry at Fort Jackson, has been telling soldiers at Fort Jackson that "government authorities, police and the military = God's Ministers," Bussey's teachings from the "God's Basic Training" Bible study guide he authored says US troops have "two primary responsibilities": "to praise those who do right" and "to punish those who do evil - "God's servant, an angel of wrath." Bussey's teachings directed at Fort Jackson soldiers were housed on the Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site. Late Wednesday, the web site was taken down without explanation. Bussey did not return calls for comment. The web site text, however, can still be viewed in an archived format. The Christian right has been successful in spreading its fundamentalist agenda at US military installations around the world for decades. But the movement's meteoric rise in the US military came in large part after 9/11 and immediately after the US invaded Iraq in March of 2003. At a time when the United States is encouraging greater religious freedom in Muslim nations, soldiers on the battlefield have told disturbing stories of being force-fed fundamentalist Christianity by highly controversial, apocalyptic "End Times" evangelists, who have infiltrated US military installations throughout the world with the blessing of high-level officials at the Pentagon. Proselytizing among military personnel has been conducted openly, in violation of the basic tenets of the United States Constitution. Perhaps no other fundamentalist Christian group is more influential than Military Ministry, a national organization and a subsidiary of the controversial fundamentalist Christian organization Campus Crusade for Christ. Military Ministry's national web site boasts it has successfully "targeted" basic training installations, or "gateways," and has successfully converted thousands of soldiers to evangelical Christianity. Military Ministry says its staffers are responsible for "working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as Government paid missionaries" - which appears to be a clear-cut violation of federal law governing the separation of church and state. "Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways," the group has stated on its web site. "The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the 'good news.' We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB [Air Force base] and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals." Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the government watchdog organization the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose group has been closely tracking Military Ministry's activities at Fort Jackson and other military bases around the country, said in an interview that using "the machinery of the state" to promote any form of religion is "not only unconstitutional and un-American but it also creates a national security threat of the first order." A six-month investigation by MRFF has found Military Ministry's staff has successfully targeted US soldiers entering basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, with the approval of the Army base's top commanders. "I've said it before and I will say it again," Weinstein said. "We are in the process of creating a fundamentalist Christian Taliban and somebody has to do something to stop it now." Weinstein points out that on Fort Jackson's Military Ministry web site, the basic training battalion commander, Lt. Col. David Snodgrass, and the battalion's chaplain, Maj. Scott Bullock, who appear in uniform in a photograph with Bussey, is a clear-cut violation of Military rules. MRFF contacted Bussey via email on Wednesday to request information about the "similar programs" he claimed Fort Jackson has for soldiers of other faiths. Bussey, responding to MRFF via email, did not provide an answer to the watchdog group's question, but, instead, he fired back a query of his own asking MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda to direct him to the place in the Constitution where it states there is a "separation of church and state." Clause 3, Article VI of the Constitution forbids a religion test for any position in the federal government, and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion. A spokesperson for the Fort Jackson Army base did not return calls for comment. Earlier this week, after MRFF exposed the potential constitutional violations between Military Ministry and the Fort Jackson Army base, Bussey added language to Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site in the form of a "notice to MRFF and ACLU types" in bold red letters that says the Bible study classes are strictly voluntary, not command directed in any way, allows soldiers to exercise for themselves the right of freedom of religion ... and similar programs exist on Fort Jackson for Soldiers of all faiths." In July, the Pentagon's inspector general (IG) responded to a complaint filed a year earlier by MRFF that accused Pentagon officials of violating the federal law governing the separation of church and state. The IG did not address the church/state issue, but he issued a 45-page report admonishing several high-level Pentagon officials for participating, while in uniform and on active duty, in a promotional video sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ's Christian Embassy group. The IG report quoted one high-ranking military official as saying he believed his participation in the video was acceptable because Campus Crusade for Christ had become so embedded in the Pentagon's day-to-day operations that he viewed the organization as a "quasi federal entity." The IG report recommended the military officials who appeared in the video be disciplined, but the Pentagon would not say whether it has in fact punished the military officers who appeared in the video. MRFF uncovered another recent Campus Crusade for Christ promotional video filmed at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that would appear to violate the same military rules detailed in the IG report. Cadets and academy officials appear in uniform discussing how Campus Crusade for Christ helped strengthen their bonds with Jesus. Scot Blom, the Campus Crusade for Christ director assigned to work at the Air Force Academy, says in the video the organization "has always been very intentional about going after the leaders or the future leaders" and that's why Campus Crusade for Christ picked the Air Force Academy to spread its fundamentalist Christian message. Every week, according to the video, cadets are encouraged to participate in a Bible study class called "cru" short for "crusade." "Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world," Blom says in the video. "They're government paid missionaries when they leave here." Weinstein said the recent promotional video for Campus Crusade for Christ, and the photograph of US soldiers holding Bibles in one hand and rifles in the other posted on the Fort Jackson Military Ministry web site, gives the impression the Pentagon endorses the fundamentalist Christian organization and underscores that the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan appears to be more of a modern-day fundamentalist Christian crusade. That message, Weinstein said, could lead to more "jihads" against the United States. Indeed. Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration, former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General, said he had an "unexpected" telephone conversation with several senior Bush administration intelligence officials this week who encouraged him "to continue to fight for the separation of church and state in the US military" because, these senior administration intelligence officials told Weinstein, US troops are being put in harms way. Weinstein said the senior administration intelligence officials told him they too have been tracking Islamic web sites where people have been discussing on message boards the fundamental Christianity issues Weinstein has raised within the US military. The intelligence officials told Weinstein they are concerned the fundamentalist Christian agenda surfacing in the military could lead to attacks against US soldiers. Weinstein said he could not identify the senior Bush intelligence administration officials he spoke with because they contacted him with the understanding they would not be named. Fundamental Christianity's Influence on the Bush Administration While Weinstein has worked tirelessly the past four years exposing the Christian Right's power grab within the military, he says the White House continues to thumb its nose at the constitutional provision mandating the separation of church and state. Indeed. This week a US District Court judge ruled the White House must disclose its visitor logs showing White House visits by nine fundamentalist Christian leaders. The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed by the government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and could very well show how much influence fundamental Christian leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell have had on the Bush's administration. "We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. "The White House doesn't want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have." Bush has been vocal about his fundamentalist Christian beliefs and how God has helped him during his presidency. A couple of weeks ago, the White House sent out Christmas cards signed by President Bush and his wife Laura that contained a Biblical passage from the Old Testament: "You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you." The inclusion of the Biblical passage caught the attention of longtime broadcaster Barbara Walters, who was a recipient of the presidential Christmas card. Walters said she doesn't recall receiving "religious" holiday cards from past presidents and she wondered how non-Christians would receive such an overtly religious greeting. "Usually in the past when I have received a Christmas card, it's been 'Happy Holidays' and so on," said Walters. "Don't you think it's a little interesting that the president of all the people is sending out a religious Christmas card? Does this also go to agnostics, and atheists, and Muslims?" The Biblical passage inside the Christmas card did not amount to a constitutional violation because it was paid for by the Republican National Committee, but Weinstein said it's intolerable, nonetheless, because military officials believe they have the approval of the White House to allow fundamentalist Christian organizations and their leaders to proselytize in the military. Recently, Bush nominated Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the deputy Air Force Chief of Chaplains, to replace the outgoing Air Force Chief of Chaplains, and is in line to be promoted to Major General. Richardson was quoted in a front-page, July 12, 2005, New York Times story saying the Air Force reserves the right "to evangelize the unchurched." The distinction, Richardson said at the time, "is that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel." Weinstein filed a federal lawsuit against the Air Force in October 2005 after Richardson's comments were published alleging "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious discrimination within the Air Force. Weinstein is a 1977 graduate of the Academy. His sons and a daughter in law are also academy graduates. Weinstein's book, "With God On Our Side: One Man's War Against An Evangelical Coup in America's Military," details the virulent anti-Semitism he was subjected to while he attended the academy and the religious intolerance that has permeated throughout the halls over the past several years. The federal lawsuit Weinstein filed was dismissed, but the Air Force agreed to withdraw a document that authorized chaplains to evangelize members of the military. Still, Weinstein said MRFF would lobby senators to oppose Richardson's nomination because of his past statements Richardson has refused to retract. "The Military Religious Freedom Foundation will do everything in our power to convince the United States Senate to reject the nomination of Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson to become the chief of Air Force chaplains and his promotion to the rank of major general," Weinstein said in an interview. "We view Richardson as the prototypical poster child of the type of constitutional rapist we are trying to eradicate from existence within the US military." In September, MRFF filed a lawsuit in federal court against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US Army Maj. Freddy Welborn, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The complaint filed in US District Court in Kansas City alleges that Jeremy Hall's an Army specialist currently on active duty in Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq, First Amendment rights were violated when Welborn threatened to retaliate against Hall and block his reenlistment in the Army because of Hall's atheist beliefs. "When You Join the Military, Then You Are Also in the Ministry" The executive director of Military Ministry, retired US Army Major General Bob Dees, wrote in the organization's October 2005 "Life and Leadership" newsletter, "We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation - through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens...." Moreover, Military Ministry's parent organization, Campus Crusade for Christ, has been re-distributing to military chaplains a DVD produced a decade ago where Tommy Nelson, a pastor at the Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, tells an audience of Texas A&M cadets and military officers when they join the military "then you are also in the ministry." "I, a number of years ago, was speaking at the University of North Texas - it happens to be my alma mater, up in Denton, Texas - and I was speaking to an ROTC group up there, and when I stepped in I said, "It's good to be speaking to all you men and women who are in the ministry," and they all kind of looked at me, and I think they wondered if maybe I had found the wrong room, or if they were in the wrong room, and I assured them that I was speaking to men and women in the ministry, these that were going to be future officers," Nelson says in the DVD. Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran. Original article posted here.

