U.S. ‘not as advanced’ as China and Russia on hypersonic tech, Space Force general warns

Posted: November 21, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on U.S. ‘not as advanced’ as China and Russia on hypersonic tech, Space Force general warns

While the Pentagon has pushed the development of new hypersonic missiles, the Army isn’t slated to field its first missile until 2024.

By PAUL MCLEARY and ALEXANDER WARD

11/20/2021 04:30 PM EST

HALIFAX, Canada — A top Space Force official admitted on Saturday that the U.S. has “catching up to do very quickly” to match Beijing’s hypersonic capability, one week after China successfully launched a missile that circled the globe before striking a target.

Russia also launched a hypersonic missile from a warship in the Arctic this week, underscoring how quickly Washington, D.C.’s two primary competitors are racing ahead in this technology.

“We’re not as advanced as the Chinese or the Russians in terms of hypersonic programs,” Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations, said during his appearance at the Halifax International Security Forum.

Hypersonic missiles fly at least five times the speed of sound, but their ability to glide on the atmosphere while changing direction at such a high speed makes them virtually impossible — with existing radars — to track and destroy.

While the Pentagon has pushed the development of new hypersonic missiles, the Army isn’t slated to field its first missile until 2024. The Navy is aiming to put its own version of the missile on a destroyer in 2025 and on Virginia-class submarines in 2028.

“It should be no surprise to anyone that China is developing capabilities that would be viewed negatively by like minded allies and partners,” Adm. John Aquilino, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told a small group of reporters on the sideline of the event.

The Space Force is working to “figure out the type of satellite constellation that we need” to track these missiles, Thompson told POLITICO after his public remarks. “It’s a new challenge, but it’s not that we don’t have an answer to this challenge. We just have to understand it, fully design it, and fly it.”

While there’s no timeline for when these new satellites can get into orbit, “we’re evolving our approach and our timelines rapidly,” Thompson said.

Both Thompson and Aquilino expressed concerns for how the often slow and risk-averse acquisition process is affecting the military competition from under the sea and into space.

“The bureaucracy that we’ve built into our defense and acquisition enterprise, not just in space but in other areas, has slowed us down in many areas,” Thompson said. “The fact that we have not needed to move quickly for a couple of decades — in the sense of a strategic competitor with these capabilities — has not driven us or required us to move quickly.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has publicly spelled out a plan for his military to achieve parity with the United States by 2027, and become the leading global power by 2050, making Beijing’s rapid development of new weapons unsurprising, Aquilino said.

“We should expect capabilities like that to show up, and I think the answer is our system has to be able to respond much more quickly,” he said.

There is progress at the Pentagon, however. Last month, the military successfully tested a rocket engine meant to launch the hypersonic glide body into the atmosphere. And on Friday, the Missile Defense Agency awarded contracts to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in a competition to develop a new hypersonic Glide Phase Interceptor that will be capable of destroying an incoming hypersonic missile.

Source: Politico “U.S. ‘not as advanced’ as China and Russia on hypersonic tech, Space Force general warns”

Note: This is politico.com’s report I post here for readers’ information. It does not mean whether I agree or disagree with the report’s views.

Chinese Arctic Incursion Spooks Lawmakers

Posted: September 21, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Chinese vessels patrol waters near Alaska as Beijing increases Arctic aims

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska) / Getty ImagesJack Beyrer • September 20, 2021 5:00 am

China is using the Arctic and seas only miles away from Alaska as a staging area to undermine U.S. national security, top lawmakers and experts say. (This reblogger’s comment: It is similar to US warships in Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. As Chinese navy grows, Chinese aircraft carrier battle group may sail along US coasts near New York and San Francisco. That will be freedom of navigation that the US is fond of.)

