Gambit: The High Speed Missile That Could Transform The U.S. Military





The Gambit missile, based on new technology, could be a game-changer for the U.S. military and bad news for China: Last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) quietly unveiled a new high-speed missile program called Gambit. The program is meant to leverage a novel method of propulsion that could have far-reaching implications not just in terms of weapons development, but for high-speed aircraft and even in how the Navy’s warships are powered.


This propulsion system, known as a rotation detonation engine (RDE), has the potential to be lighter than existing jet engines while offering a significant boost in power output, range, and fuel efficiency.

The Gambit missile is just one of a number of programs placing a renewed focus on RDE technology, though for the most part, these systems have managed to fly under the media’s radar. That is, except for Aviation Week & Space Technology Defense Editor Steve Trimble, who has covered these recent developments at length. Trimble was kind enough to discuss that work with me as I sought to better understand just how big a deal this technology could be.

Rotation Detonation Engines may not be common in discussion today, but amid the ongoing hypersonic arms race and America’s renewed focus on deterring near-peers, this technology could help offset a number of tactical and strategic advantages presented by America’s opponents in places like Europe and the Pacific…


…And it may be closer than you think.

Gambit means A new kind of propulsion system





Rotating detonation engines have been the subject of theory and speculation for decades, but have yet to cross the barrier between theory and practical application.

In theory, a rotating detonation engine promises to be much more efficient than traditional jet engines, potentially providing missile applications a serious boost in range and speed. That could also mean fielding smaller weapons capable of achieving the same speeds and ranges as today’s missiles.


In aircraft applications like jet fighters, rotation detonation engines could offer similar benefits to missiles in terms of range and speed, while potentially reducing maintenance requirements. Fighters, in particular, rely on afterburners, which effectively firehose fuel into the engine’s exhaust stream for added thrust, which, you can imagine, rapidly depletes fuel stores and reduces the fighter’s range. RDEs could potentially allow for a similar boost in thrust with a dramatically reduced fuel penalty.

But where this technology could be the most useful is in powering the Navy’s future non-nuclear surface vessels, providing increased power production, range, and speed while having a seriously beneficial impact on the Navy’s budgetary bottom line.


Harnessing the power of detonation


The concept behind rotation detonation engines dates back to the 1950s. In the United States, Arthur Nicholls, a professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan, was among the first to attempt to develop a working RDE design.

In some ways, a Rotating Detonation Engine is an extension of the concept behind pulse detonation engines (PDEs), which are, in themselves, an extension of pulsejets. That might seem confusing (and maybe it is), but we’ll break it down.

Pulsejet engines work by mixing air and fuel within a combustion chamber and then igniting the mixture to fire out of a nozzle in rapid pulses, rather than under consistent combustion like you might find in other jet engines.

In pulsejet engines, as in nearly all combustion engines, igniting and burning the air/fuel mixture is called deflagration, which basically means heating a substance until it burns away rapidly, but at subsonic speeds.

A pulse detonation engine works similarly, but instead of leveraging deflagration, it uses detonation. At a fundamental level, detonation is a lot like it sounds: an explosion.

While deflagration speaks to the ignition and subsonic burning of the air/fuel mixture, detonation is supersonic. When the air and fuel are mixed in a pulse detonation engine, they’re ignited, creating deflagration like in any other combustion engine. However, within the longer exhaust tube, a powerful pressure wave compresses the unburnt fuel ahead of the ignition, heating it above ignition temperature in what is known as the deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT). In other words, rather than burning through the fuel rapidly, it detonates, producing more thrust from the same amount of fuel; an explosion, rather than a rapid burn.

“The detonation process is a more rapid and efficient extraction of energy from your fuel from a thermodynamic standpoint when compared to deflagration,” Dee Howard endowed professor of hypersonic and aerospace engineering, Dr. Chris Combs, told Sandboxx News.

The detonations still occur in pulses, like in a pulsejet, but a pulse detonation engine is capable of propelling a vehicle to higher speeds, believed to be around Mach 5. Because detonation releases more energy than deflagration, detonation engines are more efficient — producing more thrust with less fuel, allowing for lighter loads and greater ranges.

The detonation shockwave travels significantly faster than the deflagration wave leveraged by today’s jet engines, Trimble explained: up to 2,000 meters per second (4,475 miles per hour) compared to 10 meters per second from deflagration.

In May of 2008, the Air Force Research Laboratory made history by building the world’s first crewed pulse detonation-powered aircraft, using a Scaled Composites home-build plane called the Long-EZ. The unusual franken-plane managed a speed higher than 120 miles per hour during its test flight, with test pilot Pete Siebold at the stick, and reached altitudes between 60 and 100 feet.

“This is a potential game-changer in terms of fuel efficiency,” The AFRL’s Propulsion Directorate’s Fred Schauer said of the PDE powering Long-EZ.

“For comparison, if we had operated this same engine with conventional combustion we would have made less than a third of the thrust for the same fuel burn. In comparison to traditional engines, fuel savings of 5 to 20 percent could be expected.”

THE 747 HERE IS POWERD BY A GAMBIT ENGINE INCREASING CRUISING RANGE BY 25% AND SPEED BY THE SAME AMOUNT.

The Air Force assessed at the time that improvements to their PDE engine could eventually propel aircraft to speeds beyond Mach 4, and higher if combined with other advanced propulsion systems like scramjets. A rotation detonation engine could be even more effective, but many within the academic and engineering communities questioned whether such an engine could ever actually be built.

The Rotation Detonation Engine Emerges


A rotating detonation engine takes this concept to the next level. Rather than having the detonation wave travel out the back of the aircraft as propulsion, it travels around a circular channel within the engine itself.

Fuel and oxidizers are added to the channel through small holes, which are then struck and ignited by the rapidly circling detonation wave. The result is an engine that produces continuous thrust, rather than thrust in pulses, while still offering the improved efficiency of a detonation engine. Many rotation detonation engines have more than one detonation wave circling the chamber at the same time.