Wow, how the world has turned!

Ecuador Declines US, Offers Manta Air Base to China

US Planes at Manta When the U.S. Air Force Southern Command's 10-year usage rights for Ecuador's Manta air base expire in 2009, they can expect to be evicted in favor of China. President Jamil Mahuad signed a 10-year lease agreement with the US Military's Forward Operating Location (FOL) in 1999. The agreement a decision that the Manta base is not geopolitically important for US national security, but outhern Command (South Com) currently uses it to combat illegal cocaine trade in the "source zone" of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. The Air Base shares a common runway with Quito's Eloy Alfaro International Airport terminal, but the airbase has a separate office for cargo, while the airport handles passengers. About 475 US military personnel are stationed at the air base under a under a 10-year agreement signed with Quito in November 1999 and due to expire in 24 months. Acording to Latin Americanist Marc Becker, the agreement with the US military "has proved to be unpopular and some argue unconstitutional. The purported purpose of the FOL was to help interdict drug shipments from neighboring Colombia, but opponents contend that the U.S. government has . . . move[d] well beyond that mandate into counter-insurgency and anti-immigrant activities." There are also complaints that the base was consolidated by expropriating land from indigenous groups and small farmers, and that is being used by Colombian pilots and as a center of anti-guerilla intelligence as a part of Plan Colombia, and for the targeting of alleged terrorist groups. From March 5 to 9 of 2007, more than 400 activists gathered in Manta for the first International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases. They chose Manta due to the new government's stance against continued US presence. When Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa was campaigning in 2006, he promised to make the contract renewal with the US contingent on a reciprocal agreement allowing Ecuador to build or station military on an airbase in Miami, Florida. The US rejected this idea, and Correa offered the base to the Terminales del Ecuador, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings [HPH] during to Beijing on Nov. 21. China would be most likely to use the base for cargo transit in trade, rather than security purposes. Strategic Forecasting [STRATFOR] predicts that Correa's offer is "aimed partly at maintaining domestic support, partly at extracting preferential trade access to U.S. markets (something Washington probably will cave in and deliver), and partly at securing Chinese capital for fulfilling Manta's future role as the largest Sino-Latin American trade transshipment hub on the South American west coast." Correa's presidential campaign also focused on the need to improve regional transport and trade in order to compete with ports in Peru, Colombia and Chile and to link to industry in Brazil. Some of the roads planned between the Andean countries would also connect waterways linking Ecuador and Brazil. The agreement will create profits for Brazil as well as Ecuador, as the two countries recently signed an agreement to link Manta to the city of Manaus by railway or highway corridor. According to the government, the details of this project have already been discussed with other interested Chinese investment firms. This corridor project is a key part of IIRSA, the South American regional infrastructure integration initiative. Since before his election, Correa has also emphasized the necessity of attracting Asian investment in order to upgrade infrastructure and therefore expand regional and international trade. In offering the Manta base to HPH, he said that he was offering Chinese investors a "geopolitical window," which would make Ecuador a bridge for accessing markets in South America. Chinese Investment and US Relations Chinese investment in Manta began when Chinese, Chilean, Singaporean, Japanese, and US port companies expressed interest in the Manta port (not the air force base). In October, HPH gave a $1 million bond to the MPA . In November, 2006, HPH was the only final bidder and the Manta Port Authority (MPA) gave HPH operating concessions in exchange for $486 million (added to $55 million promised by the MPA) to upgrade facilities over the next 30 years. According to Business News Americas, Hutchinson Port Holdings [HPH] is the port-operating subsidiary of Hong Kong's Hutchison-Whampoa. The company focuses "on trans-Pacific/Atlantic corridor cargo trade" and has a portfolio of ports in Latin America. "In 2001 it bought out Philippines-based port operator ICTSI, which had various Latin American interests in Argentina, Mexico and the Bahamas. In Panama, HPH's Panama Port Company operates the ports of Cristobal and Balboa. Manta is the closest port to Asia on South America's west coast." Manta is a desirable port for HPH as it is the closest port to Asia on Latin America's west coast. The Manta deal could also help smooth out a disagreement between Ecuador and China's major state energy players over the October increase of Ecuador's oil taxes from 50 percent to 99 percent. The next steps would involve HPH accepting the post 2009 concession for Manta's air force base (it already controls the sea port), and another Chinese investment firm's participation in financing the road/rail network between Manta and Manaus, Brazil. According to STRATFOR, "while this is not the first time China has been made such an offer by a Latin American nation, it is the first time U.S. geopolitical interests in the region have been so closely brushed up against." They forecast that "from a security perspective, a Chinese military presence in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed by the United States as a hostile move, and would almost inevitably invite the Pentagon's ire." They predict that Beijing and especially the People's Liberation Army will try to maintain good relations with the US to prevent remunerative trade policies such as tariffs.

Original article posted here.

Listen to the generals? Former lapdog Ricardo Sanchez turns sharply on the Moron and the criminal cabal on Iraq

Ex-general calls Iraq a 'nightmare'

A former top US military commander in Baghdad has described the war in Iraq as "a nightmare with no end in sight".

In the bluntest assessment of Iraq by a former senior Pentagon official yet, retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez also lambasted US political leaders as "incompetent, inept, and derelict in the performance of their duty".

Addressing a meeting of military correspondents and editors in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, Sanchez said: "There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight."

He said the current White House strategy will not achieve victory in Iraq.

Bush assailed

Sanchez blasted the "surge" strategy of George Bush, the US president, that calls for maintaining more than 160,000 US troops in Iraq until the end of the year in the hope of reducing sectarian violence.

"Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory," he said. "The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat."

"Iraq is still under foreign occupation and Iraqis continue to die in great numbers"

Sanchez retired from the military in November 2006, part of the fallout from a scandal over abuse of detainees by US military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Reacting to Sanchez's comments, the White House evoked a September report to congress by General David Petraeus, the current US military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador .

