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All your missiles are belong to us With a little help from her friends, Japan has sent a loud and clear message to North Korea.
The interceptor fired by the JS Kongo knocked out the target warhead about 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean, said the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, which carried out the test together with the Japanese and U.S. navies.
Tokyo has invested heavily in missile defense since North Korea test-fired a long-range missile over northern Japan in 1998. It has installed missile tracking technology on several navy ships and has plans to equip them with interceptors.
The SM-3 is certainly a good enough interceptor to handle the appropriately named North Korean ‘Nodong’ ICBM. I say that because they seem to be as likely to fail as to get where they are going.
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Great technology. Amazing technology! But is this a case of putting iron bars & multiple locks on the front door while leaving the back door wide open?
North Korea is a miserable dictatorship that is probably afraid of being pushed over from the outside. NK has no reason to attack and over-run Japan. On the other hand, NK would like Japan to keep sending money and otherwise keep propping up the regime. Under these circumstances, the ideal delivery mechanism for NK is not a missile; it is a fishing boat. And if NK nukes can be pre-positioned on or near the Japanese islands, so much the better.
Hopefully, Japan is doing some war-gaming about where their incredible technological resources could do most good versus NK.
Well, they may have technology, but we all know that if a third world nation gets a single nuke in 10 years, they can use it to take over the world. Of course the Soviet Union couldn’t do so in 40 years with thousands of nukes, but they didn’t have Allah on their side. You have to have faith in Allah to understand the madness^h^h^h^h^h^h^h wisdom coming out of the Bush White House and the Cowardly Neocon sites.
It would be funnier if Japan started shooting down North Korea’s test missiles.
Are you naturally this dense or do you have to work at it?
If certain third-world nations get single-digit quantities of nuclear weapons, then maybe they will or won’t try to take over the world. Obviously, an Iran/Syria/failed-state-occupied-by-an-AQ-friendly-or-at-least-US-unfriendly government[1] won’t successfully take over the world.
However, someone with a weapon who thinks he’s right with God can kill an awful lot of people trying, before being slapped down. Doubly so when being slapped down equals martyrdom, which to some people is very much to be desired.
As for North Korea, I don’t know what their game is. Neither do you. I wonder if they know their own program.
In any case, I suspect that Japan’s missile defense test had an entirely different audience: there’s another nation in Asia that owns nuclear weapons.
[1] I forgot, you don’t believe in those.
Sunfish is correct. I suspect he’s very right about the fact that nobody (not even themselves) knows what the Norks are up to. The bigger question is what our pals in Tehran are up to. Are they planning on the Mahdi pitching up and taking out Tel Aviv in a epic, but short-lived, splatterfest or are they planning on just getting a few nukes to sit on so they can carry on being wankers eternally?
Sunfish is correct. I suspect he’s very right about the fact that nobody (not even themselves) knows what the Norks are up to. The bigger question is what our pals in Tehran are up to. Are they planning on the Mahdi pitching up and taking out Tel Aviv in a epic, but short-lived, splatterfest or are they planning on just getting a few nukes to sit on so they can carry on being wankers eternally?
Dale,
SM-3, that’s a Standard missile, right? That’s just an Aegis system… Is there anything new here? If there is, what is it? If so, can any Aegis cruiser/destroyer do that? Can a Type 45?
Nick M:
From the article, I think the new thing here is that a US ally has successfully used an Aegis system. Previously only US warships had used such ship-based interceptor technology. I don’t know if that’s actually true or not, it’s just the impression I got from the article.
This is not a technology article. It’s an Asian politics article. Japan is, with our assistance, doing some Realpolitik to tell the North Koreans that their missiles are now valueless as bargaining chips.
Sunfish is right. This performance is for the benefit of a certain spectator.
Part of me agrees with Sunfish’s insight. Another part wonders if even the Japanese know what they are doing?
China is indeed more likely to be deterred by anti-missile technology than NorKor. But China has already basically put itself on ice until the Olympic Games are over. After that, time is on China’s side vs. Japan, because of Japan’s aging demographics. And the low hanging fruit for China remains to the North and West, in resource-rich, empty Eastern Siberia & the -stans.
