While the eyes of the world are focused on rogue nations like Iran and North Korea, China is quietly bolstering its missile capabilities. Voice of America reports that China is developing a ballistic missile with a range of at least 930 miles, and its first aircraft carrier.

Experts speculated about China’s reasons for shoring up defenses, which include re-taking Taiwan by force should the island nation declare independence, and defending against U.S. intervention in such a conflict.

East-West Center senior fellow Denny Roy said, “The Chinese have long had particular expertise in missile development, so it is natural that they would rely on this as a way of countering U.S. strength. It is much easier for the Chinese to build an anti-aircraft carrier missile than building an aircraft carrier battle group.”

Despite its military power build-up, said expert James Nolt of the World Policy Institute, China lags behind the U.S. in military capabilities. “They talk about China without comparing it to the U.S. in any systematic way, which if they did, it would be very easy to see that China’s power is vastly smaller in many areas and its capabilities are vastly limited compared to the U.S.”

The Heritage Foundation‘s Peter Brookes recently wrote about China’s military build-up in the New York Post.

“[W]hile the US strategic arsenal desperately needs updating,” he writes, “Chinese nuclear forces are being modernized across the board…”And China’s warhead numbers are up, by some estimates even doubling in recent years. The Pentagon says Beijing may now be able to put multiple nukes on a single, newly developed, road-mobile missile.”

“So, before there’s any final vote on an arms-control pact that would endure for the next 10 years, it’d be wise to give some thought to Beijing’s burgeoning bevy of bombs.

“While the exact shape of China’s grand ambitions may not be clear, there’s little question they exist. Few would dispute that Beijing wouldn’t mind taking the head seat at the table of global powers, now occupied by Washington.

“As such, China has been growing all aspects of its national power: political, economic and military. Nor is the last limited to a break-neck conventional buildup; its strategic forces are booming, too.

“China long relied on a small, land-based nuclear force of ICBMs in fixed silos and on a limited number of road-mobile missiles, providing for a ‘sufficient and effective’ deterrence in Beijing’s eyes.

“But the force has started getting bigger, better and badder. For instance, while the US strategic arsenal desperately needs updating, Chinese nuclear forces are being modernized across the board.

“And China’s warhead numbers are up, by some estimates even doubling in recent years. The Pentagon says Beijing may now be able to put multiple nukes on a single, newly developed, road-mobile missile.”

“Indeed, if any country can undertake a so-called ‘rush to [nuclear] parity’ with the United States and Russia, it’s China, especially considering its aspirations, wealth and willingness to lavish largesse on its armed forces.

“Basically, Beijing could become a nuclear peer competitor of Washington and Moscow in the not too distant future, in light of the expected arms cuts under New START….It doesn’t end there.”

The Heritage Foundation ‘s Peter Brookes wrote a piece for The Hill on the new START. An excerpt:

“As the Senate returns to take up business before the fall elections, the Obama administration will argue that one of the critical issues in the senators’ inboxes will be ratifying the U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

“Actually, there’s no need for the Senate to rush consideration of the arms-control pact. It should take its time and examine this agreement closely before signing us up to a treaty that will last 10 years.

“But careful scrutiny is even more important because New START is rife with problems that don’t advance U.S. interests.

“For example, to meet the New START-mandated warhead limits of 1,550 per side, we must eliminate almost 80 more warheads than Russia does. In other words, the reduction applies mostly to us…It doesn’t end there, either. ”

In related news, Senator Richard Luger is seeking START ratification support from fellow Republicans. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes this week. Republicans generally oppose the treaty, citing various problems, including a weak verification regime, the link between missile offense and defense, and the administration’s refusal to allow senators to see the treaty negotiating record.

The Heritage Foundation‘s Peter Brookes wrote an article that appeared in the August 2010 issue of Townhall magazine. An excerpt of the five-page article (PDF):

“You have probably never heard of an “EMP.” Don’t feel bad—a lot of people haven’t.

“If asked, most would probably respond it’s some sort of “Emergency Medical Something,” or maybe even a new, cool rock band. Could it have something to do with ESP, or be one of those texting abbreviations teenagers use?

“In fact, it’s actually a deadly serious matter—and something you need to know about.

“Just imagine that one bright, sunny day everything electrical just stopped working. The lights go out in your home or office. There is no cell phone or Internet service and, tragedy of tragedies, the coffeemaker won’t work.

“All the modern electrical conveniences we take for granted on a day-to-day basis in the 21st century go kaput—without an obviousexplanation. And as a result, modern life as we know it comes to a virtual standstill.

“Sure, it could be a power outage. That happens when the weather is bad, which it’s not on this particular day. The power company could be working on the lines, but they aren’t. And even if they were, that might not account for your cell phone outage or the fact your car—and the others
on the road—all died at once. Aliens from outer space? No. An electromagnetic pulse—or EMP.

OUT GO THE LIGHTS—AND MORE

“You were not aware of it, but American military, intelligence and homeland security forces had been tracking a foreign merchant vessel, operating off the East Coast of the United States.