As Trimble explains, RDEs see pressure increase during detonation, whereas traditional jet engines see a total pressure loss during combustion, offering greater efficiency. In fact, rotation detonation engines are even more efficient than pulse detonation engines, which need the combustion chamber to be purged and refilled for each pulse.

“In theory, RDE is a bit like the leap from turbojets to turbofans in the 1960s, but for high-supersonic vehicles. It should give you a big jump in specific impulse (aka fuel efficiency), and if you can figure out how to package it in a way that doesn’t make things significantly heavier or less aerodynamic, you should be able to get a nice range boost out of it,” Trimble explained.

In 2020, a team out of the University of Central Florida, working with the Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine Program at the Air Force Research Laboratory, successfully built and tested the world’s first working rotation detonation engine that continued firing until its fuel was cut off, effectively proving the concept was possible. The three-inch copper test rig developed by the team successfully produced 200 pounds of thrust in laboratory conditions.

Since then, a number of other programs have followed suit, with noted engine manufacturer Pratt and Whitney among those leading the charge.

Welcome to Gambit: A new generation of high-speed, long-range weapons

On July 18, DARPA released a Special Notice pertaining to their new Gambit Missile program, announcing a “Proposer’s Day” for firms to get more information about the effort and its aims. Within the notice, DARPA included a description of the program and its objectives, as well as their anticipated timeline, from inception to flight test.“The objective of the Gambit program is to develop and demonstrate a novel Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) propulsion system that enables a mass-producible, low-cost, high-supersonic, long-range weapon for air-to-ground strike in an anti-access/area denial (A2AD) environment.”

The program will be conducted in two 18-month phases. The first will entail competitors completing their preliminary designs with some limited testing, while the second would finalize designs and culminate in full-scale flight tests of an RDE system.

While the release offers scant details on the overarching goals of Gambit, some of the language within the announcement point toward specific challenges America’s defense apparatus currently finds itself facing. The reference to Gambit’s use in an “anti-access/area denial (A2AD) environment” could pertain to anywhere American forces are squaring off against a near-peer adversary. But there’s one such environment that has been the focus of multiple Defense efforts in recent years: the 1,000-mile-plus area denial bubble extending from Chinese shores thanks to a growing array of anti-ship weapon systems.

America’s carrier-based fighters, the F-35C and F/A-18 Super Hornet, each have a combat radius of less than 650 miles, which would mean having to sail carriers into harm’s way to launch combat sorties without longer-range munitions.

The United States obviously has the capability of fielding air-launched missiles with significant range, but it isn’t as simple as mounting a massive rocket under the Super Hornet’s wing, as Trimble points out. The size of these weapons matters a great deal, which is why RDE engines, with their improved efficiency and smaller mass, could be a game changer.

“That is probably most useful for the US Navy, which needs to find a way to equip fighters with long-range, high-speed (Mach 4-6) cruise missiles that are small enough to squeeze onto an aircraft carrier’s weapons elevators and land back on the carrier under a fighter’s wing without slamming into the deck.”

But Gambit isn’t the first new weapon program to leverage rotation detonation engine technology. According to the Air Force Research Lab, RDE technology could make high-speed weapons much more affordable, which is of particular import following a recent Defense Department analysis that indicated the hypersonic (Mach 5+) weapons in development for the Air Force may cost as much as $106 million each.


According to a list of efforts supported by the Pentagon’s High-Performance Computing Modernization program in 2022, the Air Force Research Lab has begun development on at least three RDE weapons or demonstrators.

One aims to field a liquid-fueled rotating detonation scramjet that will power an air-to-surface missile that can be carried internally by 5th generation fighters. Another will leverage solid fuel for an air-to-air missile, and a third effort aims to develop a vehicle for freejet testing on the ground.

RDE technology could eventually also lead to smaller weapons that offer the same range and speed as today’s missiles, allowing stealth aircraft like the F-35 to carry more munitions inside their internal weapons bays. Likewise, missiles of the same size as today’s could fly further faster, which has far-reaching benefits in both air-to-air and air-to-surface operations.

Rotation Detonation Engines could power fighters,  ANTI  RADIATION  MISSILE  LIKE BELOW reaching hypersonic speeds over mach 5  and even the Navy’s warships


Among the weapon-oriented programs being developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory is another rotation detonation engine enterprise that could offer America’s fighters a big boost in range and speed: an RDE that could be used in place of a fighter’s afterburner.

An afterburner effectively combines the remaining oxygen leaving the jet engine with more fuel by spraying fuel directly into the outflow of exhaust. Needless to say, this method of increasing thrust takes a heavy toll on the aircraft’s fuel stores, forcing pilots to choose between speed and range or loiter time.

A rotation detonation engine afterburner could provide an increase in thrust while leveraging the design’s inherent efficiency, providing the same gains for less fuel expended.

In the longer term, air-breathing RDEs could even find their way into the fuselage of an aircraft as the primary means of propulsion. But not all of the potential applications for RDE’s are in the sky. One of the most promising may actually be out at sea.

While the Navy’s aircraft carriers and submarines are famously nuclear-powered, the rest of the fleet still runs on good old-fashioned F-76 marine diesel fuel — an estimated 86 million barrels of it in 2016 alone. So it may come as little surprise to you that the Navy has been very interested in this approach to high-efficiency propulsion. In fact, the Navy filed its own patent for a “rotary detonation engine” as far back as 1982.

According to the Navy in 2012, rotation detonation engines could increase a warship’s thrust by 10% and reduce fuel consumption by 25%, giving them more speed and range for the fuel expended. In 2012, that kind of improvement was projected to result in savings of $300 to $400 million per year, which equates to $387 million to $516 million in today’s dollars.

