Carriers in the West Pacific.

Strategy Page has several informative articles on Chinese naval power, and the implications are signifcant.


Shi Lang Headed For Service

April 29, 2011: All indicators are that the new Chinese aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang (formerly Varyag) will go to sea before the end of the year, after nearly nine years of reconstruction and upgrades. Defensive weapons, and more electronics, are being installed now, and major internal work appears to have been completed. snip The Shi Lang/Varyag is one of the Kuznetsov class carriers that Russia began building in the 1980s. - snip - The 323 meter (thousand foot) long ship normally carries a dozen navalized Su-27s (called Su-33s), 14 Ka-27PL anti-submarine helicopters, two electronic warfare helicopters and two search and rescue helicopters. But the ship was meant to regularly carry 36 Su-33s and sixteen helicopters. The ship carries 2,500 tons of aviation fuel, allowing it to generate 500-1,000 aircraft and helicopter sorties. Crew size is 2,500 (or 3,000 with a full aircraft load.) Only two ships of this class exist; the original Kuznetsov, which is in Russian service, and the Varyag.

While this carrier is not of the same class as the American Attack Carriers it will outclass every other navy in the West Pacific, and with first class aircraft could give the US Navy a good fight, especially a task force that was not covered by carriers or land based aircraft. It is certainly a sign of a navy that is growing in from costal defense force to contesting for Admiral Mahan’s control of the seas.

Of course Aircraft Carriers need aircraft.


Chinese Carrier Fighter Shows Its Colors

April 28, 2011: New photos of the Chinese naval fighter, the navalized version of the J-11 (an illegal clone of the Russian Su-27), have appeared. This one is painted in Chinese Navy colors, and appears to be equipped with Chinese made electronics. This all grew out of China obtaining one of the Russian navalized Su-27s (the Su-33) from Ukraine, and taking tech (like the folding wings and beefed up landing gear) from it to navalize their 30 ton J-11 as the J-11BH (formerly the J-15). - snip - The Shi Lang is expected to serve as a training carrier, to prepare naval aviators for service on the two new carriers under construction.

Depending on electronics this is probally not be in the same league as the Navy’s current F-18 and definitely not up to the F-22/F-35 class, but shows that in the relatively near future the Chinese will be building top class military aircraft. The F-22 and F-35 are now the goal for designers to meet and beat, in time the Chinese will have planes that can outdo even the F-18 and compete with the F-22/F-35.


The Second Artillery Corps Versus the USN

April 27, 2011: The Chinese Second Artillery Corps, spread over several provinces, has been expanding over the last few years. This includes adding two brigades apparently armed with the long rumored Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile, the DF-21D. This gives the Second Artillery Corps ten DF-21 brigades, plus brigades with several other types of missiles. snip The DF-21D is mainly intended for use against the USN (U.S. Navy), particularly the aircraft carriers. - snip - While the 500-2,000 kg (.5-2 ton) warhead usually contains a nuclear weapon, it is believed that China also has a conventional warhead. - snip - For example, two years ago, China launched another "remote sensing" satellite, joining two others in a similar orbit. These three birds are moving in formation, at an altitude of 600 kilometers, across the Pacific. Equipped with either radar (SAR, or synthetic aperture radar) or digital cameras, these three birds can scan the ocean for ships, even though the Chinese say their purpose is purely scientific. A typical SAR can produce photo quality images at different resolutions. At medium resolution (3 meters) the radar covers an area 40x40 kilometers. Low resolution (20 meters) covers 100x100 kilometers. This three satellite Chinese posse looks suspiciously like a military ocean surveillance system. This is the missing link for the rumored Chinese ballistic missile system for attacking American aircraft carriers.