"We appreciate his service to the country," Trey Bohn, White House spokesman, said.

"As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have said, there is more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq. And that's what we are focused on now."

'No hope'

Sanchez, however, had a starkly different view. "There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope," he insisted.

According to Sanchez, US politicians in both the administration and congress have too often chosen loyalty to their political party above loyalty to the constitution because of what he called "their lust for power".

"There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders," the retired general complained.

"In my profession, these type of leaders would immediately be relieved or court-martialled."

Original article posted here.

Pentagon waste, pentagon inefficiency

I would trust my government with weapons like these . . .

Run away the ray-gun is coming : We test US army's new secret weapon By MICHAEL HANLON

Modern face of warfare: The Silent Guardian

"Where do I put my finger? There ... OK? Nothing's happening ... is it on?"

"Yes, it's on. Move your finger a bit closer."

"Er ... ow! OW!" Not good. I try again. "OWWW!" I pull my hand away sharpish. My finger is throbbing, but seems undamaged.

I was told people can take it for a second, maximum. No way, not for a wimp like me.

I try it again. It is a bit like touching a red-hot wire, but there is no heat, only the sensation of heat. There is no burn mark or blister.

Its makers claim this infernal machine is the modern face of warfare. It has a nice, friendly sounding name, Silent Guardian.

I am told not to call it a ray-gun, though that is precisely what it is (the term "pain gun" is maybe better, but I suppose they would like that even less).

And, to be fair, the machine is not designed to vaporise, shred, atomise, dismember or otherwise cause permanent harm.

Oww! Michael Hanlon tries the Raytheon ray-gun

But it is a horrible device nonetheless, and you are forced to wonder what the world has come to when human ingenuity is pressed into service to make a thing like this.

Silent Guardian is making waves in defence circles. Built by the U.S. firm Raytheon, it is part of its "Directed Energy Solutions" programme.

What it amounts to is a way of making people run away, very fast, without killing or even permanently harming them.

That is what the company says, anyway. The reality may turn out to be more horrific.

I tested a table-top demonstration model, but here's how it works in the field.

A square transmitter as big as a plasma TV screen is mounted on the back of a Jeep.

When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation - similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker - that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings.

It can throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile.

Because the beam penetrates skin only to a depth of 1/64th of an inch, it cannot, says Raytheon, cause visible, permanent injury.

But anyone in the beam's path will feel, over their entire body, the agonising sensation I've just felt on my fingertip. The prospect doesn't bear thinking about.

"I have been in front of the full-sized system and, believe me, you just run. You don't have time to think about it - you just run," says George Svitak, a Raytheon executive.

Silent Guardian is supposed to be the 21st century equivalent of tear gas or water cannon - a way of getting crowds to disperse quickly and with minimum harm. Its potential is obvious.

"In Iraq, there was a situation when combatants had taken media as human shields. The battalion commander told me there was no way of separating combatants from non-combatants without lethal force," Mr Svitak tells me.

He says this weapon would have made it possible because everyone, friend or foe, would have run from it.

In tests, even the most hardened Marines flee after a few seconds of exposure. It just isn't possible to tough it out.

This machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain.

What makes it OK, says Raytheon, is that the pain stops as soon as you are out of the beam or the machine is turned off.

But my right finger was tingling hours later - was that psychosomatic?

So what is the problem? All right, it hurts, but then so do tear gas and water cannon and they have been used by the world's police and military for decades.

Am I being squeamish?

One thing is certain: not just the Silent Guardian, but weapons such as the Taser, the electric stun-gun, are being rolled out by Britain's police forces as the new way of controlling people by using pain.

And, as the Raytheon chaps all insist, you always have the option to get out of the way (just as you have the option to comply with the police officer's demands and not get Tasered).

But there is a problem: mission creep. This is the Americanism which describes what happens when, over time, powers or techniques are used to ends not stated or even imagined when they were devised.

With the Taser, the rules in place in Britain say it must be used only as an alternative to the gun. But what happens in ten or 20 years if a new government chooses to amend these rules?

It is so easy to see the Taser being used routinely to control dissent and pacify - as, indeed, already happens in the U.S.

And the Silent Guardian? Raytheon's Mac Jeffery says it is being looked at only by the "North American military and its allies" and is not being sold to countries with questionable human rights records.

An MoD spokesman said Britain is not planning to buy this weapon.

In fact, it is easy to see the raygun being used not as an alternative to lethal force (when I can see that it is quite justified), but as an extra weapon in the battle against dissent.

Because it is, in essence, a simple machine, it is easy to see similar devices being pressed into service in places with extremely dubious reputations.

There are more questions: in tests, volunteers have been asked to remove spectacles and contact lenses before being microwaved. Does this imply these rays are not as harmless as Raytheon insists?

What happens when someone with a weak heart is zapped?

And, perhaps most worryingly, what if deployment of Silent Guardian causes mass panic, leaving some people unable to flee in the melee? Will they just be stuck there roasting?

Raytheon insists the system is set up to limit exposure, but presumably these safeguards can be over-ridden.

Silent Guardian and the Taser are just the first in a new wave of "non-lethal" weaponry being developed, mostly in the U.S.