The truth is, Rotation Detonation Engines could help fighters fly further, missiles fly faster, ships sail longer, and even rocket launches become cheaper. There aren’t many places in America’s defense apparatus this forward-reaching tech couldn’t benefit. And while for many years the question surrounding RDEs was always if, increasingly, it now appears to be when.

 

The USA has been backing Tokyo's claims for MORE THAN 65 years already

The territorial dispute between Russia and Japan still makes headlines in Russia. A scandal has recently occurred in the State Duma, when souvenir shops in the parliament started selling Earth globes, on which the Kuril Islands were marked as the Japanese territory.

The problem of the Kuril Islands has surfaced again in Washington, although it might seem at first sight that the USA has nothing in common with the island dispute. However, as experience shows, the USA finds itself involved in almost every single event, which happens in the world. This is what they think at the US administration, at least.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Japanese Minister for Ecology Yuriko Koike on Tuesday that Washington was ready to assist Japan in returning four of the Russia-owned Kuril Islands. The Pentagon chief assured the Japanese minister (Koike is in charge of the territorial dispute with Russia) that he understood Japan's position on the matter very well. Rumsfeld promised that the USA would help Japan discuss the Kuril Islands issue during US-Russian talks, as soon as an adequate possibility would appear, RIA Novosti reports.

One shouldn't reproach the current US administration for its excessive attention to the territorial dispute between Russia and Japan, though. It is an open secret that the USA has been backing Tokyo's claims for 50 years already. The US Congress passed a special resolution on the matter in 1952. The resolution, however, was approved on account of the Cold War with the USSR, rather than of the USA's initiative to support Japan in its foreign political activities. Furthermore, Directive 677 of 29 January 1946 said that the command of the US occupation troops excluded all Kuril Islands, including the four islands of the current dispute, from the jurisdiction of the Japanese government. It is noteworthy that the above-mentioned four islands were a part of the Hokkaido Island prefecture before and during WWII – they had nothing in common with the Kuril Islands.

The incumbent administration is not likely to repeat the accomplishment of the US Department of State and the US Ambassador to Russia, which they achieved in 1998. It was announced at that time after the talks between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto that the US government recognized Japan's sovereignty over four northern islands.
See more at 

Dear Japan, if you're going to help out, this would be the time. It's appalling how Russians have overtaken other countries property. It won't stop here. I believe the whole World needs to reclaim what Russians have taken from them.

Japan said, Russia occupied the southern part of the Kuril Islands, which contradicts international law, as well as the invasion of Ukraine. The Japanese government said, "The Northern Territories are occupied by Russia, and we believe that this contradicts the international law, as well as the ongoing attack of the Russian army on Ukraine."

Russia was really struggling to protect its Navy in the black sea against air and cdcm attack, against a foe that doesn't have asm capability in its air force, and virtually no navy to speak of while having an Air Force that's many times larger and more modern. After Russia invaded Ukraine, all past videos about the strength of Russian army look outdated… They can not even take Kiev… so forget about taking Tokyo (and first crossing the sea, which is harder than driving from belarus) There is no way Russias Navy accomplishes anything other then sink against the 4th Largest and most powerful Navy on the planet while I doubt it's air force accomplishes anything in Japanese air space.

 

U.S ships will continue to make Taiwan Strait transits. U.S will also continue to perform Freedom of Navigation operations in Indo-Pacific. Hitting out, U.S. said China's bid to coerce the international community 'won't work'. U.S is expected to conduct some Freedom of Navigation operations in the coming days. Pentagon said U.S will continue to sail in international waters, wherever it is allowed.

US pledges to send warships through Taiwan Strait in standoff with China








Following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, which deliberately provoked the greatest crisis in the region in a quarter century, the United States has announced plans for its next provocation: sending aircraft and warships through the Taiwan Strait.

The US will conduct “air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said.
USS Ronald Reagan leads the Ronald Reagan Strike group during a photo exercise for Valiant Shield 2018 (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Erwin Miciano)

In June, Fortune reported that Beijing told US officials that China sees the Taiwan Strait as its territorial waters, leading to the possibility Chinese military forces could seek to block a transit by a US warship, potentially leading to a military clash.

Kirby announced that the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, which is operating in the waters outside Taiwan, will extend its deployment in the area.

The US announcement came amid a military standoff over Taiwan. After Pelosi’s visit, China carried out live-fire exercises in the waters on all sides of Taiwan, forcing the cancellation of flights and the re-routing of ships.

China deployed over 100 aircraft and over 10 warships in its largest-ever military drills in the Taiwan Strait. China fired at least 11 ballistic missiles, some flying directly over mainland Taiwan, and deployed drones that flew over Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands.

Over 900 flights involving 18 international air routes have been adjusted, and 66 flights have been cancelled.

The Global Times reported that the military drills “featured advanced weapons, including long-range rocket artillery, anti-ship ballistic missiles, stealth fighter jets and an aircraft carrier group with a nuclear-powered submarine, as well as realistic tactics that simulated a real reunification-by-force operation.”

For the first time, the Chinese drills included a “carrier group deterrence exercise,” the Global Times reported, and at “least one nuclear-powered submarine has been deployed.”

Both of China’s aircraft carriers were reported to have been steaming toward Taiwan, and either one or both participated in the drills.

Critically, China also fired missiles into Japan’s territorial waters, in what was interpreted as a message about its ability to strike US bases in Japan. The Global Times wrote: “The PLA exercise zones set in the northeast, east and south of Taiwan island are designated not only to blockade Taiwan and hit targets on the island, but also to prevent external forces like the US from intervening from its bases in Japan and Guam via the Philippine Sea.”

Japan, whose population overwhelmingly opposes militarism following Japan’s crimes in World War II and the US mass murder of the populations of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is being swept into the US-led war drive against China. This year, officials pledged to double Japan’s defense spending, up to 2 percent of GDP, and politicians have proposed stationing US nuclear missiles on Japan.

