Wednesday, December 28, 2016

It’s been four decades since President Richard M. Nixon sent Henry A. Kissinger to Beijing to re-establish contact with China, an ancient civilization with which the United States, at that point, had had no high-level diplomatic contact for more than two decades. Since then the cold war has ended; the Soviet Union (a threat to both China and the United States and a spur to Sino-American cooperation) has come unwound; and economic reform in China has transformed a poverty-ridden, poorly educated nation into a great power that is playing an increasingly pivotal role in the globalized world.

Mr. Kissinger’s fascinating, shrewd and sometimes perverse new book, “On China,” not only addresses the central role he played in Nixon’s opening to China but also tries to show how the history of China, both ancient and more recent, has shaped its foreign policy and attitudes toward the West. While this volume is indebted to the pioneering scholarship of historians like Jonathan D. Spence, its portrait of China is informed by Mr. Kissinger’s intimate firsthand knowledge of several generations of Chinese leaders.

The book deftly traces the rhythms and patterns in Chinese history (its cycles of turning inward in isolationist defensiveness and outward to the broader world), even as it explicates the philosophical differences that separate it from the United States. Each country has a sense of manifest destiny, but “American exceptionalism is missionary,” Mr. Kissinger says. “It holds that the United States has an obligation to spread its values to every part of the world.”

China’s exceptionalism, in contrast, he says, is cultural: China does not proselytize or claim that its institutions “are relevant outside China,” yet it tends to grade “all other states as various levels of tributaries based on their approximation to Chinese cultural and political forms.”

Lurking beneath Mr. Kissinger’s musings on Chinese history is a not-so-subtle subtext. This volume, much like his 1994 book, “Diplomacy,” is also a sly attempt by a controversial figure to burnish his legacy as Nixon’s national security adviser and secretary of state. It is a book that promotes Mr. Kissinger’s own brand of realpolitik thinking, and that in doing so often soft-pedals the human costs of Mao’s ruthless decades-long reign and questions the consequences of more recent American efforts to press human-rights issues with the Chinese.

Some of the more revealing exchanges between Mr. Kissinger and Mao have already appeared in the 1999 book “The Kissinger Transcripts,” taken from the nongovernmental National Security Archive. Those documents show that Mr. Kissinger employed a good deal more flattery in his wrangling with foreign leaders than his personal accounts might suggest. A lot of the backstage maneuvering in the Nixon White House’s dealings with China will similarly be familiar in outline to readers of Margaret MacMillan’s“Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World” and William Bundy’s “Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency.”

When it comes to talking about Chinese leaders he has met, Mr. Kissinger, the hardheaded apostle of realpolitik, can sound almost starry-eyed. His sympathy for these leaders is not that surprising, given his descriptions of them as practitioners of the same sort of unsentimental power politics he is famous for himself. This approach, he says, enabled China, “despite its insistent Communist propaganda, to conduct itself as essentially a geopolitical ‘free agent’ of the cold war,” making a tactical partnership with the United States in order to contain its fellow Communist country, the Soviet Union.

Photo

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Zhou Enlai, left, and Henry Kissinger in Beijing in 1971. CreditHenry Kissinger Archives/Library of Congress

This sort of pragmatic self-interest on China’s part, Mr. Kissinger says, has continued. After 9/11, he writes: “China remained an agnostic bystander to the American projection of power across the Muslim world and above all to the Bush administration’s proclamation of ambitious goals of democratic transformation. Beijing retained its characteristic willingness to adjust to changes in alignments of power and in the composition of foreign governments without passing a moral judgment.”

Regarding the brutal crackdown on dissidents by the government of Deng Xiaoping at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Mr. Kissinger says that the American reaction left the Chinese puzzled: “They could not understand why the United States took umbrage at an event that had injured no American material interests and for which China claimed no validity outside its own territory.”

For that matter, Mr. Kissinger’s own take on Tiananmen and the Chinese government has a determinedly “on the one hand, on the other hand” feel: “Like most Americans, I was shocked by the way the Tiananmen protest was ended. But unlike most Americans, I had had the opportunity to observe the Herculean task Deng had undertaken for a decade and a half to remold his country: moving Communists toward acceptance of decentralization and reform; traditional Chinese insularity toward modernity and a globalized world — a prospect China had often rejected. And I had witnessed his steady efforts to improve Sino-American ties.”

Mr. Kissinger is even more chillingly cavalier about the tens of millions of people who lost their lives during Mao’s years in power and the devastating fallout of his Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Mr. Kissinger writes about what he describes as a “poignant” scene in which “Nixon complimented Mao on having transformed an ancient civilization, to which Mao replied: ‘I haven’t been able to change it. I’ve only been able to change a few places in the vicinity of Beijing.’ ”

Mr. Kissinger then, startlingly, adds: “After a lifetime of titanic struggle to uproot Chinese society, there was not a little pathos in Mao’s resigned recognition of the pervasiveness of Chinese culture and the Chinese people.”