These include not only microwave ray-guns, but the terrifying Pulsed Energy Projectile weapon. This uses a powerful laser which, when it hits someone up to 11/2 miles away, produces a "plasma" - a bubble of superhot gas - on the skin.

A report in New Scientist claimed the focus of research was to heighten the pain caused by this semi-classified weapon.

And a document released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act talks of "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - i.e. cause the maximum agony possible, leaving no permanent damage.

Perhaps the most alarming prospect is that such machines would make efficient torture instruments.

They are quick, clean, cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, leave no marks. What would happen if they fell into the hands of unscrupulous nations where torture is not unknown?

The agony the Raytheon gun inflicts is probably equal to anything in a torture chamber - these waves are tuned to a frequency exactly designed to stimulate the pain nerves.

I couldn't hold my finger next to the device for more than a fraction of a second. I could make the pain stop, but what if my finger had been strapped to the machine?

Dr John Wood, a biologist at UCL and an expert in the way the brain perceives pain, is horrified by the new pain weapons.

"They are so obviously useful as torture instruments," he says.

"It is ethically dubious to say they are useful for crowd control when they will obviously be used by unscrupulous people for torture."

We use the word "medieval" as shorthand for brutality. The truth is that new technology makes racks look benign.

Original article posted here.

War not going so well. Talk of Draft

An idea made for a horror movie: Military service for illegal aliens to get citizenship.

Commentary: Risk, rewards in military duty for illegal aliens

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- What if we offered illegal immigrants a path to citizenship that included a stint in the U.S. military?

Ruben Navarrette: Be wary of offering military service as a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

The idea has been trumpeted by thoughtful people such as Max Boot, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who thinks this is the time for a "freedom legion." He's talking about a unit of the military made up entirely of the foreign-born -- including illegal immigrants -- where the compensation would include U.S. citizenship.

About 70,000 foreign-born men and women serve in the U.S. armed forces, or about 5 percent of the total active-duty force, according to the Pentagon. Of those, nearly 30,000 -- or about 43 percent -- are not U.S. citizens.

Roping illegal immigrants into military service could accomplish two goals at once: helping alleviate the military's recruitment worries while giving the undocumented a chance to prove that their commitment to this country extends beyond a paycheck.

We're already talking about requiring illegal immigrants to learn English, pay fines, and return to their home countries to earn legal status. Why not, some say, raise the stakes and require men and women between 18 and 42 to serve a couple of years in the military to earn something even more precious: U.S. citizenship for themselves and their children?

The idea appealed to a reader in upstate New York who called me to gauge my reaction. I told him that I hadn't made up my mind, but that the concept did fit with my view that any conferring of legal status be laden with onerous conditions so that it really is earned. To earn it, illegal immigrants should have to do everything but walk across broken glass.

Still, I told him, I'm not sure how those who oppose comprehensive reform but support turning illegal immigrants into cannon fodder go about squaring that circle. Restrictionists and racists have argued that illegal immigrants are invading this country, and that they're a dangerous menace to society that is prone to all sorts of violent and criminal behavior.

Of course, many native-born U.S. citizens are just as menacing. But for those who believe that illegal immigrants are inherently violent, do they really want to give these folks military training and a M-16, to help them graduate from menacing to lethal? After all, assuming they survive their stint in the military, they eventually have to return stateside. Then they're our problem.

Consider the ghastly events in Newark, New Jersey, where three African-American students were killed execution-style and a fourth was shot in the head but survived. The accused ringleader is Jose Carranza, an illegal immigrant from Peru, who was previously charged with raping a 5-year-old girl and threatening her parents.

Twice indicted by grand juries, Carranza slipped through the cracks and was released on bail. Authorities say that the 28-year-old construction worker led at least four other individuals in attacking the youths with a gun and a machete. If convicted, Carranza could get the death penalty.

Glad to hear it. If half the things they say about this creep are true, Carranza belongs on death row. But guess what? He sure doesn't belong on an Army recruitment poster, or handling heavy artillery.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of The San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

Original article posted here.

Russia flexing, while Washington wanes. The consquences of cracking empires

Russia said flying more missions near US territory

Russian bombers are flying more missions than normal near U.S. territory, including Alaska, demonstrating their long-range strike capability, U.S. and Canadian officials said on Monday.

Russian aircraft carrying cruise missiles ran an aviation exercise near Alaska two weeks ago, according to Canadian Col. Andre Dupuis, an officer at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a U.S.-Canadian operation responsible for protecting both countries' airspace.

"They didn't do it to practice alone. They're making a point, doing it outside of their normal training cycle," he told Reuters. "They maintain capability."

Russian bombers were also tracked last week flying a course toward Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific.

Some analysts and defense officials say the flights likely reflect Moscow's desire to display its military muscle to remind Washington of Russia's capabilities and express dismay over U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

One defense official called the Russian flights "a little bit of chest pounding, trying to let people know Russia's back in the game."

"Over the last probably three months or so the Russians have been flying their bomber force maybe a little bit more than we've seen in the past, certainly they're ranging farther than they have in the past," said U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command.

"We've had a couple times where we've intercepted them out over international waters, near Alaska."

Relations between Washington and Moscow have been strained, partly by U.S. plans to put missile defense assets in former Soviet-allied territory.