“In fact, just before everything went dark, the ship opened the large cargo doors on its
deck and launched a ballistic missile into the sky in the direction of the American shoreline.

“Aware of the launch from high-tech, spyin-the-sky satellites, but unable to take out the missile due the lack of a comprehensive missile defense system, the U.S. military attempts to conduct a counter-strike on the freighter before it launches another missile.

“That is until the missile’s warhead explodes high in the atmosphere over the central United States, releasing an EMP—and destroying unprotected electrical and computer capacity within its effective radius.”

The Heritage Foundation‘s Peter Brookes and Owen Graham drilled down and discuss the important concerns about the new START. An excerpt:

“Significant Limitations

First, there is the Kremlin’s post-signing statement on New START, which says that any ‘qualitative’ or ‘quantitative’ change to American missile defenses would lead to a possible withdrawal of the Russian federation from the treaty. The Russian position clearly indicates that there are irreconcilable differences on treaty interpretation when compared to the U.S. unilateral statement.[2] By this statement, the Russians are effectively forcing the U.S. to choose between improving its missile defenses and keeping the treaty intact. That is a false choice.

“Then, there is the treaty’s preambular language itself, which states:

“Recognizing the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms [missile defense], that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced, and that current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties.

“Supporters of the treaty dismiss concerns over the preamble, stating that it has no legal standing, “limits nothing” with regard to missile defense, and simply “notes the relationship between the offense and defense, a strategic reality that has been recognized for more than 40 years.” Others, however, see this as a clear restriction on the development of missile defense.

“Adding to incredulity about the treaty is that additional limits on missile defense continue to be revealed. It is worth remembering that the Obama Administration originally asserted that New START would impose no limitations on missile defense but has now backtracked to insist the treaty would have no specific restrictions. Then, Administration officials later ceded that Article V is a restriction but will not affect the Obama Administration’s missile defense plans, which are still under development. (Article V prohibits the conversion of intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] and submarine-launched ballistic missile [SLBM] launchers into missile defense launchers.)

“The newest constraint is one on test-target missiles and launchers, which are used to develop and improve missile defense systems. The Obama Administration has yet to address this issue, but testing restrictions are unacceptable and would undermine America’s national security, especially as unforeseen threats develop. American defense policy and capabilities should be adaptable to future security challenges.

“When viewed together, it is clear that New START’s preamble, the Russian unilateral statement, and remarks by senior Russian officials suggest an attempt by Russia to limit or constrain future U.S. missile defense capabilities. This is significant, considering the nuclear and ballistic missile non-proliferation challenges America faces today—and may face in the future.”

Read the full memo.

The Heritage Foundation‘s Peter Brookes wrote an op-ed for the Boston Herald about START discussions in the U.S. Senate. Several Heritage experts have suggested that senators request the negotiating record between Russia and the U.S. before ratifying the treaty.

“The Obama administration is urging the Senate to ratify the U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, but it won’t release the negotiating record for ‘New START’  to senators.

Denying the Senate’s requests raises suspicions about the treaty, which would reduce the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal by 30 percent and cut our missile silos, bombers and submarines by nearly 20 percent…Is there something in the blow-by-blow transcript of the talks with the Russians that the White House doesn’t want senators to see?”

One concern is whether President Barack Obama compromised our country’s security in exchange for Russia agreeing to additional sanctions against Iran. The president and his advisers have said START doesn’t limit our missile defense, but the president’s track record on missile defense doesn’t instill confidence.

“President Barack Obama & Co. have cut budgets of many missile-defense programs and put the kibosh early in their tenure on the Bush-era missile-defense system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic, aimed at Iran’s nuclear/missile programs. (It’s widely believed they deep-sixed the Polish-Czech program as a sop to the Russians in their near-incessant efforts to “reset” relations.)

“Then there’s the treaty preamble that acknowledges ‘the link between strategic offensive and strategic defensive armaments.’ This language, experts say, might limit American missile-defense. And, while the administration says the preamble isn’t part of the treaty, Moscow said on the day of the signing this spring that it will withdraw from the pact if U.S. missile defense is expanded or improved.”

Read the full article at the Boston Herald.

Update: Download a PDF copy of a letter signed by 11 U.S. senators requesting the administration to make certain witnesses available.

An excerpt of Peter Brooke’s commentary at Heritage.org:

On April 6, the Obama administration released its new nuclear strategy; on Thursday, the prez inked a new nuke treaty with the Russians in Prague. This week, he’s hosting an all-world atomic affair in Washington. It’s a veritable “no-nukes-palooza.”

Problem is, not all nuclear cutbacks are wise.

This week’s D.C. summit makes sense: It’s focused on securing nuclear materials – making it harder, for example, for terrorists to acquire an A-bomb. But the other two “events” raise serious concerns.

The new nuclear strategy aims to create a smaller nuclear force. But that force is already aging, and thus growing inherently less reliable.

Smaller and aging creates a clearly less-credible deterrent. That, in turn, encourages bad actors to rely more heavily on nukes.

