Don't Make NATO into an Instrument of Containing China | Opinion

[Boats]

Don't Make NATO into an Instrument of Containing China | Opinion
By: Jan Gerber - Newsweek News - 11-06-21 (Research Assoc. & Defense Priorities)
Re: https://www.newsweek.com/dont-make-n...pinion-1645720

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the rise of China makes the transatlantic military alliance even more relevant to the United States. "It's good to have friends," he said––the more the merrier. But transforming NATO into an instrument of containing China is a quick way for the United States to turn its European allies into a liability.

The NATO chief's recent statements are only the latest in his two-pronged campaign to bring the transatlantic military alliance on the same page on the question of China. In one respect, he is attempting to convince Washington its NATO allies can still be an asset to the United States far away from the European continent. Simultaneously, Stoltenberg has the unenviable task of convincing all 27 European Union NATO members, with divergent geopolitical environments and security priorities, that they should view China as a "systemic challenge."

Europeans have come a long way in adopting a more confrontational stance against China in step with the United States, stopping short of labeling China an "adversary" at the NATO Summit in June. France, the United Kingdom and Germany have all sent warships to the South China Sea this year, effectively contesting China's territorial claim to the world's busiest waterway without explicitly challenging it. As the United States increasingly sees its biggest security challenge in China, European allies seem to be taking note and aligning themselves even more closely with the United States.

However, this growing European willingness to confront China on its doorstep rather than from the seat of the European Parliament in Brussels has less to do with a perceived military threat China poses to Europe and more with the concern about losing the United States' security guarantee.

To be sure, China poses a set of challenges to European countries, including its unfair trade practices and acquisitions of vital infrastructure in Europe from telecommunications to national ports. But unlike the threat of conventional conflict with Russia or even the Kremlin's weaponization of natural gas for political blackmail, China poses no direct security threats to the continent, military or otherwise. Russia's proximity to NATO countries, coupled with its record of coercing weaker neighbors, have prodded military spending increases in NATO in much the same way that Chinese aggression has provoked balancing behavior among regional powers such as Japan and South Korea.

Despite Stoltenberg's claims that "China is coming closer to us" and the two isolated incidents of the Chinese navy wading into the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas in 2015 and 2017, respectively, China does not have designs for continental Europe nor the power projection capabilities to enforce them. Accordingly, neither European leaders nor the public think that China is a critical issue for the transatlantic alliance.

On the other hand, how the United States reacts to the rise of China has unambiguous security consequences for the European continent. All the evidence from the last three administrations in Washington has European leaders worried––correctly––about the future of the United States' commitment to their defense. The "pivot to Asia" first announced under the Obama administration was perhaps the only point of continuity in transatlantic relations during the bumptious years of the Trump administration. Former President Donald Trump even went so far as to threaten suspending intelligence cooperation with United Kingdom over the presence of Chinese telecoms equipment in the country's 5G network and to formally announce the redeployment of 10,000 troops from Germany to the Indo-Pacific to contain China.

President Joe Biden remains laser focused on China, proclaiming at the high-level Munich security conference that the geopolitical competition in the Pacific will be "among the most consequential efforts" that the United States and its European allies will jointly undertake. Even after cutting France out of its submarine deal with Australia and thus undermining a key pillar of the French position in the Indo-Pacific, President Biden met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Rome and in a statement congratulated France on upholding the "rules-based international order" with its growing naval presence in the region.

As the European commitment to containing China is not driven by hard security interests—other than keeping the United States anchored in Europe—it is unlikely to change China's calculus, let alone the outcome of a kinetic confrontation over Taiwan. But it can still do real damage to the transatlantic alliance.

Rotating a few frigates through the Indo-Pacific is a low-cost, token contribution that Europeans can make to propitiate the United States while postponing the necessary sacrifices to provide more fully for their own defense.

