China's Challenge: As tensions elevate on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang's patron deploys a weapon designed to sink the very ships we are sending to protect an ally. This does not bode well.
The prospects that the Korean War, which ended in only an interminable armistice, may resume has become an increasingly real possibility in recent months.
That its patron, China, without which North Korea would collapse of its own rot, now has deployed a missile designed to target and sink U.S. carrier battle groups adds a new and disturbing element to any confrontation in the region.
Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, told the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun last Sunday that China's touted "carrier-killer," an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) designated the Dong Feng-21D, had reached "initial operational capability."
This version of China's land-based mobile medium-range missile is off the drawing boards and in the field.
"Beijing has successfully developed, tested, and deployed the world's first weapons system capable of targeting a moving carrier strike group from long-range, land-based, mobile launchers," confirms Andrew Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College.
Erickson says that at least one unit of China's Second Artillery Corps is equipped with the DF-21D.
Defense analysts have called the weapon a "game-changer," as have we — one that could force U.S. carrier battle groups to keep their distance and stay away from areas of Chinese interest or territorial claims, such as Taiwan or Japan's Shenkaku islands, both of which Beijing claims are Chinese territory.
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U.S. commander says China aims to be a 'global military' power
Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said he believes that China aspires to become a "global military (power)" by extending its influence beyond its regional waters.
"In the capabilities that we're seeing develop, that is fairly obvious," Willard told The Asahi Shimbun in a recent exclusive interview in Hawaii.
"They are focused presently on what they term their 'near seas'--the Bohai, Yellow Sea, South China Sea, East China Sea," he said. "(But) I think they have an interest in being able to influence beyond that point."
Willard also said he believes that China's anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) system, known as "aircraft carrier killer," has achieved initial operational capability (IOC), even though "it will continue to undergo testing ・for several more years."
The full text of the interview follows...
All of which is troubling news in light of:
The Dear Leader Calls for Holy War
Christmas or no Christmas, the Korean Peninsula is boiling once again, with threats flying thicker than the winter snow along North Korea's icy Yalu River.
Last week, North Korea threatened a nuclear "holy war" against South Korea. The North Korean "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-il, has repeatedly vowed to "liberate" South Korea, which he calls an American colony.
Korean tempers are as hot as their beloved national pickled cabbage dish, kimchi.
In South Korea, there is open talk of "liberating" the North.
While a majority of South Koreans favor negotiations and patience in dealing with their difficult northern brothers, many conservatives in South Korea, and particularly so Evangelical Christians, advocate military action against the North.
Military forces in both Koreas, China's northeast, Japan, and Russia's Far East are on high alert. So are US forces in the region.
Chances still are against full-scale conflict because both sides have so much to lose. War would be a disaster for all 73 million Koreans. The last Korean War, in the 1950's, killed over two million Korean civilians and left the nation's cities in ruins. ...
North Korea 'ready for holy war' against South
North Korea warned on Thursday of a "holy war" using its nuclear deterrent, following the largest-ever military drills by the South earlier today.
"To counter the enemy's intentional drive to push the situation to the brink of war, our revolutionary forces are making preparations to begin a holy war at any moment necessary based on nuclear deterrent," the North's KCNA news agency quoted Minister of Armed Forces Kim Yong-chun as saying during a rally in Pyongyang.
The South's largest show of force yet, the drills involved hundreds of military personnel and more than 100 types of weapons, including tanks, anti-tank missiles, helicopters and fighter jets.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has vowed a "merciless counterattack" to any further Northern attack.
The South also continued its three-day naval live-fire exercises some 100 km south of the disputed maritime border with North Korea.
The North earlier described South Korean exercises as "warmongering."
Tensions remain high, a month after Pyongyang shelled the South's Yeonpyeong Island on November 23, killing four people.
MOSCOW, December 23 (RIA Novosti)
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