Pentagon Generals, News Writers Abuse Chinese Test Flight To Argue For More Weapons

 moon of alabama

 The generals in the Pentagon want to get rich. Most strive to take this or that board position at one of the large weapon manufacturers after they retire. But to get there requires that the generals, while still in the military, promote more weapons sales.

Big newspapers are another party with interests in promoting weapon manufacturers and wars. They pay for quite a lot of advertisement. News of weapons and wars also nice clickbait which brings more paying subscribers and again additional advertisement.

These two forces collaborate in their weapon and war promoting efforts which in the best case result in the plundering of the common people. In the worst case the end result is the slaughter of many innocent humans for no sensible cause or reason.

Here is a recent example by the well known warmongers David E. Sanger and William J. Broad of the New York Times:

China’s Weapon Test Close to a ‘Sputnik Moment,’ U.S. General Says

A Chinese test of a hypersonic missile designed to evade American nuclear defenses was “very close” to a “Sputnik moment” for the United States, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Wednesday, the first official confirmation of how Beijing’s demonstration of its capabilities took American officials by surprise.

The authors, as well as Milley, are of course wrong.

U.S. ground based missile defenses (GBMD) designed to defend against intercontinental missiles currently exists of 44 missiles housed in silos in Alaska and California. These missiles have tested badly and most often missed their targets. China has more than 44 intercontinental missiles. These have multiple warheads. As long as the number of China launchable warheads is bigger than the number of missiles designed to defend against them some will always evade U.S. nuclear defenses. China thereby does not need any new weapons to evade U.S. nuclear defenses. GBMD is just a boondoggle - useless but for the profits of the weapon industry.

There is also this curious contradiction:

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis @ArmsControlWonk - 14:00 UTC · Oct 27, 2021

US: The missile defense system is designed to deal with threats from North Korea and Iran.
China: But you just said you were very concerned with our ability to defeat those defenses.
US: ...

The 'Sputnik moment' in 1957 was the first launch of a Soviet satellite into an orbit around our planet. The capability to launch something into an orbit was new. Its relevance was that things that one can launch into an orbit can also come back down at any place of this planet the launching crew desires to hit. The Sputnik launch thus demonstrated the Soviet capability to launch intercontinental nuclear missiles. A capability the U.S. lacked at that time and had not expected the Soviets to have.

The recent test China did not show anything new. It demonstrated a glider vehicle that - coming down from space at high speed - can maneuver to land in a defined place. That is something the U.S. Space Shuttle demonstrated decades ago. China has already publicly shown weapons which use these elements.

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The relatively low trajectory China has used for its recent test was likewise nothing new. The Soviets had used such trajectories for their Fractional Orbital Bombardment System back in the 1960s. We do not know if China has something similar in mind but experts find that unlikely. The recent test was carried out in the way it was because it was the most practical one.

So while the Sputnik launch in 1957 was indeed a surprise the recent Chinese test was nothing like that at all. China did not show any previously unknown capabilities. Moreover - the U.S. already knew that China was working on these system. They are no surprise at all.

The NYT even confirms that:

Two separate tests took place this summer, conducted in a fashion that Chinese officials knew would be highly visible to American satellites. But the United States said nothing about it.

If the Pentagon already knew of the Chinese tests why did it start now to warmonger about these by leaking 'scary' information about the most recent one?

As usual with NYT pieces on has to go to the last paragraph, which the least people will read, to find the real reasoning behind a story.

The Sputnik moment, the authors write:

.. spurred the nuclear arms race of the 20th century, which was only tamped down in the past 30 years, after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Now, the arms race is threatening to revive. The United States has an active hypersonic program of its own, as do Russia and, among others, North Korea. But the U.S. program has run into its own technical difficulties, and the Chinese test — which appears to have not been completely successful, either — may well form the basis of a new arms race, at the very moment that President Biden has been looking for ways to avoid a proposed trillion-dollar modernization of the American nuclear forces and delivery systems.

Okay. Now we get it. Biden may wants to cut into the Pentagon plans to spend a trillion dollar on a completely unnecessary program to 'modernize' useless weapons that are already able to fulfill their pretended purpose.

Gen. Milley, as well as Sanger and Broad, are on a mission to prevent that. They do want an arms race. But unfortunately for them that race will be a lonely endeavor. China will not engage in it.

Hu Xijin 胡锡进 @HuXijin_GT - 16:10 UTC · Oct 27, 2021

China won’t engage in a nuclear arms race with the US. We think it’s stupid. I know that the US can destroy China 10 times, but we will MAKE SURE we have full capability to destroy the US once.

Some countries behave responsibly by not wasting their people's resources on unnecessary weapons. Others allow their generals, scribes and weapon makers to fleece the public. Which countries will in the end be the richer ones?

Posted by b on October 27, 2021 at 18:04 UTC | Permalink

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