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VMETRO to support F-35 program
Published: May 16, 2008 at 9:07 PM
HOUSTON, May 16 (UPI) -- VMETRO announced it has been contracted by Lockheed Martin to support the U.S. Defense Department's next-generation strike fighter F-35 Lightning II program. -
Navy contracts BAE for TCDL tech
Published: May 16, 2008 at 9:07 PM
WAYNE, N.J., May 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy says it has contracted BAE Systems for tactical common data link technology to provide pilots with real-time sensor and targeting information. -
South African army to get wireless tech
Published: May 16, 2008 at 9:05 PM
JERICHO, N.Y., May 16 (UPI) -- Saab Grintek Communications has contracted Telephonics for wireless intercommunication technology in support of a deal with the South African army.
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Analysis: European defense contracts
Published: May 16, 2008 at 10:15 PM
By LEANDER SCHAERLAECKENS
UPI Correspondent
BRUSSELS, May 16 (UPI) -- Patria could lose Slovenian deal to bribery charges; Italian training aircraft for Philippines; Estonia opens cyberterrorism center and looks to purchase field artillery -
BMD Watch: Japan changes space policy
Published: May 16, 2008 at 9:35 PM
By MARTIN SIEFF
UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- The Japanese Parliament Tuesday formally agreed to permit the deployment of space surveillance satellites as part of the country's ballistic missile defense program. -
Analysis: China boosts Jiangxi air defense
Published: May 16, 2008 at 9:10 PM
By ANDREI CHANG
HONG KONG, May 16 (UPI) -- China's air force has substantially reinforced its air defense posture in Jiangxi province in the past year. There are indications that China has completed its second-line air defense operational deployment against Taiwan centered on Fujian and Jiangxi provinces. This has greatly expanded the depth of China's air defense coverage. -
Outside View: Russia at war -- Part 1
Published: May 16, 2008 at 12:07 PM
By ILYA KRAMNIK
UPI Outside View Commentator
MOSCOW, May 16 (UPI) -- The scale of the armies engaged, the casualties suffered and inflicted on both sides, and the number of weapons systems deployed in the conflict between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany dwarfed all other theaters of World War II and all conflicts since then. -
Analysis: China copter deal -- Part 3
Published: May 15, 2008 at 7:16 PM
By MARTIN SIEFF
WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- Russia's landmark sale of transport helicopter assembly kits to be assembled in China could point the way to a vastly larger transformation in global arms production. -
Outside View: Georgia civil war -- Part 2
Published: May 15, 2008 at 12:13 PM
By ILYA KRAMNIK
UPI Outside View Commentator
MOSCOW, May 15 (UPI) -- Georgia's officer corps is said to be riddled with corruption, there are no trained sergeants, only about 50 percent of the nation's military equipment is operational, and coordinated operations in adverse conditions are impossible.
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Defense Focus: China's weapons -- Part 2
Published: Feb. 7, 2008 at 10:41 AM
By MARTIN SIEFF
UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- China is certainly in no state yet to produce its own long-range strategic bombers, air-refueling tankers or air transport aircraft like the C-130 Hercules or the C-17 Globemaster and must therefore continue to try and buy them off the shelf, if not from the United States because of deteriorating relations, then from Russia.
The main reason for the reluctance of China to invest in aircraft carriers up to now -- unlike India, which is already far advanced in building, buying and deploying a fleet of three of them -- is its inability to buy "off the shelf" from the West aircraft carriers that actually work.
Russia and France have both built and deployed aircraft carriers that proved to be international jokes. Russian analysts have openly admitted in their own media that on one of its most recent exercises, the Admiral Kuznetsov started sinking as soon as it left St. Petersburg for the Baltic Sea and had to rapidly return to harbor. Only the United States and Britain enjoy a reliable and confident mastery of aircraft carrier operating procedures, though India is moving fast in that direction.
China's reluctance so far to build a multicarrier fleet is therefore well-founded in a realization of the engineering and operational difficulties involved. But that does not mean China has rejected the strategy of extending its military as well as economic and diplomatic power far beyond its immediate neighborhood. On the contrary, China has long been moving steadily and purposefully in building a pattern of major naval bases in friendly nations across the Indian Ocean that could project its power around India and all the way to the eastern coast of Africa.
These bases already exist, or are being developed, in the Andaman Islands, Myanmar, Pakistan and Mauritius and they are known as the "string of pearls" strategy. They mean diesel submarines would not be limited to purely defensive roles in China's home waters but could operate for significant periods of time many thousands of miles away from home. Similarly, under favorable conditions, China could exert its already formidable air power using hundreds of Sukhoi interceptors or fighter-bombers that at least in numbers if not in electronics or firepower might prove a challenge to U.S. carrier-based air groups operating in the region.
