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China has once again tested its mid-course missile interception capability, increasing the survivability of its land-based nuclear arsenal against nuclear threats from the US and India.
A mid-course interception offers the most extended time window for a successful intercept. At that stage of flight, an incoming missile is no longer powered and follows a predictable ballistic arc upon re-entry to the atmosphere, allowing multiple interceptor missiles to be fired.
The source notes that the Chinese MoD said the test took place in Chinese territory and was not aimed at any other country, although it did not say whether the target was struck, how many interceptor missiles were fired, and where they landed.
In that test, China may have used its HQ-19 missile interceptor, which the Arms Control Association notes is similar to the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), with the former system having a range of 1,000 to 3,000 kilometers, and designed for mid-course intercepts against intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).
This was not the first time China had tested its missile defenses. Last October, Asia Times reported China’s successful land-based mid-course interception test, with the Chinese MoD emphasizing that it was defensive and not aimed at any country.
Despite that innocuous statement, the test demonstrates the capabilities of China’s missile defenses against US intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and IRBMs in the Pacific.
The test may also align with China’s efforts to increase the survivability of its land-based nuclear arsenal, which may act as a “missile sponge” to draw incoming missiles away from populated areas and force an adversary to launch more missiles for a successful attack. Also, China’s land-based arsenal assures of it a first-strike capability, despite its long-standing “no first use” policy.
Given that, China’s October missile interception tests also align with its efforts to enhance the survivability of its nuclear arsenal, now more critical in the time of great-power competition with the US and rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Asia Times noted last month that China, possibly with Russia’s help, aims to enlarge its nuclear arsenal from 400 warheads now to 1,500 by 2035, with 700 warheads being enough for China to have secure second-strike capability, conduct limited theater strikes, and put it in a better position to brandish nuclear weapons coercively.
China’s efforts to enlarge its nuclear arsenal and improve its survivability may also be in response to US and Indian improvements to their nuclear deterrents.
This month, Asia Times reported on the US introduction of the Next Generation Re-entry Vehicle (NGRV), which features increased survivability, lethality, and accuracy. The NGRV also features a modular design and open architecture, allowing the incorporation of future warhead designs that feature increased accuracy and effectiveness against hardened targets such as land-based missile silos.
As with the NGRV, the LGM-35A Sentinel features a modular design and open architecture, allowing for the easy replacement of aging and obsolete components and integrating new safety measures, guidance systems, and missile penetration aids.
Most tellingly, the LGM-35A Sentinel features improved throw weight compared with the LGM-30G Minuteman III, allowing it to carry heavier payloads and increasing its mission flexibility. The LGM-35A Sentinel can carry up to three warheads or increased penetration aids.
China may be building its missile defenses against India apart from the US. Last August, Asia Times reported on India’s successful test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the INS Arihant nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN). Most likely, India used its Sagarika SLBM during the test, which has a relatively short range of 700km and can carry a 1-ton warhead.
That means India’s SSBN fleet has to maneuver close to enemy waters to launch its missiles, which exposes them to enemy attack and negates the logic of having an SSBN. Cognizant of the Sagarika’s short range, India tested the K-4 SLBM in 2020, which sports a 3,500km range in a possible effort to address the shortcomings of its sea-based nuclear deterrent.
In addition, India has already taken steps to establish a strategic rocket force amid renewed border tensions with China and possibly a failing deterrent posture. Last December, Asia Times reported that India had begun the construction of underground missile bases in its border states with China.
These bases are intended to keep India’s missile arsenal safe from pre-emptive attacks and allow it to mount a quick counterstrike. In addition, India might soon acquire up to 120 Pralay short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) with a range of 150-500km for use against Chinese troop concentrations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries.
However, India has a low rate of ballistic-missile production, still relying on the 1980s-vintage Prithvi SRBM as its main tactical ballistic missile. India has yet to fully adopt road-mobile ballistic missiles, with limited stocks of the Shaurya and Prahaar missiles.