Even as the US made clear it would continue its efforts to goad China into military conflict, White House officials asserted—which neither they nor anyone else believe—that Pelosi’s visit was meaningless.

Kirby, the White House spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday: “I want to reiterate, as I’ve been saying all week: Nothing—nothing—has changed about our One China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint US-PRC Communiqués, and the Six Assurances. And we say it that way every time because it’s exactly consistent.”

He added: “The provocateur here is Beijing. They didn’t have to react this way to what is completely normal travel by congressional members to Taiwan... The Chinese are the ones who are escalating this.”


Amid the ongoing military standoff, the US Senate is moving to formally abolish the One China policy, which is already a dead letter in practice.

The so-called Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, sponsored by Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, would designate Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally” alongside Japan, effectively giving it diplomatic recognition and ending the One China policy.

The bill would provide Taiwan $4.5 billion in military aid, a figure in order of magnitude greater than current expenditures.

“Our bill is the largest expansion of the military and economic relationship between our two countries in decades,” Graham said, deliberately referring to Taiwan as a country.

US TAKE POSSESSION OF SCARBOROUGH SHOAL LOCATED AT THE GATES OF MANILA, 120 MILES WEST OF SUBIC BAY.  TOGETHER WITH SANCTIONS IN THE US SENATE MUTUALLY AGREED BY THE DEMOCRATS AND  REPUBLICAN  ALIKE

Scarborough Shoal. NASA Photo

Starting in early 2016, Scarborough Shoal suddenly became an issue of serious concern for U.S. officials. According to articles in the press reports information was obtained that strongly suggested that China was about to start turning Scarborough into another artificial island, similar to what they had done in the Spratlys. Apparently, one of the factors that suggested Beijing was about to act was a posting found on a Chinese website that included satellite photographs based on a construction bid proposal that would turn Scarborough into an island base similar to what China has constructed on seven Spratlys Islands.

A modern Scarborough airfield with radar and other modern information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) facilities so close to Philippine bases where U.S. has been granted rotational access by the Philippine government possess obvious strategic issues. As shown in the graphic below from the office of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), turning Scarborough into a base with air search radars would allow China to have full-time radar coverage over most of Luzon.

Whether this is China’s intent is not known, but Washington reacted as though they thought it was. Whatever information the Department of Defense has it was deemed credible enough to trigger a “full-court” press aimed at dissuading Beijing from taking those steps. Given that Scarborough is ideally located to “control” the northeast exit of the South China Sea and is only 150 nautical miles west of Subic Bay, if it was turned into a PLA base with a jet capable airfield it would enable among other things a credible Chinese South China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone.

The U.S. response included beginning the rotational deployment of a small task force of US Air Force tactical aircraft to the Philippines, the presence operations of the USS John Stennis Carrier Strike Group in the South China Sea for much of March, April and May of 2016, along with a many high-level public statements, the most dramatic of which came from the Secretary of Defense in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee. Carter was quoted as saying that Scarborough is “a piece of disputed territory that, like other disputes in that region, has the potential to lead to military conflict…That’s particularly concerning to us, given its proximity to the Philippines.” According to New York Times reports, President Obama also mentioned Scarborough Shoal to President Xi Jinping during their meeting on March 31st on the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit:

The stakes are so high that Mr. Obama warned the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, during their recent meeting in Washington not to move on the Scarborough Shoal or invoke an air defense zone, said an American official who was briefed on the details of the encounter and spoke anonymously because of the diplomatic sensitivities.

In essence, the flurry of activity regarding Scarborough in March, April and May of 2016 was meant to send a clear signal to China that the United States sees Scarborough as being different from the Paracels and Spratlys. Although official U.S. policy of taking no position on the merits of disputed sovereignty claims to features in the South China Sea includes Scarborough Shoal, recent US action suggests that it does in fact have a different unofficial view. Since Scarborough is not in either the Spratly or Paracel chains and is not also claimed by any littoral state other than China and Taiwan, and for almost 50 years was treated as though it was under US jurisdiction, changing the US position on sovereignty over Scarborough would not be a stretch. It is the author’s view that the evidence supports Philippine sovereignty over the Shoal. To this point:

When comparing the Chinese and Philippine cases, evidence of effective occupation is not overwhelming in either case – but, of the two, the Philippines’ case is stronger. Most mariners charted this feature only in order to remain well clear of it since it was a hazard to navigation. Similarly, the presence of itinerant fishermen from either China or the Philippines is legally insufficient to establish a legal presence.

But, past activities by the U.S. Navy and Philippine authorities to survey the Shoal so that it could be safe for shipping, constitute some positive occupation, along with its contemporaneous appearance on Philippine charts. Past actions by the Philippine armed forces to exercise law enforcement jurisdiction in the 1960s, both to eject smugglers and to monitor future movement, show intent to exercise jurisdiction over the atoll.

The past uses of the shoal by the U.S. Navy for military activities and its legal assessment that the atoll was part of the Philippines also support the case that the Republic of the Philippines was exercising sovereignty over the atoll. Even though the Philippines today asserts that its current claims are independent of the territory that was ceded by Spain to the United States, the key point is that the U.S. government considered it to be part of the Philippines, and any “occupying” activities which it undertook can be vicariously attributed to the Philippines because the United States was the legal proxy for the Philippine people until full independence in 1946.

In short, it would not be legally difficult for the U.S. government to persuade itself that the Government of the Philippines does have a superior claim to sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal. The obvious political and security implication of such a judgment would be the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty could be interpreted to cover Scarborough Shoal; an act that hopefully would deter Chinese island building.

But, this is a card that Washington should keep close at hand while waiting to see how things play out. Unless the almost three months of recent US naval and air posturing around Scarborough was simply a bluff, it suggests that Washington has already decided that Scarborough is important enough to the security of the Philippines (and to the United States position in the Philippines) to accept the risks associated with doing something that will really irritate Beijing.