Since the end of WWII, coast artillery has not been a concern of the US defense planning, after all there was no navy or combination of navies that could get past the US fleet. In the old communist block that was not the case, defending against the US Navy was a serious problem. The anti-shipping missile that is pretty much ubiquitous now, was first a Russian coast defense weapon. Working with Chinese Navy this modern Coast Artillry could force the US Navy to stand off a good distance from the Chinese coast hampering any effort to support the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, or Japan.


Analysis

Whe viewing Chinese defense efforts we should not take a solely Amercentic view point. Look at the problem for the Chinese view.

- For decades the Chinese military was hobbled by political direction that was time locked in Mao’s long march. In the last twenty to thirty years China has made a number of improvements that could be described simply as building a self-respecting 21st century force.

- Every country on it’s border is potentially hostile, or a buffer between it and a potentially hostile country. This creates a requirment for a defense force of healthy quality and size.

- With the expansion of it’s industry it is importing a massive amount of oil from the Middle East. The protection of the vital shipping route seems to be a focus of Chinese naval policy. In addition to passing near poteintialy unstable or hostile countries in South East Asia it must cross the Indian Lake Ocean. The Indian Navy is making similar upgrades and is an equivalent force - it is also one of the potentially hostile countries that borders China.

Of course, even though weapons developed for one purpose does not mean they can’t be used for another, the military situation in the Western Pacific is changing.


While much of the US defense and intelligence diplomatic interest thought and planning is bogged down in the sands of the Middle East and worried about new and improved counter insurgency warfare, this appears to be “preparing for the last war.” There are more serious problems that can not be forgotten about.


The days when when the High seas were an Amercan Lake are vanishing. A lot of people in Washington in both parties need to wake up.


See also:

How Not to Fix the Military
Book Review: Echof Battle

Explaining the Crisis.

What’s so difficult to understand?

People deposit money in banks in checking accounts (sometimes called demand accounts because they can demand it at any time) saving accounts and certificates of deposit which are payable in 30 days to 3 years though, most people expect to be paid on demand.

The bank then loans the money in a thirty year mortgages. The bank can’t demand it’s money as long as the scheduled mortgage payments are paid.

There is a recession the depositors demand their money to pay the mortgage, gas, or groceries. The bank can’t repay because the money is in thirty year mortgages.

The bank goes bankrupt and every one who does business with the bank loses. The original depositor/mortgage holder loses his savings and home.

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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created to deal with this problem. They borrow money on the bond market and buy mortgages from the banks pushing the problem back a level.

But because of the collapse of the housing market no one wants to but these bonds because the value of the houses backing the mortgages is less than the face value of the bond.

So the whole housing market crashes and even more people lose.

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So, as the economic back up last resort it was proposed - that the government buy the problem mortgages, giving the banks the money to pay their depositors and rescuing the system.


Then in a display on non-partisan idiocy the yoyo brains in the House of (non) Representatives vote this down. And even still more people will lose.



That’s it with about twenty levels complexity ignored. This was high school economics when I was in high school, not the college prep economics, the consumer economics for dummies that every one took.

Is there any question why the Congress had a lower approval rating than George Bush before this started?

The Least of These

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, who’s biblical scholarship this blog has previously noted, was a guest on Tom Brokow’s Meet the Press last weekend and presented her understanding of Catholic teaching on abortion. It seems to be lacking in factual veracity.

MR. BROKAW: Senator Obama saying the question of when life begins is above his pay grade, whether you’re looking at it scientifically or theologically. If he were to come to you and say, “Help me out here, Madame Speaker. When does life begin?” what would you tell him?

REP. PELOSI: I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And Senator–St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose. Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of when the child–first trimester, certain considerations; second trimester; not so third trimester. There’s very clear distinctions. This isn’t about abortion on demand, it’s about a careful, careful consideration of all factors and–to–that a woman has to make with her doctor and her god. And so I don’t think anybody can tell you when life begins, human life begins. As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this, and there are those who’ve decided…

MR. BROKAW: The Catholic Church at the moment feels very strongly that it…

REP. PELOSI: I understand that.