Buying into many of the myths Mao promoted about himself, Mr. Kissinger describes him as “the philosopher king.”

“Mao enunciated the doctrine of ‘continuous revolution,’ but when the Chinese national interest required it, he could be patient and take the long view,” he writes. “The manipulation of ‘contradictions’ was his proclaimed strategy, yet it was in the service of an ultimate goal drawn from the Confucian concept of da tong, or the Great Harmony.”

For some people, Mr. Kissinger acknowledges, “the tremendous suffering Mao inflicted on his people will dwarf his achievements.” But he also delivers this coldblooded rationalization: “If China remains united and emerges as a 21st-century superpower,” many Chinese may come to regard him as they do the early emperor Qin Shihuang, “whose excesses were later acknowledged by some as a necessary evil.”

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The portraits Mr. Kissinger draws of Mao’s successors project an appreciative intimacy. He remembers Zhou Enlai as conducting “conversations with the effortless grace and superior intelligence of the Confucian sage.” He adds that the elegant Zhou — who would be “criticized for having concentrated on softening some of Mao’s practices rather than resisting them” — faced the classic quandary of the “adviser to the prince,” who must balance “the benefits of the ability to alter events against the possibility of exclusion, should he bring his objections to any one policy to a head.”

Of Deng Xiaoping, a “doughty little man with the melancholy eyes,” Mr. Kissinger reminds us that Deng and his family suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution — he was exiled to perform manual labor, and his son, Mr. Kissinger writes, was “tormented by Red Guards and pushed off the top of a building at Beijing University” and denied admission to a hospital for his broken back. Upon his return to government, Deng worked to replace the Revolution’s emphasis on ideological purity with the values of “order, professionalism and efficiency,” and Mr. Kissinger credits him with fashioning the modernizations that would transform “Mao’s drab China of agricultural communes” into a bustling economic giant.

There are few new insights into Nixon here. Mr. Kissinger obliquely acknowledges what critics like the historian Robert Dallek have argued: that Nixon tried to use his initiatives with China and the Soviet Union to distract attention from his failures in Vietnam. Among the reasons Nixon’s trip to China occurred in the first place, Mr. Kissinger writes, were Mao’s desire to make “a move that might force the Soviets to hesitate before taking on China militarily” and Nixon’s eagerness “to raise American sights beyond Vietnam.”

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Mr. Kissinger also says that the secrecy surrounding negotiations with China (“Nixon had decided that the channel to Beijing should be confined to the White House”) “nearly derailed the enterprise,” when an out-of-the-loop State Department dismissed an invitation Mao had made to Nixon in an interview as not serious, and described Chinese foreign policy as “expansionist” and “rather paranoiac.”

Although Mr. Kissinger does not delve into recent debates over the enormous amount of United States debt that China holds, or how an increasingly ascendant China could affect the rest of the world (the subject of books like Martin Jacques’s “When China Rules the World” and James Kynge’s “China Shakes the World”), he observes that President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao “presided over a country that no longer felt constrained by the sense of apprenticeship to Western technology and institutions,” and that the 2008 economic meltdown “seriously undermined the mystique of Western economic prowess” among the Chinese.

These developments, in turn, Mr. Kissinger argues, have prompted a “new tide of opinion in China — among the vocal younger generation of students and Internet users and quite possibly in portions of the political and military leadership — to the effect that a fundamental shift in the structure of the international system was taking place.”

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Arguing that a cooperative United States-China relationship is “essential to global stability and peace,” Mr. Kissinger warns that were a cold war to develop between the countries, it “would arrest progress for a generation on both sides of the Pacific” and “spread disputes into internal politics of every region at a time when global issues such as nuclear proliferation, the environment, energy security and climate change impose global cooperation.” Mr. Kissinger, it should be noted, is chairman of Kissinger Associates Inc., an international consulting firm that does work with companies that have business interests in China.

“Relations between China and the United States,” he writes, “need not — and should not — become a zero-sum game.”

ON CHINA

By Henry Kissinger

Illustrated. 586 pages. Penguin Press. $36.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Mental Disorders in the United States

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Protection Racketeering ---- Open letter to President Xi of China and other interested parties

There is a nut, who should be evaluated by mental health agencies, named Mar or Ma who stops me when I walk on 18th Ave. South in Seattle and talks about protection racketeering.

President Xi, as you know, we villagers do not go to the police. But we know you have sensors in Seattle.

And by the time I post this post, you probably already know all the facts of the case. Do what is appropriate.