There will unlikely be any large scale fighting near American soil in a strictly conventional war situation. Firstly, let us start with Asia. The United States, Japan, and South Korea. would send their navy to counter North Korea,  and China. South Korea would strictly focus on North Korea and would win with relative ease. The United States would focus on China, and Japan would focus on North Korea and China. The United States, India and Japan would form a blockade around China. This would lead to the US and Japan destroying their nuclear launch sites and all aircraft that can carry nuclear weapons. The US air-force, assisted by Japan, would control the skies over China. They would launch devastating airstrikes and would pierce their land defenses. This would all lead to the withdrawal of China,  as they would probably not want to surrender. This would be a major victory for the US and Japan in Asia.  Overall, it would be a costly US led coalition victory. China,  would be recovering from the massive Japanese/American bombardment. North Korea would be under South Korean rule and they would begin to slowly recover and become prosperous. Japan would be trying to recover from the Chinese. They would still remain prosperous. The United States and Canada would remain relatively safe. America, being a war based economy, would profit greatly. Australia would be safe and would not really change at all.  

The underlying factors are the growth of Chinese power, Chinese dissatisfaction with the US-led regional security system, and US alliance commitments to a variety of regional states. As long as these factors hold, the possibility for war will endure.

Whatever the trigger, the war does not begin with a US pre-emptive attack against Chinese fleet, air, and land-based installations. Although the US military would prefer to engage and destroy Chinese anti-access assets before they can target US planes, bases, and ships, it is extremely difficult to envisage a scenario in which the United States decides to pay the political costs associated with climbing the ladder of escalation.

Instead, the United States needs to prepare to absorb the first blow. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Air Force (USAF) have to wait for Chinese missiles to rain down upon them, but the United States will almost certainly require some clear, public signal of Chinese intent to escalate to high-intensity, conventional military combat before it can begin engaging Chinese forces.

If the history of World War I gives any indication, the PLA will not allow the United States to fully mobilize in order to either launch a first strike, or properly prepare to receive a first blow. At the same time, a “bolt from the blue” strike is unlikely. Instead, a brewing crisis will steadily escalate over a few incidents, finally triggering a set of steps on the part of the US military that indicate to Beijing that Washington is genuinely prepared for war. These steps will include surging carrier groups, shifting deployment to Asia from Europe and the Middle East, and moving fighter squadrons towards the Pacific. At this moment, China will need to decide whether to push forward or back down.

On the economic side, Beijing and Washington will both press for sanctions (the US effort will likely involve a multilateral effort), and will freeze each others assets, as well as those of any co-belligerents. This will begin the economic pain for capital and consumers across the Pacific Rim, and the rest of the world. The threat of high intensity combat will also disrupt global shipping patterns, causing potentially severe bottlenecks in industrial production.

Whether US allies support American efforts against China depends on how the war begins. If war breaks out over a collapse of the DPRK, the United States can likely count on the support of South Korea and Japan. Any war stemming from disputes in the East China Sea will necessarily involve Japan. If events in the South China Sea lead to war, the US can probably rely on some of the ASEAN states, as well as possibly Japan. Australia may also support the US over a wide range of potential circumstances.

China faces a less complicated situation with respect to allies. Beijing could probably expect benevolent neutrality, including shipments of arms and spares, from Russia, but little more. The primary challenge for Chinese diplomats would be establishing and maintaining the neutrality of potential US allies. This would involve an exceedingly complex dance, including reassurances about Chinese long-term intentions, as well as displays of confidence about the prospects of Chinese victory (which would carry the implicit threat of retribution for support of the United States).

North Korea presents an even more difficult problem. Any intervention on the part of the DPRK runs the risk of triggering Japanese and South Korean counter-intervention, and that math doesn’t work out for China. Unless Beijing is certain that Seoul and Tokyo will both throw in for the United States (a doubtful prospect given their hostility to one another), it may spend more time restraining Pyongyang than pushing it into the conflict.

The US will pursue the following war aims:

1. Defeat the affirmative expeditionary purpose of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

2. Destroy the offensive capability of the PLAN and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF).

3. Potentially destabilize the control of the CCP government over mainland China.t

Except in the case of a war that breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, the first task involves either defeating a Chinese attempt to land forces, or preventing the reinforcement and resupply of those troops before forcing their surrender. The second task will require a wide range of attacks against deployed Chinese air and naval units, as well as ships and aircraft held in reserve. We can expect, for example, that the USN and USAF will target Chinese airbases, naval bases, and potentially missile bases in an effort to maximize damage to the PLAN and PLAAF. The third task probably depends on the successful execution of the first two. The defeat of Chinese expeditionary forces, and the destruction of a large percentage of the PLAN and the PLAAF, may cause domestic turmoil in the medium to long term. US military planners would be well-advised to concentrate the strategic campaign on the first two objectives and hope that success has a political effect, rather than roll the dice on a broader “strategic” campaign against CCP political targets. The latter would waste resources, run the risk of escalation, and have unpredictable effects on the Chinese political system.

Japan is very much the flavor of the current Indian season. Especially when juxtaposed against China, Japan is acknowledged by New Delhi as being one of the most significant maritime players in the Indo-Pacific. Indeed, Japan’s steadily deteriorating and increasingly fractious relationship with China is a prominent marker of the general fragility of the geopolitical situation prevailing almost throughout the Indo-Pacific. Within this fragile environment, New Delhi is seeking to maintain its own geopolitical pre-eminence in the IOR and relevance in the Indo-Pacific as a whole by adroitly managing China’s growing assertiveness. In this process, Japan and the USA (along with Australia, Vietnam, South Korea, and Indonesia) collectively offer India a viable alternative to Sino-centric hegemony within the region. However, before it places too many of its security eggs in a Japanese basket, it is important for India to examine at least the more prominent historical and contemporary contours of the Sino-Japanese relationship. As India expands her footprint across the Indo-Pacific and examines the overtures of Japan and the USA to seek closer geopolitical coordination with both, it is vital to ensure that our country and our navy are not dragged by ignorance, misinformation or disinformation, into the law of unintended consequences.