Whether it remains committed to a position of global military supremacy or not, some form of security competition with China is bound to dominate the United States' agenda in the foreseeable future. Instead of passively waiting for a crisis in the Pacific to draw in the United States and leave Europe defenseless against an act of opportunistic aggression from its Russian neighbor, NATO should move toward a geopolitical division of labor where the European powers develop autonomous military capabilities. Of course, Europeans have themselves to blame for courting the United States' security guarantee instead of making difficult adjustments to the changing security architecture. The United States should be careful not to lull its European allies into taking symbolic action against China while mistakenly trusting that Washington will always be there to deliver them from danger.
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Personal note: I sense some knock-knee's from NATO regarding an all out nuclear exchange.
And so it should be. What makes them think they will only hit the US? If you're going onload
your nukes I'm sure they have enough to go around picking off NATO sites as well.

China should know better once they launch - there's not a chance in hell - of the US
falling. Some impacts maybe - but China has to realize warring doesn't make you a
winner - its destroys much more than that. You may sit in your bunker's - but you
will have to come out sometime - and by then your country & its people will be
suffering from airborne pollutions & radiation. As will ours & NATO.
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I can't understand why Nukes are still part of the playbook when the damage
done by them will only kill most folks - on both sides - hence there are no winners
only death and destruction. Followed by deadly radiation & starvation world wide.
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Have you forgotten the designation M.A.D (Mutual Assured Destruction) it's
been around awhile - and there are no winners - by launching these God
awful things;

Penalties:
a. you've pissed away your Power & Position -
b. your Country suffer's from your actions -
as well as your People - and for what?
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Because you could! That's a pretty sorry statement for someone who must face
the responsibility's - for it's People - who will now suffer starvation and radiation
sickness throughout your the lands - and all around the world.
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Yes "You so called World Leaders" know this - and that's why the word used today
is "deterrence" and it must be considered - at all cost. Or we all loose! Everywhere!

[Boats]

New Pentagon report hypes 'Chinese nuclear threat' to serve US hegemonic goals
Nuclear defense force growth needed to deter US threat: experts
By: Liu Xuanzun and Guo Yuandan - Published: Nov 04, 2021 11:42 PM
Re: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202111/1238200.shtml

The US Defense Department on Wednesday released its annual report on China's military development, which again hyped the "China threat theory," and discussed China's nuclear arsenal, claiming that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is expanding its nuclear force much faster than the US had predicted, and that it may have 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of the decade and surpass US global influence by the middle of the 21st century.

Serving the US' own hegemonic goals, the Pentagon's speculative report aims to contain China's rightful national defense development at a time when the US is showing huge strategic malice against China by dragging it to unfair arms talks, and creates excuses to further strengthen its nuclear capability, Chinese experts said on Thursday.

Unlike the US, China will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons on anyone as long as it is not attacked by a nuclear weapon first, experts said.

Titled "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2021," the annual Pentagon report to the US Congress claims that the number of Chinese nuclear warheads could rise to 700 within six years, and may top 1,000 by 2030, AP reported on Wednesday.

China may already have established what is known as a nuclear triad — the combination of land-, sea-, and air-based missiles — by adding an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM), AP cited the report as saying.

The report also asserted that China has begun constructing at least three new missile fields that "cumulatively contain hundreds" of underground silos from which intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) could be launched, AP reported.

In response to the Pentagon report, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a regular press conference on Thursday that the report disregards the facts and is prejudiced.

The US is the biggest nuclear threat in the world, as it owns 5,550 nuclear warheads as of early 2021, Wang said, citing data from international think tanks.

While the US possesses the world's largest, most advanced nuclear arsenal, it is still investing trillions of dollars to upgrade its "nuclear triad," developing low-yield nuclear weapons and lowering the threshold of using nukes, Wang said.

The US left arms control legal instruments like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, continued to deploy antiballistic missile systems around the world, resumed land-based intermediate-range missile development and tests, and sought to deploy them in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, Wang said, noting that the US is also creating a small clique with strong Cold War undertones through the AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation.

These moves seriously harm global strategic stability, and damage international peace and security, Wang said, urging the US to shoulder its special and primary responsibility in nuclear disarmament by further cutting its nuclear arsenal in a verifiable, irreversible and legally binding way to safeguard global strategic balance and stability, Wang said.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Thursday that the Pentagon report's hype of the Chinese "nuclear threat" aims to drag China into a disarmament negotiation on the premise of a nuclear arms race, and give the US sufficient reason to further expand its strategic nuclear force by winning more funding.