MR. BROKAW: …begins at the point of conception.

REP. PELOSI: I understand. And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy. But it is, it is also true that God has given us, each of us, a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And we want abortions to be safe, rare, and reduce the number of abortions.

While I would not comment on her claim to be an ardent practicing Catholic which is between her and God, I really wonder what she, or her research assistant, has been studying for a long time. The Church has always called abortion an evil which is never permissible. This is true no matter what the viewpoints were of individuals over time on secondary issues.


Non-Catholic Irenaeus at Catholidoxy looks at the historical record and fisks the accuracy of Speaker Pelosi’s statement several times over:

That the doctors of the church have not been able to decide when life begins. But if she’d really studied the issue (as she expressly claims), she would know that no doctor of the church in particular and no orthodox father of the church has ever said abortion is OK, as we’ll see at great length. It’s true that some doctors and fathers and theologians of the Church raised the question of “ensoulment,” asking when an unborn baby receives a soul, and given different answers. But in Christian (as opposed to Gnostic) tradition, humans are not only souls but also bodies. And thus no Father ever, ever used the idea of later ensoulment (often borrowed from Aristotle) to excuse or permit abortion. Contrary to what Pelosi expressly says, Augustine never ever said life begins at three months In Christian tradition, until the 1960s, life was thought to begin at conception, regardless of the details certain thinkers put forth about speculative embryonic anthropology..

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Amy Welborn of Charollote is Both hits the issue at it’s heart.

Over and over we are told - by bishops themselves - that their primary role in contentious situations like this is to teach.

So..TEACH.

Here you have a very prominent American Catholic, going on the record with her purported studiousness on this issue, authoritatively declaring something false about the teaching of the Catholic Church.

This is what we call a teachable moment. Monday morning, the USCCB should have a press release, accompanied by a real human being - preferably a bishop - maybe even a Colorado bishop, given the location and the proximity of the press - giving a short, succinct correction of Pelosi’s statement. It wouldn’t take long. Do it right in front of where the convention is meeting.

No 501(c)(3) worries. No threats of endorsement or condemnation. Just…

Teach.

Do it over and over and over - do not let this moments pass by and the deceptions continue to rule.

Her advice is especially important because as Father John Richard Neuhaus pointed out a few years ago:

. . .when the Democrats had unequivocally become the abortion party and the Republicans unmistakably the pro-life party, it was obvious that liberal Catholics, including most bishops, had chosen, whether they knew it or not, party over principle. Under the tutelage of Cardinal Bernardin and others, consciences had been sedated, and the bishops turned their energies to writing pastoral letters on "peace and justice" issues such as disarmament and economic equality. For which they received the enthusiastic plaudits of the media. Largely because they were not talking about abortion.


But several Bishops have started have started to speak out this time.

Cardinal Egan of New York

We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers. No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb. In simplest terms, they are human beings with an inalienable right to live, a right that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is bound to defend at all costs for the most basic of ethical reasons. They are not parts of their mothers, and what they are depends not at all upon the opinions of theologians of any faith. Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being “chooses” to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name.

Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Lori for National Catholic Conference

The Church has always taught that human life deserves respect from its very beginning and that procured abortion is a grave moral evil. In the Middle Ages, uninformed and inadequate theories about embryology led some theologians to speculate that specifically human life capable of receiving an immortal soul may not exist until a few weeks into pregnancy. While in canon law these theories led to a distinction in penalties between very early and later abortions, the Church’s moral teaching never justified or permitted abortion at any stage of development.
These mistaken biological theories became obsolete over 150 years ago when scientists discovered that a new human individual comes into being from the union of sperm and egg at fertilization. In keeping with this modern understanding, the Church has long taught that from the time of conception (fertilization), each member of the human species must be given the full respect due to a human person, beginning with respect for the fundamental right to life.


Archbishop Wuerl of Washington D.C.