While India has the supersonic Brahmos cruise missile, that weapon may be too expensive to be deployed in large numbers.
Given that, Hsiao-Huang Shu notes in a 2021 report for the Institute of National Defense and Security Research, a Taiwan-based think-tank, that China’s successful anti-ballistic-missile tests show that it is close to accomplishing its goals for its missile defense system, which aims to counter US deployments of medium-range weapons in the Pacific, and offsets the threat of an Indian nuclear strike.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an event marking Cosmonaut Day at the State Kremlin Palace, on April 12, 2023 in Moscow, Russia. Russian state TV guests discussed their plan for world domination after a nuclear war with the West as they discussed current global tensions due to the Ukraine war.GETTY
Russian state TV guests discussed a plan for world domination after nuclear war with the West during a debate on current global tensions due to the Ukraine war.
In recent months, the Russian military has struggled to make headway in its invasion of Ukraine and has tried to capture the Donbas city of Bakhmut ahead of an anticipated counterattack by Kyiv.
During a broadcast Solovyov argued it is the West that is preparing for a global nuclear war and insisted Russia should behave more aggressively.
Solovyov regularly calls for a more aggressive approach, bemoaning the West’s support of Ukraine in its conflict against Russia.
In a video, uploaded to the Russian Media Monitor YouTube account on Monday, the dean of Moscow State University’s School of Television, Vitaly Tretyakov, questioned what would happen after a nuclear war.
He said: “Of course we will win, this isn’t even up for discussion. What happens after our victory?
“Let’s say, we won in a nuclear war, a fast and limited one, we got them all, pew-pew.
“Do we have a platform, a plan of ruling the world? I don’t know, I haven’t heard about it.”
Solovyov joked that the plan on how to rule the world was written on a napkin and would be drawn up while individuals sat in a restaurant.
Tretyakov continued: “When Putin said that the next 10 years would be hard of course this doesn’t pertain only to war on the territory of the former Ukraine, which should be simply liquidated as a nation.
“The same way Hitler’s Nazi nation was liquidated, it was simply liquidated. Then it can be decided what to do with the lands and the people who used to serve this nation, but that is a separate topic.”
Solovyov added that Russia should now focus on training new European leaders that favor Russia.
He said Russia had not yet lost Africa or Latin America because they had people on these continents dealing with this now.
Many on the conservative side (aside from Never Trumpers who are against anything Trump is for, including their own prior policies) thought it would have been wiser to back out slowly, or at least to have waited first for the duplicitous Iranians to get caught in clear violations, or to coordinate a joint withdrawal with the Europeans.
Few of these critics ever quite understood that the deal was already a stinking corpse, long overdue for burial. Iranian cunning and the strategic thinking about the asymmetrical deal had always aimed at the following trajectory:
Ostensibly postpone a bomb now, at a time when the regime was facing growing unrest and near bankruptcy from sanctions — and thus was in no position anyway to build an arsenal of bombs and missiles
Keep occasionally cheating to ensure the apparatus for bomb-making was successfully hibernated — and therefore easily restarted at a future date.
Enjoy hundreds of billions of dollars in new commercial income over the next ten to 15 years to quiet domestic unrest, and to bank enough cash to go fully nuclear in the future.
Forge the so-called Shiite Crescent to the Mediterranean, by dominating Bashir al-Assad’s weak Syria, exploring anti-Sunni possibilities in Yemen, and bulking up Hezbollah’s Lebanon, while stocking a huge arsenal of preemptive missiles based near Israel. Hope that Iran’s regional strategic stature would only improve over the next decade.
Expect natural breakthroughs in technology to make future bomb-making easier and cheaper when the accord expired.
There is no wonder, then, why almost every news story about the Iran deal has confirmed the wisdom of getting out of it.