Newly released images reveal a fleet of Chinese warships conducting operations in American waters off the coast of Alaska, prompting Coast Guard vessels to track and communicate with the ships. Defense hawks in Congress fear that the maneuvers are a test case. Beijing’s saber rattling in Taiwan and contested control of the South China Sea has prompted concern from national security officials, but China’s military could soon join with Russia to pose a threat closer to U.S. territory, according to Alex Gray, the former chief of staff for the Trump administration’s national security council and a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

“What really became apparent under President Trump was just how ambitious and challenging Beijing’s aims in the Arctic are,” Gray told the Washington Free Beacon. “There is a significant strategic challenge in the Arctic. … It is on the verge of becoming an access-denied environment.”

China has declared itself a “near-Arctic nation” and has put force behind that claim to back it up. Beijing is building polar icecutters—heavy-duty ships needed to traverse the Arctic’s waters—at a clip outpacing the United States. China also harbors a scientific base on the Norwegian possession of Svalbard, which Gray warns could soon become a site for military purposes, while also targeting Greenland as a location for other installations. The region also comes with trade benefits: The country has developed a “polar silk road,” not unlike its notorious belt-and-road system, to extend its shipping routes to unsuspecting countries in the Arctic.

Pentagon spokesman John Supple told the Free Beacon that the department is aware of Chinese operations off Alaska and that it “remains committed to upholding “a rules-based international order that preserves freedom of the seas, freedom of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for all nations.”

“While we will continue to monitor the activities of these ships with interest, the Department of Defense has no objection to foreign vessels—to include warships from the People’s Republic of China—operating in international waters, even those adjacent to the United States,” Supple said. “It is worth noting that the People’s Republic of China routinely objects to the military and survey operations of the United States and other nations in the PRC’s exclusive economic zone, even as it deploys its own ships to the exclusive economic zones of the United States, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, and other maritime nations. As the People’s Republic of China chooses to exercise maritime rights and freedoms as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, we call on them to respect the maritime rights and freedoms of other nations operating in the PRC’s exclusive economic zone.”

The importance of the region is not lost on lawmakers. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska), a member of the Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon China’s looming challenges near his state require urgent action from the Biden administration. A massive defense buildup—such as the recent discovery of hundreds of Chinese nuclear missiles—make the future of the region of great concern, Sullivan said.

“The Arctic is an area of competition, not just because of natural resources and open sea lanes, but it is also increasingly being viewed as an avenue of approach toward the continental United States through nuclear missiles, ballistic missiles, and hypersonic missiles. … They would come through Alaska,” Sullivan said. “We need a firm approach as it relates to this new cold war.”

Military officials have taken notice of the potential threat to the north. The Department of the Air Force released an Arctic defense strategy singling out Chinese and Russian activity in the region as a major challenge. Sullivan led an effort to create the Arctic Security Initiative—a detailed framework for how to defend Alaska and other American interests in the region—which will go into this year’s annual defense bill. He also called for additional investment in the Coast Guard, which only has two active icecutter ships, one of which is in critical condition, compared with Russia’s 54.

The Biden administration has offered a different approach. When Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Alaska in July he touted the Arctic as a “strategic hotspot” for competition with China and Russia—the conflict, in his telling, came down to climate change. Climate czar John Kerry also continues to flirt with the Chinese about climate change cooperation, which could come at the expense of the defense buildup.

“The fact that John Kerry was in Beijing two weeks ago is the ultimate signal of weakness for the Biden administration,” Sullivan said. “The more Kerry has a point-man position for China policy in the Biden administration, the less support he’ll get from Republicans. He already sold our national interest out once in the South China Sea. I have no idea what he’s trying to sell out this time as it relates to climate change.”

While he has long sounded the alarm on threats to his home state, Sullivan is now finding increasing support among lawmakers from the lower 48 states. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) told the Free Beacon the Arctic is becoming an “increasingly strategic” area requiring American attention.

“The Arctic occupies increasingly strategic geography that connects the United States to both Northeast Asia and Northern Europe,” Gallagher said. “As China and Russia expand their military presence in the region, we must ensure American forces have the infrastructure, logistics, and training needed to safeguard our interests in the High North.”

Source: Washington Free Beacon “Chinese Arctic Incursion Spooks Lawmakers”

Note: This is Washington Free Beacon’s article I post here for readers’ information. It does not mean whether I agree or disagree with the article’s views.