 

COULD THE USAF AT OKINAWA DEFEND A FULL CHINESE AIR ATTACK

Deployed to Okinawa, Japanese F-35 Fighters Take Up an Anti-China Mission

The U.S. Marine Corps’ F-35B—its version of a fighter being fielded by the Air Force and Navy—has vertical landing capabilities, but those may have compromised some aspects of the Lightning II’s performance.

Here's What You Need To Know: If Chinese ships and aircraft can isolate the Senkakus, then it will be easy for Chinese troops to occupy them. And very difficult to Japan to recapture them: the special amphibious brigade created by Japan would be a sitting duck. But even a few F-35Bs operating from rough airstrips—and perhaps armed with hypersonic anti-ship missiles—could disrupt a Chinese amphibious landing.

Japan may deploy its new F-35 stealth jet fighters to an airbase in southwestern Japan.

The location is not coincidental: Nyutabaru Air Base, in Miyazaki Prefecture, is situated nearer to Japanese islands and waters claimed by China.

“The envisioned deployment of the aircraft to Nyutabaru Air Base is aimed at keeping in check China’s maritime assertiveness around the area, including the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea,” according to an article in the Japan Times. China claims the islands, which are located near China and Taiwan, as its own, and has repeatedly sent ships and aircraft into the area.

A former Japanese military officer recently made waves after saying he believes China plans to invade and annex Taiwan by 2025 and Okinawa by 2045.

The comments by retired Lt. Gen. Kunio Orita, a 35-year veteran of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and a former commander of the 301st Tactical Fighter Squadron and 6th Air Wing, appeared last month in the English-language Taiwan News.

Orita, who retired in 2009 and is now a guest professor at Toyo Gakuen University in Tokyo, recently told Stars and Stripes he expects Beijing will attempt to expand its sphere of influence by first taking control of Taiwan and then militarizing a key disputed islet in the South China Sea.

Once that’s accomplished, he said, China will set its sights on Japan’s southern island prefecture, which hosts about half of the approximately 54,000 U.S. troops serving in Japan.

Beijing plans to force the United States out of Okinawa by fostering negative media coverage and supporting the anti-U.S. military protest movement on the island, the former general said.

“If China can push out the U.S. military from the region, it is possible that they can conquer the South China Sea and they will gain the power to stop any trade between Japan and other countries,” he said in a phone interview with Stars and Stripes on Jan. 28.

Shoal strategy The key to making this happen is building a naval port at Scarborough Shoal, an islet about 200 miles west of Manila in the South China Sea, Orita said. Beijing took control of Scarborough’s resource-rich lagoon from the Philippines in 2012.

“By building up their forces there, it will add tremendous pressure on surrounding countries,” he said, adding that China backed off plans to militarize Scarborough as it’s done on other South China Sea islets after U.S overflights of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in April 2016.

A pair of B-52 bombers flew past the shoal in June, drawing condemnation from Beijing, according to The Associated Press.

This will begin with China declaring a no-fly zone around the island nation, he said, adding that any aircraft that tries to come to Taiwan’s aid will be shot down.

Orita then expects Beijing to provoke and attack Taiwanese navy and air force assets, both on land and in the Taiwan Strait, which separates it from China. Next, he expects them to blockade the island until Taiwan’s government agrees to come to the negotiating table, where a pro-Beijing regime will be installed.

“After taking over Taiwan, China will gain more influence over Indo-Pacific shipping lanes, then China can start to add nuclear pressure on the countries in the Pacific,” he said.

DEFENSE OF TAIWAN, ARCTIC AND NATO BY 82  MODIFIED 747 MISSILE CARRIERS: AVOID US NAVY SHIPS IN THE INITIAL ENGAGEMENTS

I like the theory, and what if they used the 747 platform as a mass anti-air AMRAAM platform, it would be a decent counter to Chinese numerical superiority. They could be guarded by a few F-16's/F-35s etc and the AWACS could guide them with a software update to target hostiles singularly. Stealthy cruise missiles fired from a large platform at a very safe distance actually represent a better chance of penetration than risking a stealth bomber flying directly into contested, hostile territory. Ground based radars in long wavelength may well make "stealth" bombers moot very quickly.  Stealthy cruise missiles fired from a large platform at a very safe distance actually represent a better chance of penetration than risking a stealth bomber flying directly into contested, hostile territory. Ground based radars in long wavelength may well make "stealth" bombers moot very quickly.

STATION ABOUT 30 CARGO BOMBERS LIKE BELOW IN JAPAN THAT COULD TAKE CARE OF THE DEFENSE OF TAIWAN SENKAKUS AND OKINAWA

The Airforce is doing this with palletized munitions on cargo aircraft. It allows them to turn C-130 and C-17s into missile trucks. A C-130 has a very low cost/flight hour and C-17 is comparable to a 747. And there are other platforms this could potentially work for, C-390 or A-400 for instance. This project doesn't require any modification of existing platforms. I wouldn't think the Airforce at this point would want to buy a legacy Aircraft for a suedo bomber conversion. But this was an interesting program.I visited the flight deck of a Cathay Pacific 747-400 on a flight from Paris to Hong Kong. It was a surprising experience to be flying over Russia, because the first time I went to Europe was before the USSR dissolved. I didn't get to see the landing from the flight deck, but watching the wingtip of the Jumbo skim the rooftops on approach into Kai Tak was something that I won't forget. Last year, I had a seat on the top deck of one of the last Qantas 747-400 flights from Haneda to Sydney. I did get to see Airforce One land in Canberra. I think it's the only one of those modified 747s ever to land in Australia.