1) On the eve of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dramatic televised disclosures of captured Iranian documents more or less confirmed the obvious: Iran never had any intention of forgoing its nuclear-bomb-making efforts, as implied by prior politicized national-intelligence estimates. The only mystery was why Iran had carefully recorded evidence of its own deception. In eerie fashion, it was almost as if at some future date Iran had planned to add insult to injury by reminding its mugged partners just how gullible they had been. Or perhaps some Iranian diplomatic grandees feared that in revolutionary Tehran, any purported appeasers would have been tried for treason, so they needed documentary evidence that they had been patriotic cheaters all along.
2) To swing the deal, the Obama administration sent advisers around the banking world to facilitate Iranian efforts to convert their released embargoed funds into Great Satan currency — a warping of the American financial system that was ostensibly illegal at the time. In other words, the Obama administration for some strange reason more or less went beyond the requirements of the Iran deal and used the U.S. government to help undermine its own restrictions on facilitating Iranian commerce and banking — while keeping the entire sordid mess quiet as they hectored skeptics of the deal as naïve or conspiratorial. Such habitual Obama-administration deception and conniving may explain why former secretary of state John Kerry this May so publicly and nonchalantly met Iranian representatives overseas, apparently seeing nothing wrong in the attempt to undermine the very policies of his own president. Old habits die hard.
3) Recently, we’ve seen more of the same Iranian self-congratulation for their own powers of deception — this time relating to the September 11 attacks. After the cancellation of the Iran deal, Iran’s state-controlled television mysteriously released the Farsi-language confessionals of one Mohammad-Javad Larijani. He is a supposed “international-affairs assistant” who conceded that Iranian intelligence officers had intentionally given the 9/11 al-Qaeda murderers safe transit through the Islamic Republic before 9/11. The natural logic is that only thanks to Iran’s complicity did the World Trade Center implode. One wonders to what degree Larijani’s bizarre boast is true or the sick and spiteful baiting of a sore loser — or whether the Obama administration knew of such rumored Iranian 9/11 involvement in 9/11 at the time of the Iran deal. In any case, Iran made official what most knew from 1979 onward: It has been in a perpetual war with the United States, whom it fears and hates.
4) Given the Iranian sense of inferiority and its tic of goading its hated Great Satan rival, expect more such disclosures in the future, as Iran now tries to humiliate the U.S. for its prior stupidity as recompense for its inability to leverage our imbecility any further.
5) With a wink and nod, Iran also announced that its supposedly mothballed nuclear facility at Natanz will restart uranium enrichment with new centrifuges, but for now theoretically in accordance with the Iran deal. We are supposed to think that the trustworthy Iranians would not have done that, or would not have been capable of doing that, had Trump just kept up the nonproliferation charade. Or is it worse than that? Are they again hinting that they the deal was so bad and their proliferation efforts so easily jump-started, that they have always had only contempt for those so stupid to take them at their word?
As Trump saw, contradictions always doomed the agreement.
For all practical purposes, the U.S. after 2015 was a de facto partner of the Iranian regime and quite astonishingly assumed that the American-hating, anti-Semitic regime ‘could be a very successful regional power.’
The deal, after all, was a monstrosity born out of desperation for an Obama signature legacy. Or was it a product of an ahistorical, naïve, and therapeutic view of human nature — assuming that even theocrats and thugs view generosity as outreach to be reciprocated in kind rather than as abject proof of weakness to be exploited to the fullest? Or worse still, the deal was the manifestation of an unhinged view of the Middle East. For Obama, a revolutionary Shiite and Persian Iran was justified in seeking parity in the Middle East and attempting to carve out a legitimate sphere of influence. The ascendance of such an Iranian crescent, at least in the view of the Obama administration, would “check” the influence of both democratic Israel and the so-called more moderate authoritarian Sunni regimes in the Gulf and Egypt and Jordan. To believe in such a yarn, Obama would have to have believed either in some sort of dramatic and looming Iranian revolution to overthrow the mullahs, or an absurd theocratic enlightenment, or that whatever Iran did would not be as pernicious as what its enemies in the Middle East were doing. No matter: For all practical purposes, the U.S. after 2015 was a de facto partner of the Iranian regime and quite astonishingly assumed that the American-hating, anti-Semitic regime “could be a very successful regional power.”
