Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

People's Liberation Army, China ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Kremlin) Source- The Diplomat Author-  Joseph A. Bosco China’s new military reform measures, intended to “give more power to lower-level authorities,” are likely to increase the threat of conflict with its neighbors and with the United States – in ways both obvious and more subtle. First, to the extent the reforms succeed in making the People’s Liberation Army more effective and “capable of real combat” as Xi Jinping has advocated, that is bad news for the region, the United States, and its allies. Given the territorial gains China’s aggressive posture has already made, any enhanced military power, real or perceived, can only whet the PRC’s appetite for further advances. Second, the devolution of authority to local commands portends a rise in incidents like the 2001 EP-3 collision and multiple ship-to-ship confrontations in the South and East China Seas. Beijing attributed each of those dange

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons Source- National Interest Author- Paul Dibb It’s becoming commonplace to drum up the military threat from China and belittle America’s military capabilities. Much of this commentary reminds me of statements in the mid-1980s that the former Soviet Union was poised to outstrip the U.S. in military power. This isn’t to argue that China is in the final stages of disintegration like the USSR, but it is to assert that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) demonstrates all the brittleness and paper-thin professionalism of a military that has never fought a modern war and whose much-vaunted military equipment has never been tested in combat. With a slowing economy, and with structural economic and social tensions becoming worse rather than better, China is a large but fragile power ruled by a vulnerable party that can’t afford any economic or foreign policy disasters, let alone war with the U.S. Its economy is fundamentally interdependent with

Image source- Wikimedia Commons Source- The National Interest Author- Lauren Dickey Chinese military muscle was on full display in Beijing this week, with hundreds of new weapons platforms, fly-bys, 12,000 troops, and foreign dignitaries all in the global spotlight of Tiananmen Square. Yet, it wasn’t just the land-based anti-ship ballistic missiles and ground assault units that stole the show. Simmering behind the scenes, and underpinning Chinese President Xi Jinping’s evolving political-military agenda, were the renewed discussions of imminent plans for an overhaul to the operating structure of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Beginning with Xi’s announcement of a 300,000 reduction in Chinese troops from the Tiananmen Square rostrum, subsequent plans will include a comprehensive upending to the military’s existing structure, a vision of U.S.-style joint command structure adapted to the Chinese forces. This is no small undertaking for the Chinese, akin to the intro

Chinese Type-99 MBT ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Max Smith) Source- The National Interest Author- Salvatore Babones With confrontation looming in the South China Sea, all eyes are turned to China's military expansion. News that China is building massive naval docking facilities and transforming its new South China Sea island into a mid-ocean air force base is scaring the whole region into arming up. The message is clear: after 200 years of western domination, China is back. Or is it? Contrary to the prognostications of western doomsayers, China is not facing imminent political collapse. Its economic growth is inevitably slowing down but its economy is relatively healthy compared to those of its peers. But claims (or fears) of Chinese global domination are clearly overblown. The budget numbers just don't add up. The 2015 headline expansion in China's military spending is 10.1 percent, continuing two decades of double-digit growth. Astute econo

Image credits- Xinhua  Source- The Diplomat Author- Peter E.Robertson China’s economic rise means that the world’s largest army now also has the resources of the world’s second largest economy. The security implications of this are discussed in the U.S. Department of Defence’s latest report, which highlights not only the sheer growth of China’s military, but also its sustainability. Although China still spends less on its military than the United States spends on its own defense forces, China’s far higher economic growth suggests it will be able to catch-up rapidly, with relatively little economic burden. This contrasts with America’s economic malaise and raises questions over the credibility of the U.S. security guarantees to Western Pacific allies and its pivot to Asia. But the economics of growth are not quite so simple. Though China’s economy is indeed growing rapidly, this doesn’t mean you can get more of everything at the same rate. Some things become much more

PLAN Ships ( Image source- Wikimapia) Source- The Diplomat Author- Jack Detsch China’s pursuit of construction projects to assert its claims to disputed territory in the South China Sea is intensifying. As Victor Robert Lee reported in The Diplomat last week, land reclamation and buildups have expanded from the Spratly Islands, where China is pursuing military installations, including radar towers, gun emplacements, port facilities, and airstrips, to the Paracel Islands, just 400 kilometers off of the Vietnamese coast. According to satellite imagery, Beijing is looking into major expansions of runway and airport facilities there. Now, per a report from Jeffrey Lin and P.W. Singer in Popular Science released Monday, China will have a new tool to pursue their ambitions further into the oil-rich sea: 1,000,000 ton floating islands, mobile battle stations that can be converted for civilian and military use, allowing for resupplying forces in the region, aircraft landing,

Credits- Internet Image Source- Want China Times The cruise missile DH-10 may be China's deadliest, stealthiest weapon, according to a report from US monthly Popular Science. The missile deserves much more attention than the DF-15 and DF-21, two of China's ballistic missiles, said the report. The PLA could attack Pacific targets, such as Hawaii, with the missile if it is carried by an H-6K bomber. The Chinese military could also attack a target across 90% of the world's land mass if the missile was launched from a 052D guided missile destroyer and Type 0930A nuclear attack submarine. The 1-1.5 ton missile, debuted during China's National Day Parade in 2009, has an attack range of 2,500km and can hit targets as small as a garage door, said the report. The variety of payloads that can be loaded into the missile is one of its greatest strengths. It can carry, for example, 500kg of highly explosive warheads, submunitions, nuclear warheads and fuel air

PLAN Type 52 B destroyer Guangzhou ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Boleslav1)  Source- The Diplomat Author- Michael Carl Hass In a recent article in The Washington Quarterly, two well-respected scholars of Chinese military affairs seek to debunk the idea that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been designing its modernization drive and strategic planning around the concept of “counter-intervention,” which refers to the ability to force an outside power to stand off from the Chinese mainland and its immediate periphery during a conflict. Their assessment is based on a meticulous review of Chinese military texts, which the great majority of Western defense analysts will find difficult to dispute and which imbues their work with an air of scholarly authority, even where their judgments stray beyond what is warranted by their careful review of the language involved. The article has made quite a splash, with The Diplomat’s Franz-Stefan Gady going so far as

United States Tomahawk Missile ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ United States DOD) Source- The National Interest Author- Zachary Keck A number of media outlets have reported in recent days that China has deployed a new missile defense system on many of its ships that has a 90 percent success rate against hypersonic missiles. The same reports also unwittingly highlight that this assertion is false. All the reports appear to originate from a story the Taiwan-based Want China Times carried last month. Citing a report in its “Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily,” which itself cited a story by an unnamed Russian media outlet, Want China Times reported last month that “that China's latest indigenous Type 1130 close-in weapon system can fire 10,000 rounds per minute and destroy 90% of hypersonic missiles traveling at a speed four times the speed of sound.” The Want China Times report has been picked up by numerous news outlets since— either directly or indire

Chinese soldiers ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons)  Source- The Defence News  Author- Darshil R. Patel China has witnessed double-digit economic growth for decades and has now becomes the world's second largest economy. It possesses a sophisticated military that's among the best in the world. Inspite of China bordering a number of small unstable countries, its borders are fully secure. China in the past has suffered many invasions and has been humiliated by foreign aggressors at many occasions. This is probably one of the reasons why China's defense spending has increased tenfold in the past 25 years. China has a long and extensive coastline and Beijing is leaving no stone unturned to build a powerful blue-water navy by developing stealth destroyers and frigates and a large fleet of nuclear submarines. The west especially the United States is alarmed at the pace at which China is modernising its military along with an aggressive foreign policy. A few policy m