Since meeting with U.S. officials to discuss the missile shield plans earlier this year, Moscow has issued a series of statements about building its military power.

In July, President Vladimir Putin told his top military and security officials that Russia needed to boost its armed forces and intelligence potential in the face of new security threats, including U.S. military plans in Europe.

Russia's navy chief has also said his country should have a permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean, mirroring the Soviet Union's military ambitions.

The head of long-range aviation in Russia's air force last week described the bomber flight over Guam as a revival of the long-haul missions to U.S.-patrolled areas common during the Cold War.

But Renuart downplayed concern about the increase in Russian military flights.

"I think clearly there's a political dynamic that's occurring right now with Russia. They're exercising I think some of their military capabilities coincident with some of the statements that have been made in the government," he said.

"But it's not provocative in any way. They follow the international rules. They've been very professional in how they've flown the flights, so I don't see anything reckless in it."

Renuart also said Russia's military generally warns its U.S. counterparts in advance of training exercises.

"A couple times, it's been a bit of a surprise," he said.

Original article posted here.

Uh, weren't we fighting to protect our freedoms?

China's Military Report Card: Big Investments Happening, Bigger Investments Needed

China’s Current Military Capabilities

by Raul Colon

In the past few years, The People’s Republic of China’s growing military capability has attracted a great deal of interest, but major details regarding China’s near-future military strength have been hard to combine. At this very moment, China is spending massive amounts of financial resources in order to improve extend its overall military capability.

This spike of budgetary expenses by China is setup in the background of the country’s need to upgrade its low-tech armed forces. At this time, reports have placed the number of deployable nuclear weapons China possesses at four hundred. Of these, around twenty are deployed in the Intercontinental ballistic missile configuration. Nearly two hundred and twenty are reported to be deployed in various delivery platforms such as aircrafts, submarines and short-to-medium range missile systems.

All of these weapons are of tactical capability. The remaining weapons are held in tactical reserves for short range missiles, low yield attacks and demolition purposes. The Central Military Commission, headed by the Chinese President, is the sole administrator of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

China’s current Intercontinental ballistic missile force of twenty units is mainly used as a deterrence force. The main component of the system is the Dong-Feng 5 liquid-fueled missile, with an estimated range of 13,000 km and can carry a single use, multi-megaton warhead.

The Dong-Feng 5 was first deployed in the summer of 1981 and has remained the backbone of China’s ICBM force for the past two decades. Twenty frontline Feng 5’s are believed to be stationed in full alert somewhere in Central China. The Feng 5 was a drastic change from the early versions of China’s ballistic missiles.

Those early missiles were mainly stored in caves and were rolled-out for launch. The Feng 5 can be launched from vertical silos after just a few hours of the order being received by their launch crews.

The Feng 5 operational range gave China the ability to launch a small nuclear attack against most of Europe, Asia and some parts of the United States, mainly the southeast part of the country. Today, two additional missile platforms are deployed or being tested for possible deployment by China. They are the medium range DF 31’s, which entered first-line operation in 2005, and its long range variant, the DF 41, which is expected to be fielded by late 2010. Both missiles are going to be propelled by solid fuel cells and based on mobile launchers. China is expected to attempt producing a multiple re-entry vehicle (MVRs) for their new missile systems. An attempt to produce the more technical challenge multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) is underway.

China also deploys intermediate range ballistic missiles and medium range ballistic missile systems. These weapon platforms are capable of threatening the security of many countries in Asia, including India, but its effects on the overall strategic security of Russia are minimal.

China’s intermediate missile systems are also capable of hitting targets on Japan’s coastal cities and United States base stations in South Korea and Japan. The oldest missile platform deployed by China is the near stationary DF 3A missile system. This missile platform is being phased-out in favor of the more modern DF 4 and DF 21 systems. The DF 4, with a maximum operating range of 4,750 km, is still the backbone of China’s regional deterrence force. The DF 4 is a liquid fueled system that operates out of fixed launch sites. With the deployment of the DF 21 in 1986 , China’s regional ballistic missile capabilities increased twofold.

The operational DF 21 has a range of 1,800km and is carried in mobile launchers for security reasons. The DF 21 is also the base of China’s sea-launch ballistic missile systems. The older, liquid fueled missiles can carry a single nuclear warhead of an estimate 3.3mt yield. The newest missiles also carry a single warhead with maximum yields in the hundreds kilotons range. China also possesses a limited number of short-range ballistic missile batteries. The DF 11/M 11, with an operational range of 300km, and the DF 15/M 9, with a range of 600km, are the backbone of China’s tactical force. Is believed that most of this missile platforms are configured to carry only a small nuclear or conventional warhead.

China’s bomber force is based on the local production of Russian made aircrafts first deployed in the 1950s. With the overdue retirement of the Ilyushin IL-28 bomber from front-line, nuclear delivery role, the Tu-16 Badger assumes the role of a medium range, nuclear strike bomber. Being a product of the 1950s technology, the Tu-16 could only carry two or three nuclear bombs over a range of 1,5,00 to 3,100km. China is believed to have over 130 of these vintage planes in operational conditions.