Orita said China will then take the nearby Senkaku Islands, a disputed chain northeast of Taiwan and northwest of Japan’s Miyako island in the East China Sea also claimed by Japan and Taiwan, and encourage Okinawans to declare their independence from Japan.

The Chinese have long been antagonistic regarding the Senkakus.

In 2016, China sailed an aircraft carrier between Miyako and Okinawa’s main island. There have been frequent overflights of Chinese military aircraft in the same space since then, Japanese defense ministry officials told Stars and Stripes last year.

“China keeps pushing up the territorial line every year by breaking into Miyako-Okinawa,” Orita said.

The communist super power has also been “dumping money to influence Okinawa to turn its back on its country,” he said, in a reference to the island’s fervent anti-U.S. military movement.

Orita said he’s learned through intelligence sources that this includes funneling money to Okinawan media outlets for anti-U.S. military coverage. However, he could not provide proof of the assertion.

“China wants Okinawa to be an independent country,” he said. “An independent country does not need U.S. forces on the island.”

Dissenting opinions However, the retired general’s opinions are not universally accepted among Japanese academics. Aomori University professor Hideki Hirano told Stars and Stripes the comments were outlandish and questioned whether Orita had even said them.

Scholar, defense expert and former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Lt. Gen. Toshiyuki Shikata said he agrees with Orita’s principles, but not his timeline.

“I don’t think Taiwan will be taken by military force by 2025,” he said. “China may use economic pressure as well as influencing the Taiwanese government and its people within instead.”

Shikata said he believes China would take Scarborough Shoal first and then move to take Taiwan, not the other way around.

“I believe China will expand its influence over Taiwan and Scarborough Shoal at the same time, as both are necessary for China to move toward the Senkakus,” he said.

However, if the Chinese do take Taiwan in the coming years, Shikata agreed that attempts to capture Okinawa are possible by 2045.

“China has been influencing Okinawa to become anti-U.S. military and anti-Tokyo,” he said. “China has been using the [protest] movement in Okinawa very well.”

Okinawan protest leaders have scoffed at assertions that their movement, which aims to reduce the island’s U.S. military footprint, has been co-opted by Beijing.

“If the Senkakus get taken over, the U.S. won’t be able to stop China,” Shikata said.

Neither Japan’s Defense Ministry nor Okinawan prefectural officials would comment on the former general’s statements.

A spokesman from the Office of the Secretary of Defense also would not comment specifically on Orita’s statements but said the Defense Department will “continue to pursue a constructive, results-oriented relationship with China.” It also will not accept policies or actions “that threaten to undermine the international rules-based order.”

“We will cooperate where our interests align, and compete, vigorously, where our interests diverge,” spokesman Marine Lt. Col. Christopher Logan wrote in an email to Stars and Stripes on Jan. 29.

“We have a vital interest in upholding the current rules-based international order, which features a free, prosperous, and democratic Taiwan. The objective of our defense engagement with Taiwan is to ensure that Taiwan remains secure, confident, free from coercion and able to engage in a peaceful, productive dialogue to resolve differences in a manner acceptable to people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”

 

 

U.S. and NATO vs. Russia and China

NATO is eyeing as an increasing likelihood given the invasion of Ukraine. What was once thought impossible, is now at the forefront for every member of NATO- could Russia really declare war on the alliance, and could it win?

U.S. and NATO vs. Russia and China

U.S. President Joe Biden has been engaged in a flurry of activity about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In mid-March, he had a two-hour video call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Biden warned the Chinese rulers that there would be “consequences” if they were to provide military or other material support to Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Chinese response to Biden has been to continue to call for peace negotiations and even mention Ukraine’s sovereignty without directly criticizing the Russian invasion. Biden also recently traveled in Europe for talks with leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners, including Germany, France, Britain, Poland, and others. He then told European government officials to prepare for possibly years of war and called on them to support expelling Russia from the “G20” – the association of most of the world’s largest economies. And the war of words goes on, with Biden and others accusing Putin of war crimes.

Meanwhile, the Russian military has indeed slaughtered thousands of Ukrainians and has made refugees of 4.5 million people in a little more than a month.

But despite all the political rhetoric coming out of Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, it would be a mistake to believe that this is all about Ukraine. Yes, the Russian invasion has been a direct and brutal assault on the people of Ukraine. No one should believe Russian President Putin’s lies about fighting Nazism in Ukraine. Thousands of Russian people have risked their lives protesting the invasion. And thousands of Russian soldiers have lost their lives for Putin’s lies.

Just three weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin met in Beijing at the opening of the Olympic Games to announce an agreement between their two regimes. In their joint statement, Putin and Xi declared that the world has entered a period of increased rivalry among the world’s powers; they see “the development of such processes and phenomena as multipolarity, economic globalization … transformation of the global governance architecture and world order … [and that] a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world.”

Although the agreement does not mention Ukraine by name, it does say that China will support Russia to “oppose further enlargement of NATO” – and the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO is a major concern of Putin’s regime and the Russian capitalists it represents.

NATO was created as a military alliance by the U.S. government and its western European allies after World War II, to threaten the Soviet Union. So, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the triumph of capitalism in Russia, what was the reason for NATO’s continued existence? It’s clear today that the European and U.S. capitalists still fear Russian influence in the world. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a number of governments of Eastern European countries that were formerly part of what was known as “the Soviet Bloc” or “People’s Democracies,” which has served as a physical buffer zone between Western Europe and the Soviet Union, have joined NATO. This includes Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, all standing as part of this military bloc against Russia. In addition, most of them have deepened their economic ties to Europe and a number have joined the European Union. The addition of Ukraine to NATO would be a major threat to Russia, extending NATO’s direct access to Russia’s border further to the south.