The first thing to do is to clamp down on gambling. As the philosopher John Searle says, gaming is a grim business for some. If they lost too much they want others to bail them out.

It is better to cure them of their bad habits then it is for the law-abiding citizens to rescue them.

Sincerely,

Koon Woon
aka Lock Kau Koon

Thursday, April 21, 2016

China tests longest range missile

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

China Tests New Multiple-Warhead Missile, Raising Concerns in Washington

Sputnik News

In-Depth Coverage

14:05 20.04.2016(updated 16:39 20.04.2016)

China has reportedly tested its newest intercontinental ballistic missile Dongfeng-41 (DF-41), which is the world's longest-range missile.

The Dongfeng-41 is a Chinese nuclear solid-fueled road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that can fire six to 10 nuclear multiple independently targetable warheads at a distance of more than 10 thousand kilometers.

The test of the DF- 41 overlapped with the visit of both the Chinese and US military leaders to the South China Sea, according to the US-based Washington Free Beacon, citing a source in the Pentagon.

The missile test also coincided with US Defense Secretary Ash Carter's visit to the aircraft carrier USS Stennis, which was sailing in the South China Sea last week, the publication further noted.

The launch of the Chinese missile was registered by American satellite tracking systems. The source did not specify from where the launch was made this time.

Earlier the publication reported, "US intelligence agencies estimate the DF-41 when deployed will carry up to 10 MIRVs–vastly increasing Beijing's current warhead stockpile, which is based on single-warhead missiles, and currently estimated to include around 300 warheads."

Earlier Kanwa Asian Defense Journal published the information stating that, China will put the 'world's longest-range missile' into service by 2016.

Information on the development of new third-generation ballistic missiles by China first time appeared in press back in July 2014, when the United States published a report on "trends in military and security spheres."

The report said that China is improving its level of armaments and intensifying its military training, which is seen as a threat to Washington.

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Friday, February 26, 2016

Distributed Lethality

ASIA-PACIFIC, CAPABILITY ANALYSIS

DISTRIBUTED LETHALITY: CHINA IS DOING IT RIGHT

FEBRUARY 26, 2016 GUEST AUTHOR LEAVE A COMMENT

Distributed Lethality Topic Week

By Alan Cummings

Distributed Lethality is about “increasing individual warship lethality and then combining surface warships in innovative ways.” We can add some 21st Century flair to the details, but the premise remains the essence of warships since time immemorial: go to sea and kill your enemy. Frankly, the U.S. Navy’s (USN’s) surface fleet is playing catch-up after the post-Cold War/ low-naval-threats era of the 1990s and 2000s. The fact that we needed to verify the value of capable warships with “a rigorous program of analytics” and numerous war games seems a poignant expression of the tactical and bureaucratic disconnect in the past decades. So for now, check out China and the People’s Liberation Army (Navy) (PLA(N)) if you want an example of Distributed Lethality in action.

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The PLA(N) began building modern warships in the 1990s when they laid the keels for their first Luhu, Luhai, and Jiangwei-class vessels. Those vessels and every class of surface combatant since have counted anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) as their primary armament. Which is to say they were each deadly in the anti-surface warfare (ASuW) arena from day one. Ironically, as China was ramping up production of lethal surface combatants, the U.S. was ramping down. The last Arleigh Burke to incorporate the RGM-84 HARPOON (USS Porter, DDG 78) slid off the blocks in 1997 and every U.S. destroyer built since has been oriented around air defense. What little ASuW capability these later destroyers have is reliant on firing an SM-2 missile designed for air warfare in a secondary ASuW mode.

Fast forward to 2015, and you have two comparisons of the USN and PLA(N)- first by tonnage, then by strike-mile lethality.

Chart 1 — USN vs PLA(N) Surface Combatants by Tonnage

chae — USN vs PLA(N) Surface Combatants by ASuW Strike-Mile

As you can see, the USN may have the edge in tonnage but the PLA(N) takes the prize for lethality. It turns out the PLA(N) also has more hulls- which means their tonnage and armament are more, wait for it, distributed. Granted, a lot of that distribution resides in their Houbei PTGs. But if you’re focused on regional sea control, say like the South China Sea and Western Pacific, then those low-cost/high-lethality combatants are the perfect thing to disperse across contested locations, key transit areas, and chokepoints.