The Chinese Navy also operated the Tu-16 in a reserve role primarily. Although the Chinese Air Force possesses a great number of other possible nuclear carrying aircrafts, such as the venerable Mig-21, the Russian supplied Su-27, and the newly designed JH-7s; they are not believed to be used for such a role. The Chinese Air Force also has a large inventory of strike and fighter aircrafts at their disposal. It is estimated that by 2004 China has a total aircraft inventory of around 4,200 operational aircrafts of many types. This inventory includes all the variants of the J-6 or Mig-19 fighter, J-7 or Mig-21, Su-27, IL 28 and Tu 16 bombers. Of these aircrafts, the vast majority entered service with the Chinese air force before 1970. The tactical airlift aspect of the air force is at a diminishing capability.

Over the last two decades, Chinese leaders have stressed the development of a localized aerospace industry sector capable of designing and developing advanced avionics needed for military aircrafts. Despite the investment of large amounts of budgetary and human resources, the Chinese had not shown the ability to promptly design, develop and mass produce an indigenous combat aircraft. The recently revealed J-7, and the J-8, both of which took so long in their developmental stages that by the time they were ready to enter front-line services they were already obsolete by Western standards, showed China the need for more investment in financial and human resources as well as the training of experienced technicians to work in all aspects of the technical design of a combat aircraft.

The same holds true of the most vaunted of China’s aircraft developments, the J-10. China is not alone in this area, other countries had tried in the past to design and mass- produce indigenous aircraft systems, most notable Israel, South Africa, India, Taiwan and south Korea; all abandoned their programs in favor of purchasing existing and proved aircraft types from the five largest weapons producers: the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and Germany. The main reason is the fact that the economic resources needed, not only to design a generation-leaping aircraft, but to be mass produced for local consume, are so massive that developing countries with a small industrial base simply can not afford to spend the necessary resources for a long period of time. This also holds true of large economies with a small gross national product output such as Russia, which is lagging far behind the Western countries in military technology designs. As a direct result of their failure to establish a permanent industrial base capable of producing front-line aircrafts, China has renewed its imports of combat airplanes from Russia.

China also has the distinction of having one of the largest conventional military force in the world. The shear mass of numbers is enough to make a potential enemy think twice about provoking China. The truth is that, although the number of weapons is impressive, most of China’s military hardware is obsolete, both physically and technologically. Most of the weapon platforms utilized by China today, entered service in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and still serve the country in front-line units. Although the systems varied in age of development and deployment, the technologies used to create them are sorely based on Soviet blueprints of the 1950s. As a result, while older systems are being phased-out, the overall size of China’s conventional weapon force would be reducing. As of late 2001, estimates reported the size of China’s military force as 2.5 men under arms, of which, roughly 1.8 serve the People’s Liberation Army (China’s ground forces). They are divided into 27 military districts through the country. Within these districts lie 20 army groups, each containing around 60,000 men. They are subdivided into 44 infantry, 5 artillery, and 10 armored divisions. There are also brigade-sized groups in these army units. There are also three airborne divisions under the direct command of the Chinese Air Force. The reserve units are mostly compromised of infantry, artillery and anti-aircrafts divisions. These forces are estimated to be composed of 1.1 million personnel. There’s also the People of China Para-military units. The Armed Police, Border Defense Force and the Forces of the Ministry of Defense compromise a large sector in China’s strategic reserves. They counted a total of forty four divisions.

These reserve formations are expected to increase in size as China moves forward with its major modernization and re-organization plans that emphasizes the movement of active troop formations to the strategic reserve roles. The Army’s equipment is also being phased-out as new models were introduced to the force.

China’s main battle tank platform, the Soviet designed T-54/55, also a product of the 1950s technologies, is no longer the main tank platform. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, China designed, with Soviet cooperation, and produced various tanks systems, but although their designs were more recently than that of the T-54, its overall capabilities are about the same. All of this changed in the summer of 1988, when China unveiled its newest battle tank, the Type 80. The 80 represents China’s first attempt at breaking with Soviet design concepts for a battle tank. The 80 had a formidable set of systems, some of them are: fire and control computerized? system, a laser range finder, a gun control system and night fighting capability. This tank breakthrough was followed by the Type 85, introduced in the mid 1990s as follow-up development of the 80. China’s latest main battle tank system, the massive T-90II, first revealed in 1991, is still not completely operational with the PLA. This new tank resembles in more than one way, the mainstay of Russian tank formations, and the T-72 heavy tank.

China also possesses a force of around 2,100 light tanks, which as it is with much of their weapon systems, are based on Soviets designs from the 1950s. It is estimated that China’s tank strength is between 9,000 to 11,000 units. This number is deceiving; the majority of tanks in China’s front-line services are systems with over forty years of service life. Most of them could not function properly and a great number of them could not function at all. The most interesting part of the situation is that China, which like the former Soviet Union, tends to value numbers more than any other matters, thus service maintenance of existing systems is poor. The same maintenance problem applies to the new weapons platform entering service today. Thus a major gap exists today in main battle tank design between China and the Western countries, the Chinese are in the processes of designing a new tank system that could compare with that of the Europeans; also they would like to emphasize quality over quantity. With these developments and the expected reduction in its tank force, China expects to be able to support its main battle tank systems with more efficiency in the future.