. . .We respect the right of elected officials such as Speaker Pelosi to address matters of public policy that are before them, but the interpretation of Catholic faith has rightfully been entrusted to the Catholic bishops. Given this responsibility to teach, it is important to make this correction for the record.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear: the current teaching of the Catholic Church on human life and abortion is the same teaching as it was 2,000 years ago. The Catechism reads:
“Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception…Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” (Catechism, 2270-2271)
The Catechism goes on to quote the Didache, a treatise that dates to the first century: “’You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.’”
From the beginning, the Catholic Church has respected the dignity of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death.

Archbishop Chaput of Denver in a letter wih the delightful title of On the Separation of Sense and State

Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the “separation of Church and state.” But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a “political” issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.

. . .

Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue “for a long time,” she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery’s “Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective” (Loyola, 1977). Here’s how Connery concludes his study:

“The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude. … The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion.”

Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”

. . .

The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the “separation of Church and state” does not imply a separation of faith from political life.

But of course, it’s always important to know what our faith actually teaches.

And many more bishops and laity are joining the chorus.


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Perhaps in closing we should listen to the words of Jesus:

. . .I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. 'Matt 25:42-45

I ask:

If the unborn child

even a child at the one cell stage of development,

is not the “least of these”

JUST WHO IS?




See Also:
Cause Not Harm
Criss Cross Democrats and Republicans and Abortion
And my:
Social Justice topic

Katrina - Calling for Heads on a Platter

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Well it has started. Katrina’s level IV winds (actually approaching level V) smashed into the Gulf Coast with hurricane defenses designed for level III storms. So before all the survivors are rescued and the damage assessed people are demanding the heads of those supposedly responsible (that is the heads of their usual opponents) be delivered on a platter.

Actually, while there was more damage than usual because of the stronger than normal hurricane, the relief actions came on rather quickly, except for New Orleans after the levee broke. The flood caused by the levees knocked out major transportation arteries into New Orleans, damaged the emergency communication systems, and destroyed pre-stocked supplies and equipment that the relief agencies would use to recover. It took three or so days to do what would have been done in hours.

Depending on affiliation, there are those who are calling for the heads at the federal level currently controlled by the Republicans, or heads at the state and city levels currently controlled by the Democrats. And who knows maybe some of them did do something malfeasant, but should we call for heads before we really know what failed and why?

New Orleans’ levees were built over the last hundred and fifty or so years. Of course the biggest problem is that the levees were built to withstand a level III storm. Every year at least one level III hurricane hits the US coast. It is easy to convince people that spending money on a threat that happens someplace every year. But level IV and V hurricanes are much more infrequent. My engineer friends point out a rule of thumb that protecting the last 10% of any thing costs at least as much as the first 90%. So when you explain the cost of upgrading the hurricane defenses to level IV, you are talking about an extremely expensive project. In any given city on the coast the probability of a level VI hurricane in the life time of the current inhabitants is minimal. It will happen someplace but it is easy rationalize away the chance that it will happen here. Not that any one is really against upgrading per se, there are just so many other good projects competing for limited funds. Politicians of all stripes prefer projects with a visible payout to their constituencies in a time frame where the voters will connect the benefits with the politician. The price tag, waiting for many years in Congress to fund, to develop the plan to upgrade the New Orleans levees to level IV is eight billion dollars. Every one will have projects that produce more immediate and visible results, so it wasn’t funded.


There certainly needs to be a major review of what happened, what went wrong, and what to do about it. It is possible that it will turn out that current leaders actually did do something malfeasant, but we should wait until the evidence is in. But we should not call for heads of the current leadership to make us feel better, get some political advantage, or deflect ones own responsibilities. The real cause is that the practical consensus of the whole political system was that upgrading the levees would cost more than anyone was willing to spend.

So get the platters and bring on the heads.

Or better yet note the politicians, of both parties, who are calling for heads and on election day hand them their own heads.

/Rantmode=OFF