China has therefore already developed a relatively ambitious strategy to project its power effectively thousands of miles across the oceans to protect the sea routes of its key oil imports from the nations of the Middle East. And this strategy takes into account the weapons that China can already produce effectively itself, those it has been able to buy freely "off the shelf," primarily from Russia, and the weapons systems such as aircraft carriers that it has so far been unable or unwilling to either build itself or buy from other countries.
A key weapon in developing such a strategy that China already employs is the anti-ship Sunburnt, or SS-N-22 Moskit, missile that it has bought from Russia -- along with four Sovremenny-class destroyers to carry them.
Sovremennys and Sunburns are not just chicken liver: As we have noted in previous UPI analyses, the Moskit is explicitly designed to kill American nuclear-powered super-aircraft carriers. The deterrent effect of having four Sovremenny warships equipped with them would be to force U.S. carrier groups to operate from farther out in the Western Pacific Ocean in the event of any conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan.
However, selling Sovremennys and Moskits to China certainly did not affect the strategic balance of forces between Russia and China. The two nations are primarily military land powers.
Sovremennys and Sunburns are a natural complement to the "string of pearls" strategy of using Indian Ocean bases for short-range force projection instead of nuclear aircraft carriers and subs that are almost permanently at sea. But once again, they had to be bought from Russia.
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Next: China's land weapons weakness
UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- China is certainly in no state yet to produce its own long-range strategic bombers, air-refueling tankers or air transport aircraft like the C-130 Hercules or the C-17 Globemaster and must therefore continue to try and buy them off the shelf, if not from the United States because of deteriorating relations, then from Russia.
The main reason for the reluctance of China to invest in aircraft carriers up to now -- unlike India, which is already far advanced in building, buying and deploying a fleet of three of them -- is its inability to buy "off the shelf" from the West aircraft carriers that actually work.
Russia and France have both built and deployed aircraft carriers that proved to be international jokes. Russian analysts have openly admitted in their own media that on one of its most recent exercises, the Admiral Kuznetsov started sinking as soon as it left St. Petersburg for the Baltic Sea and had to rapidly return to harbor. Only the United States and Britain enjoy a reliable and confident mastery of aircraft carrier operating procedures, though India is moving fast in that direction.
China's reluctance so far to build a multicarrier fleet is therefore well-founded in a realization of the engineering and operational difficulties involved. But that does not mean China has rejected the strategy of extending its military as well as economic and diplomatic power far beyond its immediate neighborhood. On the contrary, China has long been moving steadily and purposefully in building a pattern of major naval bases in friendly nations across the Indian Ocean that could project its power around India and all the way to the eastern coast of Africa.
These bases already exist, or are being developed, in the Andaman Islands, Myanmar, Pakistan and Mauritius and they are known as the "string of pearls" strategy. They mean diesel submarines would not be limited to purely defensive roles in China's home waters but could operate for significant periods of time many thousands of miles away from home. Similarly, under favorable conditions, China could exert its already formidable air power using hundreds of Sukhoi interceptors or fighter-bombers that at least in numbers if not in electronics or firepower might prove a challenge to U.S. carrier-based air groups operating in the region.
China has therefore already developed a relatively ambitious strategy to project its power effectively thousands of miles across the oceans to protect the sea routes of its key oil imports from the nations of the Middle East. And this strategy takes into account the weapons that China can already produce effectively itself, those it has been able to buy freely "off the shelf," primarily from Russia, and the weapons systems such as aircraft carriers that it has so far been unable or unwilling to either build itself or buy from other countries.
A key weapon in developing such a strategy that China already employs is the anti-ship Sunburnt, or SS-N-22 Moskit, missile that it has bought from Russia -- along with four Sovremenny-class destroyers to carry them.
Sovremennys and Sunburns are not just chicken liver: As we have noted in previous UPI analyses, the Moskit is explicitly designed to kill American nuclear-powered super-aircraft carriers. The deterrent effect of having four Sovremenny warships equipped with them would be to force U.S. carrier groups to operate from farther out in the Western Pacific Ocean in the event of any conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan.
However, selling Sovremennys and Moskits to China certainly did not affect the strategic balance of forces between Russia and China. The two nations are primarily military land powers.
Sovremennys and Sunburns are a natural complement to the "string of pearls" strategy of using Indian Ocean bases for short-range force projection instead of nuclear aircraft carriers and subs that are almost permanently at sea. But once again, they had to be bought from Russia.
--
Next: China's land weapons weakness
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