Obviously, Japan historically engendered a lot of bad feelings in China. But Japan today is not a threat to China — and there are better targets for an expansionary China.
I believe that the Pentagon (is that a real entity?) has announced that the “shield ” for the continental U S is now fully in place.
Wait, this story can’t be right. For years the Dhimmicrats here in the US have said we can’t do this, the missile shield can’t be possible, ya da, ya da…
I’m so confused.
I thought the Gundams were Japan’s first line of defense??
Or, trying some spin, or some deception and propaganda shtick.
But, as Alice said:
Last time it was the other way round.
Alice,
I agree with completely with your assessment. But I also have absolutely no idea how to play the ‘face’ card as it were. By that I mean things done for pride. I strongly suspect that Putin is preserving what China is developing, namely, a strong missile force. Siberia may be a harder target than we think, but I also suspect China may do to Russia what Germany did to Stalin at the opening of WWII.
I’m looking for two things to happen after the olympics. One will be some pretext for China to undertake a ‘humanitarian’ mission in North Korea. I think that possibility may be what this little exercise was about. The other thing I anticipate is for some sort of ‘mutual’ pact between the thugs controlling Burma and China that will essentially annex Burma to China.
And it dawns on me as I’m sitting here that I’ve just taken as highly probably a scenario that has a super power annexing nations under the guise of mutual agreement. Isn’t that how most of the really messy wars have started? At least in the last century or two?
I sure hope I’m wrong about China.
Mid — Reading your hypothesis, I am reminded of analysis of Exxon’s buy-out of Mobil. Some concluded that the only clear winner from that deal was the CEO of Mobil, who walked away with gobs of cash while the shareholders on both sides were left scratching their heads.
It is certainly conceivable that large cash payments (& other inducements) to the tyrants of North Korea and Burma would win their cooperation in the annexation of their miserable fiefdoms. The same policy might well get China invitations from the leaders of some of the -stans and from provincial officials in Eastern Siberia.
The world is changing. That is for sure. In only a few years time, it will seem inconceivable that harmless CO2 was ever high on the list of international concerns.
China wants a port on the Indian Ocean. That is a strategic goal. Burma will be the method. China almost certainly wants air and sea access out of NK. If NK collapses and is picked up by SK, Germany style, China will not only lose their use of NK airspace etc, they will have a highly energized and economically powerful historical opponent effectively taking its place. A NK shipping port would also remove 1000 miles from routes to and from North and South America. It’s not obvious on a mercator projection, but a great circle route from NK to San Francisco (and even to the Panama canal, most of South America and of course the Caribbean) actually cuts across Alaska’s Aleutians Islands. This would be useful not just for commerce, but for military naval and air as well. Mostly, ‘assisting’ NK would be for military strategic reasons. I think they very much do not want NK and SK to reunite under an SK style government.
If we make clear that the US will not interfere in a ‘regional matter’ then I have no doubt at all that China will effectively annex North Korea (and Taiwan, and Burma, and Mongolia and any other dang place they feel like). Next thing you know, we’re looking at 1940 all over again only this time in Asia and this time with an economic titan. I’ve made quite clear in other threads I think we would be stupid to do that and to make it policy to do that.
As for your last sentence, soo true. I think how just a very few years ago the greatest concern most people had was what the meaning of ‘is’ is.
There are people who think we can get involved in just the trade part of international relations while staying out of the political messiness. That won’t work. We will find that we either have to live without trade or defend it. To pretend otherwise is how we’ve gotten into such messes in the past.
It’s a little unclear to me what response you would like to see to an expansionary China, Mid. My fault for not being perceptive enough.
Seems to me that the decision has already been made — China can do anything it likes on its side of the Pacific without fear of US response, as long as China does not threaten Taiwan & Japan. Maybe South Korea too, but they have been such ungrateful little bastards that the next Democrat US Administration is almost certainly going to do a strategic redeployment away from there.
There will be no intervention as China expands. After all, the world looked the other way when China occupied Tibet, and the world looked the other way when the tyrants of Burma whacked their own people.