For most of its history, the People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine fleet has consisted of a small number of coastal vessels. The mainstay of their coastal fleet was the domestic produced version of Russia’s Romeo class submarine. It’s estimated that between 20 to 30 Romeos are still operational with the PALN. In the early 1970s, China decided to start a submarine development and production program aimed to build a local submarine in five years. It succeeded; the first indigenous submarine developed by China is the Ming Class. Although they are not better than the Romeos, they do represent China’s first attempt at self-sufficiency in designing weapon platforms.

The next Chinese submarine class, the Song, entered service with the PALN in late 1999. In addition to these subs, China has purchased or is in the process of acquiring, more samples of the Russian-made Kilo Class submarines. In the nuclear-powered submarine field, China’s first attempt to produce a local system produced disappointing results for the PALN. The Han Class first entered service in 1974. Major power plant problems plagued the lead ship of this class. So much so, that the next commissioning of a Han Class sub was not made until mid 1980. China is also believed to be developing, with considerable assistance from Russia, a follow-on nuclear attack submarine, very similar to the Russian’s Victor III Class. China’s SSBN force consists of the Xia Class submarine, which is fitted to launch twelve Ju Lang-1 missiles with a single warhead of 200-300kt and an operational range of 1,700km. In part to its technical difficulties, the Xia Class is never deployed beyond regional waters. The newer submarine class, codename Type 094, would have better reactors and a quieter signature than its predecessors.

This new class would be able to deploy 16 JL-2 missile, each capable of carrying up to six nuclear warheads. China’s surface fleet has been growing in size since the 1970s. The Chinese posses a number of Soviet-build Sovremenny destroyers as its main surface fleet weapon platform. They are equipped to carry the advanced SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic, anti-shipping missile system. The Chinese are also building its own class of destroyers, the Luhai Class which displaces 6,000 tons. The lead ship of this class entered service in late 1999. The largest class of destroyers China operates is the Luda Class. China operates about sixteen of these ships. The remaining force is compromised of 37 frigates. As in the case of destroyers, China’s frigate force is mostly used as an air-defense force.

China’s amphibious assault fleet is the Achilles heels of the PALN. China possessed around 49 amphibious assault vessels with full displacement of 1,000 tons. Many of these vessels are vintage WW II systems. Most of them, being United States Navy’s LST used in assaults around the South Pacific. China is planning to deploy an aircraft carrier. They are looking at buying a platform, most likely from Russia. The carrier probably needs to be conventional on take-off and landing aircrafts since China does not posses vertical, short take-off and landing aircraft capability. Since China would probably would like to supply the air wings of the carrier with its Ju-10 fighters and Su-27 fighter-bombers, they would probably would need a carrier platform that could displace around 50,000 tons, which would put China in the need to acquire a carrier like the Russian Kuznetsov or the French Charles de Gaulle. China’s need to acquire a carrier capability is probably more for internal promotion that to actually being a first attempt by them to deploy a Blue Water navy.

The small size of China’s amphibious fleet would exclude the Chinese from taking control of Taiwan by means of an amphibious assault. In the past, Chinese leaders had threatened to take action against Taiwan if the island, which China considered a renegade province, if Taiwan decided to declare its independence. The reality is that even if China decided to use force, it lacked the necessary military resources needed to complete the operation. An amphibious assault, which is the only mean a China could take control of Taiwan’s territories, is out of the equation. First, China can only transport one armored division across the Straits, and even this would be hard to accomplish. Second, any amphibious landing would need complete control over the skies in the Strait, which the Chinese air force probably could not accomplish. Finally, both Taiwan and the United States could see the signs of pending military offensive months before the actual event. What China could do is to attack Taiwan with a barrage of missiles, the DF 15 and the DF 11. These missile systems are not accurate enough to destroy strategic targets such as airfields, radar stations and transport facilities; their only use would be as terror weapons, such as the V-2 or the Scud. If they are not fitted with nuclear warheads, the damage they could cause would be similar to a natural disaster. China also possesses a limited number of these missiles and any missile siege would be limited in duration. A naval blockade of the island is possible, but due to the strong U.S. statement regarding any attack on Taiwan and the notion of a powerful U.S. fleet coming to relive the besieged island, China would be hard pressed to perform any naval operation in the area.

The reality is that China is investing massive amounts of money to modernize its armed forces, but the current force structure is so old, that the rate of retirement will surpass the rate of acquisition in all major weapon platform systems. This fact means that China overall military force would decrease in size. Aircraft, missile systems and ground combat systems would decrease in numbers, the only possible exception could be China’s surface ship fleet. Also, the modernization process is slow due to the massive investment needed to accomplish it. China is also adding a small number of new technology weapon systems to its overall arsenal. New weapon platforms are purchased in small quantities, which can not dramatically alter the balance of power. China current acquisitions of Russian systems are not as impressive as they might look. Those systems are not comparable to the ones fielded by the United States or Japan.

The main problem of China’s militarization might be their inability to develop a continuous indigenous weapons industry, which produces next-generation military technology. Which could be used on their existing or newest systems? The recent reversal of policy by the Chinese government, from developing its own weapon systems to purchasing systems, mainly from Russia and Israel; has left the government in Peking without control over the military they so desperately desire. For the foreseeable future, China’s potential military action, mainly against Taiwan, is limited, let alone branching out of the regional setting they are now. Overall, the balance of power in East Asia would remain the same for the next decade.

Original article posted here.