This expansion of U.S. and Western European influence in the region isn’t the only shift in economic and political alliances. During the past decades, there has been a weakening of U.S. world dominance, economically and politically. China’s development as a capitalist power has emerged as a challenge to U.S. imperialism’s domination of the world economy, which since World War II had been uncontested. The new Russia/China agreement not only challenges NATO, but also opposes U.S. domination in Asia and its support for Taiwan’s independence from China. In general, it declares opposition to U.S. imperialism and its allies.

During this period, the economic relations of the European Union have solidified while it has expanded to include additional countries. As a consequence, the role of the U.S., and by extension the role of NATO, is also being questioned, if not challenged by some of these nations.

What is emerging is the struggle among the world’s biggest economic, military and nuclear powers for world domination. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased those tensions. This confrontation has served to unify the U.S. and the nations in NATO while exposing their different positions in the world economy. One central issue is Europe’s dependence on Russian energy resources. Much of the focus of U.S. global policy is on its relationship to China and the economic and military control of eastern, southern, and southeastern Asia. This was highlighted recently by the new nuclear arms alliance of the U.S., United Kingdom, and Australia, featuring a plan to arm Australia with nuclear submarines – an obvious threat to China. (This move also undermined France’s tentative agreement to build the submarines.) Other flashpoints in the superpower conflicts of recent years have included Iran, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East and South Asia.

The apparent goal of the big capitalists of China and Russia is to establish and secure their access to the vast natural resources and labor of the enormous Eurasian landmass, which would help to dominate the world economy. Also, China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” is a trillion-dollar infrastructure investment program across Asia, Europe, and Africa to link the economies of those continents under Chinese leadership. But the main obstacle to this project is U.S. imperialism, with investments virtually everywhere in the world, alongside about 750 military bases (by far the most in the world) and a huge naval fleet to protect those investments. The U.S. imperialists have made it clear that they are ready to do everything in their power to oppose China and Russia.

This video explores possible geopolitical repercussions of a war between People's Republic of China and Republic of China over the island of Taiwan. What sort of rift effects might that have on the overall world? On the US, the EU and other countries? On the overall global economy? Watch the video to see why our world would never be the same.

The skeptics are wrong: The U.S. can confront both China and Russia



This week, the United States proved it could handle China and Russia at the same time, without starting any new wars or losing any ongoing battles. This should put to rest two trendy but wrong ideas: the notion on the right that we must back off Russia to confront China, and the notion on the left that we must back off China to confront Russia. It’s a false choice — because it’s all one confrontation.

Congress came together this week to assert U.S. leadership and push back against the aggression of two autocratic regimes. The Senate voted 95-1 on Wednesday to ratify the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO, a strong rebuke of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war against Ukraine. Both parties (and eventually the Biden administration) also affirmed their support for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, despite the Chinese government’s attempts to bully her into abandoning the trip.


Despite deep skepticism of U.S. intervention abroad among the American people, leaders in both parties seem to understand that the United States has a duty and an interest in exerting active leadership and pushing back against America’s adversaries in both Europe and Asia.






“We don’t beat China by retreating from the rest of the world. We beat China by standing with our allies against our enemies,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) before voting to expand NATO.


Cruz was responding to arguments made by fellow Republican Josh Hawley (Mo.), the only senator to vote no on NATO’s expansion. In an op-ed in the National Interest, Hawley wrote, “We must do less in Europe (and elsewhere) in order to prioritize China and Asia.” He said the United States must make “tough choices” because we “cannot defeat China and Russia in two major wars at the same time.”


Hawley is playing into a growing foreign policy trend on the right that seeks to justify taking the pressure off Moscow. The Conservative Political Action Conference welcomed Russia-friendly Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to its event this week. The Heritage Foundation, once a bastion of traditionally hawkish GOP foreign policy, opposed U.S. funding for Ukraine in May, ostensibly over accountability concerns.



But the NATO vote shows that most GOP leaders understand a softer position on Russia is neither good policy nor good politics. Six in 10 Americans support providing weapons and aid to Ukraine, and 7 in 10 Republicans support NATO.


Contrary to what Hawley argues, strengthening NATO actually lessens America’s burdens in Europe. More importantly, the idea that increasing deterrence against Russia will lead to war is a straw man. NATO is a defensive alliance, designed to prevent a larger war.


Meanwhile, on the left, several prominent voices warned this week that Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan could spark a major war with China at the worst possible time, another straw-man argument. Thomas L. Friedman argued in the New York Times that Pelosi’s visit was “reckless” because Ukraine demands our full attention.



“It is Geopolitics 101 that you don’t court a two-front war with the other two superpowers at the same time,” Friedman wrote.


First of all, Friedman misapplies the “reckless” label. It belongs squarely on the Chinese Communist Party, which decided to threaten Pelosi’s safety. China is shooting missiles in Taiwan’s direction and conducting military drills all around the island. That’s reckless. Visiting Taiwan for meetings is not.


More importantly, this analysis completely misreads the situation in China — President Xi Jinping’s impending coronation for a third term means he can’t afford to look weak, but he also can’t afford a major conflict right now. To the limited extent China is withholding assistance to Russia, it is because of China’s desire to avoid U.S. sanctions, and that hasn’t changed.


After significant hand-wringing, the Biden administration supported Pelosi’s visit, using reasonable steps and diplomacy to manage the fallout with Beijing. The sky did not fall. World War III did not commence. Pelosi’s trip did not change the fact that China, not the United States, is the aggressive party disrupting the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.


The idea that the United States can choose between confronting Russian aggression or Chinese aggression is attractive, until it meets reality. In truth, these two expansionist dictatorships are working together to undermine our security, prosperity and freedom. Moscow and Beijing view their struggles against the West as intertwined, so we must acknowledge that connection as well.

The good news is that the United States has many strong partners that also understand this is a dual threat, not a choice between two separate challenges. Leaders on both sides of the U.S. political spectrum should stop deluding the American people into the false comfort that we have the luxury to choose to confront one evil and not the other.