How so? By “building down,” we make it easier for the likes of Iran and North Korea (as well as future proliferators such as Syria and potential big-power adversaries) to envision matching our nuclear capabilities. Rather than inevitable U.S. superiority, they’ll see potential vulnerability – which makes the world more dangerous, not less.

The new policy also wrongly calls for us to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – which would effectively prevent us from modernizing our nuclear forces to meet ever-changing threats. It also saddles us with an increasingly obsolete, Cold War-vintage nuclear arsenal.

God forbid we should ever have to use a nuke, but we want to be sure it’s going to go “kaboom” if we do – and others to be darned sure, too. (That’s why China and Russia are modernizing their strategic nuclear forces.)

Then there’s the “Son of START,” the successor to the Cold War-era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The worry here isn’t so much the 30 percent drop in the size of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, which seems like a good idea, as the troubling context for the cuts.

For instance, while we’re planning to shrink our nuke holdings – our most potent deterrent force – there’s been no progress on rolling back North Korea’s nuclear program or halting Iran’s efforts. Sorry: The notion that if we do the “right” thing, these rogues will follow suit is a joke. If nothing else, they know that having nukes is one way to end-run our vast superiority in conventional forces.

Which raises another problem with the treaty: It will limit strategic U.S. “platforms,” such as bombers and submarines, that have both nuclear and conventional roles.

Losing these platforms diminishes our military punch – especially our ability to fight in places like the Korean Peninsula to counter China’s growing might – no small matter.

———————————————–

Read the full article.

“In pulling the plug on the Bush missile-defense plan in Eastern Europe last month,” Brookes writes in the New York Post, “the White House came up with a new architecture based on a new evaluation of existing intelligence on the Iranian ballistic-missile threat…The Pentagon now insists Iran is moving faster on its short- and medium-range ballistic-missile programs than on its long-range ICBM effort, against which the Czech and Polish sites were aimed. (Of course, many experts think progress in one missile program supports another.)”

The new plan may protect Europe, but what about the Iranian threat to the U.S. and Israel? Land-based SM-3 missiles, designed to protect us and our ally, are in development. The target date for completion is 2020, but Iran could have an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2015.

“[T]he Obama administration thinks that if the Iranian ICBM comes online before the land-based SM-3s are developed and in place, the West Coast, Bush-era missile-defense sites give us some breathing room…Not really.”

Brookes notes that the “West Coast” system was created to protect us from North Korea, not Iran. Sites that would protect us from Iran (in Alaska and California) may not be adequate, especially since the administration reduced interceptors at those sites.

“That means there’s a gap in our defenses against an Iranian ICBM strike until the land-based SM-3s are operational, which, by the way, will almost certainly face funding and engineering-development challenges.”

Other problems with the new plan are cost, efficiency, and concerns that Russia will once again “negotiate” with the U.S. to curb development of another weapon.

“It’s…a good time to remind ourselves that the purpose of defense is to be technologically ahead of the threat, not behind it — which is where we’ll be if we’re not careful,” Brookes writes.

Read the full article at the New York Post.

Brookes makes a very important point that should be discussed more often that it is (emphasis added):

“Not only does this make us look weak by giving in to the Russian demand, there’s also the delicious irony that Moscow is largely responsible for the Iran problem today, dating back to help the Kremlin gave the mullahs in the 1990s.”

Not only that, but Russia has refused to issue tougher sanctions against Iran in exchange for our dropping the missile shield plans, yet Obama’s ready to drop them anyway. Why? Obama wants to meet with Iran to discuss its nuclear program, but as Brookes points out, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wouldn’t submit to demands over his program or buckle under tougher sanctions. Brookes adds:

“Nor has Tehran paused its nuclear/ballistic-missile work since Obama took office, despite White House attempts to extend a hand of friendship to the Islamic regime…In fact, Israel believes Iran will have a bomb within one to two years – and the U.S. Air Force assesses Tehran could have an ICBM that can reach the United States by 2015.”

The word why pops up frequently when discussing Obama’s missile defense strategy, which seems counterintuitive. Why, for instance, is he foregoing “our best short-term defense” to placate the former Soviet Union and giving rogue states the benefit of the doubt?

“The Obama administration is reacting to the anticipated launch of another North Korean long-range ballistic missile, expected to fly over the Pacific toward Hawaii sometime soon, by putting missile defense on alert…That’s a big change from last time.

“Back in April, in advance of North Korea’s last missile test, the administration pretty much pooh-poohed the threat posed by the Taepo Dong launch, characterizing Pyongyang’s saber-rattling as bluster.

“Indeed, from all outward indications, Team Obama did just about nothing but bloviate to defend US territory and interests from the missile that, by almost all accounts, has the potential to reach the western United States.”

Brookes notes that Obama’s “charm offensive” against North Korea hasn’t worked, so the administration apparently decided to toughen its stance. More important, missile defense is effective, and in light of North Korea’s bold talk and actions, shoring up our missile defense will keep us from appearing weak on national security.

“The good news is the Bush administration kept its promise to develop and deploy missile defense to protect us against an expanding nuke and missile threat,” Brookes writes. “Otherwise, we’d now be completely vulnerable to North Korean missiles.”

Read the full article here.