The
hard truth is that China's force in place is deeply inferior and that
is difficult to change. Far worse, none of the folks in place today
have actually been involved in war. Their last dust up took place
around 1980 on the Vietnamese border and they got roughly handled.
Any twenty year old soldier there then would be fifty five today.
Trump
cards are also like Hitler’s secret weapons. They cannot be
deployed or they are no longer secret. Yet large numbers are
demanded in order to be useful. Modern warfare is about the magic of
fire power and sheer battle depth in numbers. This can never be a
secret.
Bellicose
generals are all too common in history and the less combat
experience, the more so. China needs to send an expeditionary force
into the Sudan to protect its oil assets there. Five years of that
and we will have somewhat quieter generals.
Chinese General Warns US Military of ‘Trump Cards’
The
Chinese military has two very different faces. The one they show is
of soldiers, jets, and ships—all with questionable capabilities.
The face that China’s military doesn’t show, however, is the one
that has U.S. legislators worried.
This
other face is what China’s military thinkers call their “trump
cards” or “assassin’s mace” weapons. They’re a collection
of weapons and systems designed to allow China to fight a
technologically advanced country by disabling technology that would
otherwise put China’s military at a disadvantage.
On
June 6, one of China’s recently retired generals warned the United
States of these weapons.
“We
often speak of trump card equipment,” Lt.
Gen. Wang Hongguang, who retired in 2012, wrote in an opinion piece
in China’s state-run Global Times. He then said that China will use
these weapons suddenly, and warned Americans in their “pride and
arrogance” to “not get trampled beneath us.”
Wang’s
opinion piece was in response to a May 15 article published in The
National Interest by Kyle Mizokami, “Five American Weapons of War
China Should Fear.” Mizokami discusses the current-generation jets,
ships, and submarines of the U.S. Military.
In
his response, Wang vaguely discusses China’s weapons meant to
counter weapons that give the United States a technological edge.
Wang
says China’s various cruise and ballistic missiles will deal with
the U.S. aircraft carrier “nemesis.”
He
then says that for U.S. stealth jets like the F-22, which Mizokami
says could “likely penetrate Chinese air defenses,” Wang vaguely
says China has “many types” of aircraft detection systems, which
he claims he can’t detail for “secrecy reasons.”
He
then states, “May I suggest to Americans, when using stealth
aircraft it’s best to keep away from the Chinese mainland.
Remember! Remember!”
Trump
Cards
Wang’s
statements are of course opinion, yet the Chinese military’s heavy
focus on its trump card and assassin’s mace weapons do have U.S.
legislators concerned.
The
terms broadly include weapons intended to disable or destroy U.S.
military communications and technology. The
weapons range from anti-satellite missiles, to using nuclear warheads
to generate an electromagnetic pulse that can destroy electronics in
large areas.
A
report from the National Ground Intelligence Center, declassified in
2011, states “These modern
Trump Card and Assassin’s Mace weapons will permit China’s
low-technology forces to prevail over U.S. high-technology forces in
a localized conflict…”
It
states that assassin’s mace weapons include “older or existing
technology” while trump cards are “newer technology that has been
developed in high secrecy.” Similar to Wang’s claims that China
would use the weapons by surprise, the report states “The element
of surprise is critical to both.”
The
Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military, released last week,
states that China is both “pursuing a variety of air, sea,
undersea, space and counterspace, and information warfare systems”
and aiming to “dominate the information spectrum in all dimensions
of the modern battlespace.”
A
key purpose of such weapons would
be to blind the U.S. military’s satellites, and cut off
communication channels. Communication
and satellite coverage are the backbone of U.S. military operations.
The
report cites Chinese military writings that “emphasize the
necessity” of destroying systems, including U.S. communications
satellites, to “blind and deafen the enemy.”
It
adds that China would use “strikes against U.S. warships, aircraft,
and associated supply craft, as well as the use of information
attacks to hamper tactical and operational communications and
computer networks.”
U.S.
military forces have likewise been training to operate in an
environment that has been affected by such weapons. The military was
directed by Congress in 2013 to hold exercises in environments where
satellite and communication systems are down.
A
report by the Pentagon to the U.S. Congress states the U.S. military
is maturing its ability over time to operate in environments where
communications and satellite coverage is not available.
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