Today’s bottom line is that the PLA(N) can field more ASCMs and a wider variety of platforms than the USN. For most of the PLA(N), that lethality comes in the form of a warship with at least four YJ-83s, each delivering a 419-lbs warhead up to 100NM (some vessels have ASCMs with even longer ranges, like the YJ-18 and YJ-62). This means combatants with YJ-83s can hold a 200NM-diameter circle (or 31,400NM2) at risk of lethal effects. The Spratly Islandsfor example claim 120,000NM2; strategic distribution of a four-ship PLA(N) surface action group (SAG) gives ASCM coverage to 125,600NM2. Raising the hull count or employing multiple SAGs makes the situation all the more frightening. Cue these vessels with rough targeting data (a.k.a. maritime domain awareness) from aFiery Cross-based patrol aircraft and the PLA(N) has a full-blown system of distributed lethality.

Holding short of a war at sea, PLA(N) combatants are the muscle behind China’s maritime presence and influence operations. PLA General Zhang Zhaozhong implied this in early 2013, calling it a “cabbage strategy” to surround contested maritime claims (likeSecond Thomas Shoal) with layers of civilian, government, and military vessels. Then in 2014, PLA(N) vessels helped escort theHaiyang Shiyou 981 drilling rig in 2014 despite Chinese statements to the contrary. Talk about “combining surface warships in innovative ways”, China is using them as part of a layered politico-military offense to advance their maritime claims, one that easily transitions to combat operations if things

Implementing Distributed Lethality requires sound doctrine and a practiced C2 structure. That’s where the USN carries the advantage (for now) while we implement expedients like the modified TLAMand SM-6. However, much of our doctrine is either available via open source research or may have been compromised by cyber warfare. For example, the majority of our own textbook on “Surface Tactics 101” is available via a quick Google search for MTP-1D (theMultinational Maritime Tactical Signal and Maneuvering Book). Paired with the equally available NWP 3-56 Composite Warfare Doctrine, and five minute of Google research has provided the fundamentals of distributed tactics.

Whether the PLA(N) has incorporated U.S. C2 doctrine or developed a native system is likely hidden in classified reporting. However, we can look at broader open source examples to evaluate how practiced they are at operating warships together. For instance, rehearsals of combat resupply demonstrate coordination amongst combatants and the entire logistics train. Recent exercises with Russia, Australia, and the U.S. illustrate that the PLA(N) has become capable partner for live fire exercises, amphibious landings, and maneuvering drills amongst other evolutions. I was once told that the key to combat at sea is showing up to the right location, on time, with weapons and radios that work (which may have been borrowed from someone else). I believe that is a valid definition, particularly in the context of Distributed Lethality, and one that the PLA(N) appears to be meeting.

If one is inclined to dismiss exercises and drills as liable to heavy scripting, then the PLA(N)’s blue water deployments show their C2 abilities are no fluke. These complicated operations (and the C2 required for them) are one snapshot in an evolution of PLA(N) doctrine that runs concurrent with their progress in warship technology. Even the larger Chinese defense organization is adapting to facilitate coordinated operations. Two of the five newly inaugurate theater commands will likely be tasked with maritime-centric missions in the East and South China Seas. More important than today’s snapshot, these trends indicate where China wants to take their C2 ability tomorrow. So what do these strategic moves mean for Distributed Lethality tactics? If China has the C2 infrastructure, logistics support, and trust in its commanders to operate independently around the world then it stands to reason they can operate together in their China’s near abroad.

Which brings up my last point on Distributed Lethality in the PLA(N): they win by implementing it locally. Warships from China’s East Sea Fleet at Ningbo need to cover 400NM to be in the disputed Senkaku Islands, while South Sea Fleet ships from Zhanjiang are 700NM from the Spratly Islands. PLA(N) vessels can cycle through combat patrols, maintenance periods, training evolutions, and resupply hops in 1/3 the distance a U.S. destroyer covers transiting from San Diego to Hawaii. Meanwhile, the USN still needs the missiles, variety of hulls (small, medium, and large combatants), and regional partners to make distributed lethality work in the Asia Pacific. China needs only cast off lines.

Tactics come down to your ability to shoot, move, and communicate. Most of the USN surface fleet can move and communicate around the world, but can’t authoritatively prosecute a surface engagement. The PLA(N) is working on the skills to communicate in a coordinated attack, but they can move with ease in their near seas and they ers from the beginning. Both sides have identified where they are and where they want to go as far as tactical capability (which, for good or ill, seems to be similar places). So which challenge is easier- learning C2, or refitting and retraining a fleet? I guess the race is on.

Alan Cummings commissioned from Jacksonville University in 2007 and served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the USN until 2013. The opinions here are his own and do not represent the position of the U.S. government. Some material used here is drawn from research being considered for publication elsewhere. Original data is available via valid requests submitted tonextwar@cimsec.org.

For poetry: Five Willows Poetry

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

This Must Sink into Trump

Thursday, June 23, 2016

China money laundering through Hong Kong exceeds trillions

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Aircraft Carriers ---- Obsolete???

Monday, June 13, 2016

Kissinger --- on China