Congressional report: How U.S. intelligence missed China’s military build-up
New Chinese military developments that caught the United States off guard included new attack submarines, an anti-satellite missile system, aircraft carrier-killing missiles, and a new stealth jet.
“A decade on, it is now clear that much of the conventional wisdom about China dating from the turn of the century has proven to be dramatically wrong,” says the staff report by the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional group.
“These predictive errors carry with them serious geopolitical consequences,” said the report, made public April 5. “To avoid being similarly caught off-guard in 2022, U.S. analysts should carefully reexamine many of their widely-held assumptions about the Chinese government and its policy goals.”…
The report is the latest in a series of challenges to what critics say has been more than a decade of faulty U.S. intelligence analyses of China that underestimate Beijing’s development in an apparent bid to play down the threat it poses to regional security and the resulting need for a U.S. response.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Because Geithner has to periodically beg for them to buy more treasuries. If the US was publicly labelling China a thread, the money spigot might turn off. It is anyway, but it would have happened a lot sooner. Obama’s deficits needed a buyer for the treasuries, so all he has now is Bernanke’s printing press.
Wethal on April 10, 2012 at 4:25 PM
Let’s hope Obama doesn’t figure out a way to piss off the Aussies.
Fezzik on April 10, 2012 at 4:25 PM
I read about all this stuff more than two years ago.
Do they have the internet at the DOD…?
NeoKong on April 10, 2012 at 4:26 PM
Pretty pathetic considering that the US has known since the Gulf War that China was launching a massive modernization program in response to seeing the US literally walk over the Iraqi military, which used a lot of the same tech the Chinese military used.
Throughout the 90s, China ramped up its military spending far out of proportion to its economy, a trend that has continued to this day. Some of its purchases were public, such as buying Su-27s and Kilos from Russia.
The biggest problem US intelligence has is that it is dominated by liberals who believe that it is their job to downplay threats in order to prevent Republican presidents from going to war. Just look at the nonsense with Iran’s nuclear program, which US intelligence still officially claims is for peaceful purposes… yeah right…
The major hawk argument for boosting defense spending now is the threat from China. So the doves in defense industry news constantly downplay the threat from China. (reporters, like people who work for US intelligence, are overwhelmingly liberal). This is the result: we have to wait for the US Congress (through their staffers) to actually shed some light on the fact that, yes, China is engaged in a massive military buildup, has been for many years, and that this buildup is designed to be used on the US or a US ally.
I’ll read the report now and write something more specific.
kaltes on April 10, 2012 at 4:34 PM
Smart Power ™ !!!
FTW!!!!
UltimateBob on April 10, 2012 at 4:35 PM
Means that the Congress and the WH are way more stupid than we already assumed.
Schadenfreude on April 10, 2012 at 4:39 PM
Being willfully blind isn’t the same as “missing” it.
catmman on April 10, 2012 at 4:43 PM
Complete and total BS… The US Military was never caught off guard by these things, Democrat politicians might have been, and I doubt even that (can you say, treasonous sell their mother for a quick dollar ba$tard$???), but the Military never was.
SWalker on April 10, 2012 at 4:47 PM
It’s neat how this parallels the “even if we started drilling today, it would be 10 years before we got substantial production out of those fields, and 20 years before peak production” argument.
rogerb on April 10, 2012 at 4:50 PM
U.S. Intelligence
Reminds me of the old joke:
How did the Germans defeat Poland in WWII?
Answer: Marched in backwards, and told them “we’re leaving”.
jake-the-goose on April 10, 2012 at 4:58 PM
I don’t think they’re really catching us off guard here. I’ve been hearing about this for 10 years. How is this surprising? And as to intelligence leaks, US security has always been a joke. The Russians had a fleet of bombers that were identical to their US counter parts down to the rivets.
The only people that seem to be good at security are some of the weapons contractors. Lockheed Martin for example has been hacked a few times without the attackers getting anything. I think most of the leaks happen through the US government itself. As to fixing that… they’d have to actually work on a need to know basis over there and that’s not something the they seem to handle well as 9/11 demonstrated. They seem to have two settings. Sloppy or Blind. You tell me which is worse.
Karmashock on April 10, 2012 at 5:03 PM
They should’ve paid me. I could’ve told them China was building it’ s military up 10 years ago. Heard it on Rush and read it on the internet.
JellyToast on April 10, 2012 at 5:04 PM
It’s obvious we need more money going toward our defense department.
Notorious GOP on April 10, 2012 at 5:20 PM
Intelligence didn’t miss it. Congress and the Executive branch ignored what they were told.
LegendHasIt on April 10, 2012 at 5:24 PM
This is pretty much BS. I wrote a research paper in 2002 on China being a rising threat that needed to be contained. Through 100% open sources, I found an alarming rate of defense spending (+17% YOY) on a slew of offensive weapons such as missiles, destroyers & aircraft carriers, attack subs and attack aircraft, as well as a significant shift in Chinese military doctrine from primarily a defensive posture to a more offense-oriented posture. There is no way so-called intel “experts” would have missed this stuff if they were seriously looking for it.
Also, this kind of puts Barry’s massive defense cuts in proper context, no?
rcpjr on April 10, 2012 at 5:24 PM
Intersting that this article comes on the heels of the report that the FBI reveals our “Institutes of Higher Learning” are inundated with foreign operatives.
Now we see first hand what damage this has caused.
We’re so diverse we’re going to the guillotine willingly. Heads oughta roll. Too bad it won’t the proggie f**ks that sell us out, YET.
OkieDoc on April 10, 2012 at 5:45 PM
Sun Tzu:
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
Anti-satellite system to shoot down spy satellites and GPS Sats.
“Let your plans be dark and as impenetratable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Stealth Jet because even if they can’t destroy our F-35′ easily, with a 5 to 1 numerical advantage, our planes will be over run.
“Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.”
Aircraft carrier missiles because our entire Naval strategy is based on Carrier task forces.
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”
Attack submarines to counter our Boomers and LA class Boats.
Bulletchaser on April 10, 2012 at 6:21 PM
The paper says that the US intelligence was caught off guard by the submarine development, and underestimated China in some other areas.
The paper is very good, and accurate. It looks at 4 case studies: (1) the Yuan submarine, (2) SC-19 ASAT missile, (3) DF-21 ASBM “carrier killer”, and (4) J-20 jet. The Yuan was a surprise, the SC-19 was not (we knew they tested it 3 times prior to the 07 hit and said nothing), the DF-21 ASBM development was faster than projected, same with the J-20:
kaltes on April 10, 2012 at 9:49 PM