Chinese Space Station a Looming Threat to US, Experts Say

Posted: June 27, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 50 Comments

Tiangong station could aid CCP’s military, diplomatic ambitions

Jack Beyrer and Chuck Ross • June 26, 2021 5:00 am

China will use its space station to advance its military technology and strengthen its influence in foreign countries, experts and lawmakers warn the Washington Free Beacon.

Three Chinese astronauts reached the Tiangong space station on June 17. The project ushers in an expansion of China’s capabilities in space and a boost to its international prestige. The station is home to numerous “dual use” technologies that have military applications that could threaten the United States. As China’s station eclipses the International Space Station in technological capabilities, developing countries may also be more enticed to collaborate with China’s space program.

China has exploited numerous high-tech ventures—included in its space program—to increase surveillance, data sharing, and corporate espionage. Sarah Mineiro, a board member at the Vandenberg Coalition and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told the Washington Free Beacon such technologies are cause for concern, and China’s growing space capabilities challenge American power in the ultimate high ground.

“The Chinese do not have a firewall between national security, defense, intelligence in space and civil space,” Mineiro said. “It’s a widely recognized fact that space is increasingly vulnerable. The advantages we derive from space—specifically the national security advantages we derive from space—have long been threatened.”

In 2018, the chief of the Chinese lunar exploration program compared the moon and Mars to contested islands in the South China Sea, which the Chinese military has long laid claim to. Experts warned the space station is a step in the larger Chinese plan to establish a foothold in Earth’s orbit, and eventually on the moon. Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a cofounder of the House Space Force Caucus, warned that impending budget constraints under the Biden administration and the growing strength of the Chinese space program could put America out of the game in coming years.

“The Chinese space program is on the rise, it’s young, new, vibrant and ascendant. Our program is stagnant and in some cases declining,” Waltz said. “I hope this administration will engage on the front end with these countries to help them understand what a devil’s bargain it will be to cooperate with the Chinese on their space station.”

The Biden administration did not return a request for comment.

Chinese officials have signaled they will use the space station to develop relationships with other nations. The strategy is similar to one that Beijing deployed during the coronavirus pandemic, as it provided its inferior vaccine to African, Latin American, and other Asian countries. China’s so-called Vaccine Diplomacy has pushed the United States to share doses of vaccines abroad.

“We should expect that as the Chinese build out their space station that we’re going to see them use it as a diplomatic tool,” said Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

China invited United Nations member states in 2018 to use the space station for research. U.S. officials are also concerned that China is working closely with the Russian space program. In March, Russia and China agreed to begin working toward the construction of a joint moon base.

Brandon Weichert, a space security analyst and author of the 2020 book Winning Space, said China and Russia could surpass the United States in space during the coming decades, a threat that he said calls for strong leadership in the U.S. space industry.

“It could allow them to dominate the Earth-moon system along with the Chinese,” Weichert said of Russia. “We’re in a new space race, it’s going to be a national effort, and we need to plan and resource these longer-term missions.”

The Trump administration established the Space Force in 2019 to better protect American satellites from Russian and Chinese weaponry in space. Biden officials have acknowledged the possibility of Chinese aggression in orbit. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has deemed China a “pacing threat,” and NASA administrator Bill Nelson Said Wednesday he hopes to make the Wolf Amendment—a measure in place forbidding space cooperation with China—permanent due to Chinese space threats.

The administration’s focus, however, might not be sufficient. Beijing is mimicking many of the successful tactics of the U.S. space industry, including supporting its own cadre of private companies to advance the nation’s mission in space. With China’s technological developments advancing at breakneck speed, it is unclear that the United States can long retain its edge on the final frontier.

“In a lot of the areas of space it is not at all clear that they are far behind or even that much behind,” Cheng said. “We should be very careful about assuming they’re behind us.”

Source: Washington Free Beacon “Chinese Space Station a Looming Threat to US, Experts Say”

Note: This is Washington Free Beacon’s article I post here for readers’ information. It does not mean whether I agree or disagree with the article’s views.