My guess is that we will see a big expansion of China’s sway over contiguous territory right up to the Persian Gulf — most likely by negotiation, purchase & subterfuge, backed up by a credible military. Russia will sell Eastern Siberia to China, and satisfy itself with effective domination of declining Europe and a defensible frontier at the Urals. India will tread softly. Africa & South America will remain inconsequential messes. North America will avert its eyes, and slumber uneasily.
And that is the optimistic version of the future!
Why does China need to do any of this? They’re doing fine as it is. They don’t need Siberia, they can buy all the oil and gas they need. North Korea I’ll grant you, though. When the wheel comes off Comrade Kim’s jallopy the Chinese will “assist” and quite possibly that will be with Japanese connivance. Anyway, the Chinese appear to be fairly rational actors. It’s the Islamic Revolution in Pakistan that scares me…
There isn’t a lot of motive for much of the hypothetical (and somewhat paranoid) scenarios floated here – for example, how do we know that China desperately covets an Indian Ocean base? And even if they do, why would they seize Burma to that end? Wouldn’t they just do a deal and establish a base there legally like the Americans do all over the world? It’d be considerably cheaper and easier than annexation.
Secondly, I simply don’t believe that “China’s on its best behaviour until after the Olympics”. Whoever asserts this hasn’t thought very deeply about it. Why do they think China’s holding the Olympic Games in the first place? Mainly, it’s a giant PR exercise aimed at the Chinese people – it’s a fundamental pillar in an ideologically bereft regime’s justification to rule. Now that Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought is dead, the leaders need some other reason to monopolise power. Hey, they’re delivering prosperity and international recognition to China! Anyone who’s spent some time in China knows how important international recognition of China is to the ordinary Chinese – promising and delivering this is an effective political tool here. And of course the Chinese government are aware that international recognition and the domestic perception of this isn’t set in stone; subsequent actions can sweep away any goodwill accrued, even if via an Olympic Games – read Berlin, 1936. There’s no reason why the Chinese would go to such effort and phenomenal expense to hold the Olympic Games and flash its Good International Citizen credentials to the world – and then flush them down the pan with an expansionary territorial policy as described above.
I will also mention that there is little domestic stomach amongst ordinary Chinese for the type of scenario being played out above – too many people here are too busy making money and would be up in arms if their new-found prosperity was torn away from them by a breakdown in the global market, which would be an inevitable consequence of a rampantly expansionary China. Any which way you look at it, I strongly doubt the Chinese people would accept the consequences of their government swallowing up its neighbours and toppling the current international order.
What some above are detailing is an insanely risky, and dare I say irrational, path for the Chinese leadership to take the nation down. The new (highly imperfect) quasi-market system in China is here to stay until it keels over, and when it does the Chinese government simply won’t have the resources – or the energy, it’ll be so busy fighting for its political life on the home front – to carry out such a dastardly plan.
I’m with James and Nick on this.
Correct. China does not have a tradition of militarism and exspansionism, like, eg. Japan had. They are not very good soldiers. They are overcautious. All they want is money, and they are making heaps of it, the old fashioned way: by working hard.
Big nations, like China and Japan need, and want to, have big, respectable military power, and it’s good to have just in case…
I don’t think there is an acute danger to world stability from SE Asia.
Not so. Prior to the mid-1400s, China had a big fleet and was flexing its muscles from Vietnam to Madagascar. Then Chinese rulers made a conscious decision to close the borders & focus inwards. There followed long cycles of warlords, military expansion, and empires within China’s own borders. That was interrupted by the Brits and their war to make China a friendly environment for opium addiction. Shaking that off, China fought the Japanese, had a great civil war, seized Tibet — but you know the rest of the story.
Granted it is possible that China’s current military build-up may initially have been a “never again” reaction to past rapes by Brits & Japs. But the Chinese military seems to be growing far beyond what would be needed simply to discourage invasion.
It may be very comforting for disarmed Europeans to convince themselves that theirs is the best of all possible worlds and no-one could ever possibly wish them harm, even incidentally. That vision may even be correct, rather than naive. Time will tell.
Picked my jaw off of the floor after that one. No point in having a discussion with that for a base assumption.
From an article last year in the Irrawaddy News –
Alice,
We need to keep all of our extraterritorial bases, and all of our surveillance.
