CHINA'S GROWING NAVAL CAPABILITIES... AND WHAT THEY MEAN FOR THE U.S.
China's steady progress in the modernization of its naval capabilities poses a growing threat to U.S. access to Asia and to American mobility there, the latest annual report from a leading Congressional commission has warned. "A more powerful and capable PLA Navy will increasingly have the ability to inhibit U.S. military access to the region," the 2009 Annual Report of the U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission details.
The threat posed by China's increasingly sophisticated naval forces extends far beyond the Asia-Pacific, however. "The PLA Navy is currently developing the JL–2, a submarine-launched ballistic missile, to be deployed on the navy’s newest nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines," the China Commission study reports. "Although this missile has not yet been successfully tested, the U.S. Department of Defense anticipates that it will have a range of at least 7,200 kilometers." The emergence of this new capability, the study explains, has enormous consequences for the security of the United States. "When operational, this missile will allow Chinese submarines for the first time to target the continental United States from operating areas located near the Chinese coast.”
PROTECTING POLAND
Poland and the U.S. have agreed on the ground rules to be applied to a future U.S. troop presence in Poland. Reuters (November 27) reports that Warsaw and Washington have worked out a new Status of Forces Agreement following intensive negotiations. The deal paves the way for the deployment of Patriot missile batteries on Polish soil next year as part of an overall expansion of NATO missile defense capabilities. The Patriot deployment - originally hammered out by the Bush administration - has been backed by the Obama administration in the wake of its recent decision to scrap the deployment of ground-based defenses in both Poland and the Czech Republic. It signals an important political victory for the Polish government, which has been seeking concrete assurances of U.S. commitments to its security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.
LOOKING BEYOND THE S-300
In the face of equipment delays from Russia, and amid mounting fears of foreign attack, Iran's ayatollahs are making other plans to protect their nuclear facilities. Reuters (November 15) reports a senior Iranian lawmaker as saying that the Islamic Republic could soon itself produce "advanced" missile defenses to defend its nuclear sites against potential external aggression. The news marks a decision by Iran to seek local alternatives to the S-300, an advanced anti-air and anti-missile system which Russia has long stalled at delivering to the Islamic Republic under pressure from the U.S. and Israel. "Iran is not a country to come to a halt in the face of non-cooperation of other countries," Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the national security and foreign policy committee in Iran's parliament, tells a domestic newspaper. "Naturally and in view of the capabilities it possesses, the Islamic Republic will be able to mass-produce this missile system in a not so distant future."
START IS DEAD, LONG LIVE START
After months of intensive arms control talks, Russia and the United States have agreed to preserve the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction (START) treaty following its expiration on December 5th. Both countries are also making "substantial progress" on a follow-on agreement to START, which would codify steep cuts to the nuclear arsenals of both countries, the Associated Press (December 13) reports.
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