Where do we go from here?
The cards are all still in U.S. hands.
Sanctions will increasingly strangle the regime, despite the protest of profit-hungry but otherwise largely disarmed and colluding European regimes.
Israel has a more or less free hand to conduct preemptive strikes against the Iranian arsenal in Syria and Lebanon that are posed to strike the Jewish state.
Any possible North Korea deal will probably curtail the transfer of Chinese and North Korean nuclear technology to the Iranian regime.
Trump is already triangulating with Russia, and one element of such art of the deal-making could be a quid pro quo flipping of Russia from Iran and expelling them from Syria.
Given strong U.S. economic news, radical increases in U.S. energy development, and determination to recalibrate missile defense, America will get stronger in the years ahead as Iran grows weaker.
For the next two-and-a-half years, Iran is stuck with Donald Trump. If it tries to hijack another U.S. boat or sends another missile near an American carrier, Trump and defense secretary James Mattis will not react the same way Barack Obama did. Rather, they are likely to take military steps to preclude the Iranian ability ever again to replicate the aggression — a fact known to Iran, to the delight of its enemies and to the worry of its few friends.
The Iran deal was born in deceit, sold through deception, and kept alive by willful blindness.
Finally, if Iran makes serious new efforts to nuclearize, Egypt and Saudi Arabia may match Iran bomb for bomb. Iran would be facing three unpredictable Middle Eastern nuclear powers, in a neighborhood full of existing nuclear, volatile nations: China, India, Pakistan, and Russia.
The Iran deal was born in deceit, sold through deception, and kept alive by willful blindness. The more we were told it could not be nullified, the more malodorous it became. Nothing since its death has proven it wise; everything has confirmed it really was, in the words of Trump, “a “disaster.”
A final note. The looming “Korean deal” should be approached by employing the very opposite methodology used in Obama’s Iran deal: Be prepared to walk away; assume North Korea will cheat; do not separate its terrorist behavior or ballistic missiles from its promises to denuclearize; and focus on its nuclear patrons, without which there could be no North Korean bomb; expect even a denuclearized North Korea to remain an enemy of the U.S; do not invest presidential stature in the mercurial whims of a thug.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of THE SECOND WORLD WARS: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. @vdhanson
Bobby WelberPublished: April 17, 2023Photo Credit: Canva Image
Did you feel it? Many New York State residents were shocked to wake up to an earthquake.
On Thursday around 1:30 p.m., an earthquake rattled parts of western Upstate New York.
Earthquake Felt Near Watertown, New York. Nearby Places Include Watertown, New York, Fort Drum, New York, and Albany, New York
USGS
The USGS confirmed the 2.6 magnitude earthquake rocked residents just outside Watertown, New York. The epicenter of the quake was felt about half-mile from Adams Center, New York.
USGS
As of this writing, over 70 people went to the USGS website to report they were woken up early Friday morning after the overnight earthquake. According to the USGS, nearby places include Watertown, New York, Fort Drum, New York, and Albany, New York.
USGS
The USGS reports the intensity was II-III or IV. The USGS classifies II-III intensity as “weak” shaking and IV intensity as “light” shaking.
USGS
USGS officials say nearby residents could feel aftershocks for days. “Expect aftershocks hours, days, or weeks after the main quake. Aftershocks can cause building damage and falling debris that could injure you,” the USGS states.
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What To Do After An Earthquake
Officials also say to avoid open flames in any damaged building, avoid lighting matches and drive carefully.
“Earthquakes can damage gas lines, so don’t use lighters or matches. If you live near the coast, stay away from the beach. Earthquakes can cause dangerous tsunamis and flooding. Drive carefully and plan alternative routes. Structural damage and traffic light outages may make it difficult to get to your destination,” the USGS states.