It is time we returned to Teddy’s motto, speak softly and carry a big stick. This president has taken the precise opposite course on both points. He blusters and chest thumps (what kind of arrogance names something ‘shock and awe’?) while sending an extremely understaffed military in to take a country. I still get angry and disgusted thinking about the conduct of this war. Internationally, we need to be uninvolved, yet strong enough and projectable enough that potentially expansionist powers want to make sure we don’t choose to get involved. Pulling our troops back into the country is just hunkering down and it will be rightly perceived as such.
We are facing a slowly developing situation in south Asia that is not without precedent. In the period of WWI to WWII we went from boot stomping ‘lesson teaching’ to Chamberlain style self delusion. We do that again, we will see the same result.
Mid,
I’m not saying China isn’t aggressive but I suspect their primary tool is economic. I just don’t see them breaking a winning formula by risking direct confrontation with the USA, Japan, Russia or India. They don’t need to cut-up rough to dominate the planet or at least East Asia. I see them doing it through an East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere but one run from Beijing, not Tokyo this time. Short of an EU / Anglospheric grand union the C21st will be China’s century and not a shot will have to be fired or any real skullduggery either -1.3 billion people and 10% economic growth is all ya need. James is also right about the Olympics. China is not gonna balls-up the publicity stunt of the century. I suspect they take Taiwan eventually but it will be slowly, slowly catchee monkey and by peaceful negotiation. Do you think Britain could have defended Hong Kong if the Chinese had rattled sabres over it? Of course not and do you not think they knew that in Beijing? That’s why they took it softly and didn’t impose the full communist tyranny thing. They’ll do the same with Taiwan.
Pulling our troops back into the country is just hunkering down and it will be rightly perceived as such.
Especially in the Islamic World. The US leaving any Islamic nation, regardless of the circumstances, will be perceived as a victory for the mujahadeen. Even if the US is leaving because it has panelled them to buggeration.
A hypothetical. Let’s say by 2050 the USA and India are playing second fiddle to China which is unquestionably the single global hyper power… Who do you think the Muslims will be most upset with then?
Nick,
There is something of history left out of your forecast. China has always done what it can get away with. When opposition is removed, whether in Tibet or even in China itself, we see what they do left unchecked.
Did they need to murder many millions to control China? I think not. But when there are no consequences, their “primary tool” has been whatever does the job most decisively. Their moral limitations have been whatever they can get away with. And China is innately collective-nationalist. If impoverishing their citizens suits their national plans, then that is what will happen.
In answer to your last question, the Muslims will embrace and convert anybody who opposes their enemies. In the ’60s communist China tried to take Indonesia with a military coup. Because of the West’s willingness to get involved, China had to use the deniable coup method. Otherwise, they would have just done it themselves with military force. But the West was not prepared for Islam’s march. Which one now controls Indonesia? My point is not that Islam is a threat and China is not. My point is that whoever you disregard is the threat that will overcome.
There will not be a stalemate between Muslim totalitarians and secular totalitarians. There will be a bloodbath. A now, everybody has nukes.
We positively cannot stay uninvolved in the rest of the world. To believe we can just allow other nuclear players to ‘have it out’ is as delusional as sitting in the corner of a four man tent watching the other three fighting each other with hand grenades and solemnly stating “It’s their fight, I am not involved.”
Mid,
China isn’t though (I think) a proximate military threat (or a quasi-military threat like the Islamics). Of course the mandarins are ruthless but as far as the Indonesia example is concerned… Well, a deniable coup is perfect. Indonesia is a big place which would have cost much blood and treasure to invade. Heh, I mean, let’s say the CIA could engineer a coup against the mullahocracy in Iran wouldn’t that be smarter than invading the place with the entire US Army and I don’t just mean in terms of casualties.
I agree if impoverishing the Chinese citizenry suits the mandarins they will have no compunction about doing it but my point is I don’t see that being part of their game-plan at all. China is punching at a higher weight than anytime in the last 250 years and that’s down to their “cat economics”. They are not going to chuck that in for a military adventure or a return to Maoist insanity.
Your last two paragraphs I utterly agree with. May I mention Ron Paul? Dubya wasn’t exactly elected on a vigourous foreign policy platform either yet what is his administration best known for globally? You can ignore foreign policy all you like but usually it comes looking for you.