While China has never disclosed the size of its nuclear arsenal, the Pentagon said a year ago that the number was in the "low 200s," AP reported. Even bolder guesses from some international think tanks estimate the figure to be at somewhere around 300.

As for nuclear warhead delivery platforms, the AP report admitted that the US and Russia have had the nuclear triad for decades.

The US military operates silo-based Minuteman-III IBCMs, Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines equipped with trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), and nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers capable of air defense penetration.

The US is also upgrading its nuclear arsenal with upgrades to the Minuteman-III ICBM, replacing the Ohio-class submarines with the next-generation Columbia class, and developing the new B-21 stealth bomber. It is also planning to equip F-35 stealth fighter jets with B61-12 tactical nukes, which analysts said could significantly lower the threshold of using nuclear weapons in actual combat.

China's nuclear weapons are way behind the US in terms of quality and quantity, Song pointed out. "The number of Chinese nuclear warheads is only very small compared to the US', and China's means to deliver them are also very limited."

China is not in a position to engage in strategic arms talks with the US, Song said.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday that the US had been in a global leading position in military strength for a long time, and insists on leading others by a wide margin, and China's military development has touched the US elites' nerves on this aspect.

The Pentagon is hyping China's rapid military technological development so it can get more funds, and is attempting to ally the West to strategically compete with China, Li said.

The US is also aggressively building up its antiballistic missile system, which aims not to defend, but to surround its opponents to weaken their nuclear deterrence, Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times on Thursday.

China has not revealed the size of its nuclear arsenal, and the figures the US report released are speculative or even fabricated to serve its goals, as the US cannot get such sensitive data, Wei said.

Prior to the release of the Pentagon report, the US Strategic Command launched the Global Thunder 22 annual training focused on joint operations and nuclear readiness on Monday in a move to test and improve its combat capabilities against China, UPI reported on Monday.

The exercise involves increased bomber flights, missile training and nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine preparedness, to ascertain the reliability and resilience of the nuclear triad, the US Strategic Command said in a statement.

As China grows and faces strategic competition, including nuclear threats from the US, China has the right and need to strengthen its national defense, including nuclear deterrence capabilities, Chinese analysts said.

China needs to moderately expand its nuclear forces and nuclear arsenal, including the number of warheads and means of delivery, to safeguard its national security, Song said.

Real capabilities

In response to the West's frequent accusation of China's lack of transparency in its nuclear arsenal, the PLA has been displaying its latest achievements in this aspect on a regular basis outside of the number of warheads.

At the National Day military parade in Beijing on October 1, 2019, the PLA displayed the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads; the JL-2 SLBM, which is believed to arm the Type 09IV nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine; the DF-31AG road-mobile ICBM, the DF-5B silo-based ICBM, and the country's latest road-mobile ICBM, the DF-41.

The H-6N strategic bomber that appeared at the military parade is believed to be capable of carrying ALBMs, but the PLA has not confirmed this.

Media outlets have also been speculating that China could be developing nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, a new nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine with more lethal SLBMs, and the H-20 stealth strategic bomber.

Despite the PLA's nuclear capabilities, China's nuclear forces will not threaten anyone, because China's purpose is different from that of the US, experts said.

China always adheres to nuclear strategic defense, has proposed the final, complete ban and thorough disposal of nuclear weapons, and has been limiting the scale of its nuclear power to the minimum level required for national security, Wang said.

China will never use a nuclear weapon first under any situation, and has promised not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons on nuclear-free countries and regions, Wang stressed.

"As long as China is not attacked by a nuclear weapon first, no country will be threatened by China's nuclear weapons," Wang said.

China implements a limited nuclear deterrence strategy of nuclear counterattack, and China does not seek a nuclear arms race with the US, Song said.

The US uses nukes to protect its global hegemony, and China uses them to safeguard its national security, Song said. "The purpose and goal of the two countries are completely different."

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In closing China States that: Unlike the US, China will not use, or threaten to
use, nuclear weapons on anyone - as long as it is not attacked - by a nuclear
weapon first, experts said.
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I'm sure the US is on the same page - whomever launches the first nuke can
anticipate a hasty comeback of equal or better as a reply.