Just within fourth day of the Ukraine war, when Russian advance was slowed by unexpected resistance from the Ukrainian side, Vladimir Putin made first threat of escalation stating he would deploy tactical nuclear weapons if NATO became heavily involved in supporting Ukraine. During the past one-year, United States, its European allies and members of NATO – all of them are openly supporting and helping Ukraine, while US President Joe Biden is taking preparations of sending American foot soldiers to the Ukrainian battleground anytime soon. Britain is also taking similar preparations. Meanwhile, international media is becoming increasing favorable to Ukraine and hostile towards Vladimir Putin and Russia.
During the past one year, we have heard numerous rumors centering Vladimir Putin. We heard, he was suffering from terminal disease and was dying, while some of the Western media outlets said, Putin was ousted in a secret coup and placed under arrest. Others said, Vladimir Putin was continuing his activities from an underground facility at Kremlin. None of these claims or reports could be verified by any of the international media.
But we have a confirmed news here about Vladimir Putin. While Putin has already been isolated by the international media and almost all of the media outlets in the world are favorable to Ukraine, Putin’s own men – right inside his information and foreign ministries have already gone rogue and are working against the Russia’s interest. Most of them, especially the Russian missions in the foreign countries – are directly or indirectly insisting the foreign media – including those which have been either maintaining neutrality or been favorable to Russia – to shift their policy and abandon Vladimir Putin.
For sure, Vladimir Putin and those loyal to him are not at all aware of such dangerous scenario. They are totally unaware of those backstabbers in Russian missions in foreign countries. But the state machinery in Russia is gradually going against Vladimir Putin, and most possibly the Russian president is yet in total dark about this matter.
With such extreme adversity right inside Russia, how long Vladimir Putin really can continue the Ukraine war? Or, can he sustain once America and other European nations send their troops to fight against Moscow? In that case, shall Russian soldiers retreat from Ukraine the way Soviet troops left Afghanistan few decades ago?
The most recent announcement from Moscow said that Russian nuclear weapons will be forward-based in Belarus. These will mainly be nuclear-armed versions of the Iskander missile, which will be placed close to Belarus’s western border with NATO states. Russia will also train Belarusian pilots in flying planes capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Of itself this is not new. Nuclear weapons were based in Belarus during the Cold War, but in the current context the symbolism is clear enough: Putin is backing up his nuclear threats with more facts on the ground. Meanwhile, the United States is upgrading the nuclear storage facilities at Lakenheath, its main air base in the UK, meaning that tactical nuclear weapons can be based there again, after a 15-year lapse.
Question here is – who will first shoot the nuclear weapon. According to experts – it will be Russia, and Moscow in that case may shoot dozens of missiles fitted with nuclear warhead targeting a number of cities in the United States. Russian nuclear bombs are at least 500 times powerful than those atomic bombs dropped by Americans at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
Meaning, within minutes of Russia’s shooting nuclear weapons – America and a number of its European allies will be devastated.
Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr announced on Friday that he would suspend the movement he leads for one year, citing “corruption” among some of his followers.
A group within his Sadrist movement, which has dubbed itself the “Owners of the Cause,” believes that al-Sadr is Imam Mahdi, a Shiite religious leader said to have vanished more than 1,000 years ago and who is expected to return leading an army of the faithful to defeat evil in the world.
On Friday, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council announced that an investigative court had ordered the arrest of 65 alleged members of the “Owners of the Cause,” which it described as a disruptive “gang.”
In a statement posted on his Twitter account, al-Sadr said, “I want to be a reformer for Iraq, and I cannot reform the Sadrist movement.” He added that he will freeze all activities of the movement — except for religious activities such as Friday prayers.
Al-Sadr’s refusal to negotiate with his Iran-backed Shiite rivals and his subsequent exit from the talks catapulted the country into political uncertainty and volatility amid intensifying intra-Shiite wrangling.
After al-Sadr announced his resignation from politics, hundreds of his angry followers stormed the government palace and clashed with security forces. At least 15 protesters were killed.
Al-Sadr had won a mass base of followers, many of whom hail from Iraq’s poorest sectors of society, with nationalist rhetoric and promises of reform.
Many of his supporters were first followers of his father, a revered figure in Shiite Islam.
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