If you were to ask me what the one thing that keeps me awake at night is I would answer in a flash – nuclear proliferation to non-rational players. No, you can’t keep out of it. We are all in this boat whether we like it or not. But, it’s not China that worries me on this score. How do we compete with China? We grow our economies – simple as. Competition is good. Of course the EU has exited stage left pursued by a bear from that game – malaise forever – possibly literally the way Pooty-Poot is behaving. Christ, we probably had better relations with Brezhnev’s Russia.
Or maybe I’m looking at this from a European perspective and your perspective is different. Muslims are more of a threat in Europe because we’ve got more of them and we are way more PC. I am also terrified by our energy dependency and the fact that Pooty-Poot can turn our gas off and that’s back to the Dark Ages. The latest policy scheme for UK ‘tricity generation is to install 33GW of offshore windmills which is utter lunacy. That is half our generation capacity in the UK. The elasticity in production is outrageous. Oh, and that’s another reason we’ll also have to cosy up to the Arabs…
Midwesterner wrote:
I agree with the sentiment — but I fear the US body politic has lost the will to make effective use of those extraterritorial bases & surveillance. So the US will probably continue to spend lots of money on overseas bases and satellite surveillance, but will not be prepared to swing the big stick when the need arises.
One of life’s undeniable truths — everything that left-wingers touch eventually turns to dust. Look at the Anglican Church, the BBC, or any US university. Unfortunately, left-wingers have had a disproportionate influence on US foreign policy for some time — and the results are now showing.
Time is on China’s side. They have so many opportunities — how about engineering a nuclear exchange between Pakistan & India, and then sweeping in to help “maintain order” in the aftermath? Islamists are no problem for China, because the Chinese have no compunction about doing whatever they believe is necessary for their own self-interests.
But we have to take the long view. The Roman Empire fell, and still humanity survived. The British Empire crumbled, and yet the world became better for many people. Even though Western Civilization seems intent on committing suicide, the human race will go on.
Nick,
China is taking delivery on approximately as much military product as the USA is. We are, rightly or wrongly, the world’s policeman. To that end, we have troops and facilities stationed all over the world solving problems that we gain nothing for our efforts.
So what is China doing with their military investment? And why do they need to make one if they are not going to be the world’s policeman? Or maybe they are? But why would the world’s policeman need to be able to destroy satellites? And why do they feel the need to be able to deny India access to the world’s oceans?
As far as Islam v China, which is more deserving of our concern? Islam is a paper (money) monster. They have to buy everything (even oil refineries!). China is the real deal. If we totally stiffed them for everything we owe, they would still be a titan. And we would be unable to ever borrow another penny. That at least would be a good thing.
I bring up in my reply to Alice that we are way off topic here and unless Dale tells us to carry on (umm, I kind of doubt that will happen) we should probably drop this line of discussion.
Alice,
No matter what the body politic’s opinions on Dec. 6, 1941 or Sept. 10, 2001, two days later they all believed in an effective defense. And if we ever had an August 6, 1945 on our turf … well, I would challenge you to find a single person who advocated continuing ‘non-intervention’ approach to foreign affairs.
We need to maintain our capabilities because next time, things will happen too fast to (re) build up after it starts.
Oh. And the Roman empire fell and the western world was plunged into a millennium of darkness. As a single example, Britain took a great many centuries after the Romans left to re-achieve the standards of living they had prior to being tapped into the trade network the Romans built.
Also, there are many bright opportunities still for the US. But we are so way off topic here that I’m afraid Dale will (rightly) point this out to us. As I recall, this thread is to be about NK/Japan(US) missile capabilities. Oops. My bad.
Not so terribly off-topic, really. Japanese anti-missile test -> North Korea -> China -> China’s geostrategery. It is about as hard to talk about anything military in Asia without mentioning China as it would be to talk about British Labour Party without mentioning Gordon Brown.
But I confess to being mystified about China’s intentions. And not comforted at all by assurances that China is just behaving like a great big cuddly Panda.
You make an excellent point, Mid, that there might be very little opportunity to build military capabilities during future conflicts. Any future war would be a “come as you are” kind of event. Which would give the aggressor even more of an advantage than usual.