China's Military Footprint Expanding

They've already got a small island "base" (see map below) from which they can base fighters and most of their naval vessels. Now they're looking at deploying a military garrison to Woody Island in the South China Sea.

China's central military authority has approved to form and deploy a military garrison in the newly established city of Sansha.

Sources with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Guangzhou Military Command said Friday that the Central Military Commission (CMC) had authorized it to form a garrison command in the city.

The garrison command will be a division-level command under the PLA's Hainan provincial sub-command, responsible for managing the city's national defense mobilization, military reserves and carrying out military operations.

The PLA's Sansha Garrison Command will be under the dual leadership of the Hainan provincial sub-command and the city's civilian leaders.

Part of the issue is the size of the unit. For a civilian government of this size, there's usually a 6000-man (or so) garrison from the PLA. There's not enough real estate out here to park that many folks, never mind the twin logistical challenges of (a) keeping them fed, and (b) keeping them from being bored.


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By: Brant

US Direct Support of Philippines in South China Sea?

Thus far, US aid has been limited to transferring some old Coast Guard cutters. But now the Philippines may ask for support from P3's over the disputed islands in the SCS.

The Philippines may ask the United States to deploy spy planes over the South China Sea to help monitor the disputed waters, President Benigno Aquino told Reuters on Monday, a move that could worsen tensions with its giant neighbor China.
The two countries only recently stepped back from a months-long standoff at the Scarborough Shoal, a horseshoe shaped reef near the Philippines in waters they both claim - the latest round of naval brinkmanship over the resource-rich sea.
The United States has stressed it is neutral in the long-running maritime dispute, despite offering to help boost the Philippines' decrepit military forces. China has warned that "external forces" should not get involved.
"We might be requesting overflights on that," Aquino told Reuters in an interview, referring to U.S. P3C Orion spy planes. "We don't have aircraft with those capabilities."
There was no immediate comment from Washington.
Last month, Aquino pulled out a lightly armed coast guard ship and a fisheries boat due to bad weather around the Scarborough Shoal, a group of rock formations about 140 miles west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.

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By: Brant

US-Philippines Exercises in South China Sea

Despite China's "warning" the Philippines and US are pressing ahead with exercises.

Hundreds of American and Philippine troops waded ashore on Wednesday in a mock assault to retake a small island in energy-rich waters disputed with China, a drill Beijing had said would raise the risk of armed conflict.
The exercises, part of annual U.S.-Philippine war games on the western island of Palawan, coincide with another standoff between Chinese and Philippine vessels near Scarborough Shoal in a different part of the South China Sea.
China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan across the South China Sea, each searching for gas and oil while building up their navies and military alliances.
China said last week the drill would raise the risk of confrontation. On Wednesday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said China was committed to dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the dispute.
"We are certainly worried about the South China Sea issue," Cui told a news briefing in Beijing, saying "some people tried to mix two unrelated things, territorial sovereignty and freedom of navigation".

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By: Brant

Missile Races Accelerating in Asia

Norks threaten war and South unveils their own cruise missiles.

South Korea announced Thursday it has deployed new cruise missiles capable of destroying targets such as missile and nuclear bases anywhere in the North.
"With such capabilities, our military will sternly and thoroughly punish reckless provocations by North Korea while maintaining our firm readiness," Major General Shin Won-Sik told reporters.

Sure would be nice to see the South shoot back once.

India is countering China's growing missile capability by testing their own nuclear-capable missile... that can range to China.

India announced the successful test launch Thursday of a new nuclear-capable missile that would give it the ability to strike the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai for the first time, a significant step forward in its aspirations to become a regional and world power.
The Agni-V missile, with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), still requires a battery of tests and must clear other bureaucratic hurdles before it can be inducted into India's arsenal in a few years. But officials hailed the launch as proof the country has taken its place among the world's most powerful and scientifically advanced nations.
"The nation stands tall today," Defense Minister A.K. Antony said, according to the Press Trust of India.
The test came just days after North Korea's failed rocket launch, but sparked none of the same global condemnation aimed at Pyongyang, an internationally isolated regime that has been banned by the U.N. from testing missile technology.
China is far ahead of India in the missile race, with intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching anywhere in India. Currently, the longest-range Indian missile, the Agni-III, has a range of 3,500 kilometers (2,100 miles) and falls short of many major Chinese cities.

By: Brant

US-Philippines Exercises: Thumbing Noses at Chinese?

Yes, they've been scheduled forever, but the US and Philippine South China Sea drills seem to be a stick in the eye at the Chinese.

Joint military exercises between the US and the Philippines are getting under way in the South China Sea, even as Manila remained locked in a stand-off with Beijing over a disputed shoal.

The annual exercises, called Balikatan, are due to run until 27 April.

This year they are taking place off Palawan, near parts of the South China Sea both Manila and Beijing claim.

Meanwhile Philippine and Chinese vessels remain at the Scarborough Shoal, a week after the deadlock began.

The Philippines said its warship found eight Chinese fishing vessels at the shoal - which both sides claim - when it was patrolling the area on 8 April.

The Beeb's quickie analysis is also good.

China insists that its rights in areas like the disputed Spratly Islands are paramount, despite rival claims from the Philippines, Vietnam and other countries too.

The government in Manila is taking steps to modernise its small naval and air forces. But it is looking to Washington to help balance China's growing power.

Two decades after US forces were evicted from their biggest base in the Pacific, there has been talk of a renewed US military presence. The fact that the joint exercises are being held on the island of Palawan - the closest Philippines territory to the Spratlys - will doubtless irritate China.

Anyone else think the Philippinians are bummed they threw us out of Subic Bay?

By: Brant

The Rise of China's Military

The Economist has a nice article about China’s military enlargement. IT also looks at the neighborhood and assess how it impacts other nearby countries.

That China is rapidly modernising its armed forces is not in doubt, though there is disagreement about what the true spending figure is. China’s defence budget has almost certainly experienced double digit growth for two decades. According to SIPRI, a research institute, annual defence spending rose from over $30 billion in 2000 to almost $120 billion in 2010. SIPRI usually adds about 50% to the official figure that China gives for its defence spending, because even basic military items such as research and development are kept off budget. Including those items would imply total military spending in 2012, based on the latest announcement from Beijing, will be around $160 billion. America still spends four-and-a-half times as much on defence, but on present trends China’s defence spending could overtake America’s after 2035 (see chart).

All that money is changing what the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can do. Twenty years ago, China’s military might lay primarily in the enormous numbers of people under arms; their main task was to fight an enemy face-to-face or occupy territory. The PLA is still the largest army in the world, with an active force of 2.3m. But China’s real military strength increasingly lies elsewhere. The Pentagon’s planners think China is intent on acquiring what is called in the jargon A2/AD, or “anti-access/area denial” capabilities. The idea is to use pinpoint ground attack and anti-ship missiles, a growing fleet of modern submarines and cyber and anti-satellite weapons to destroy or disable another nation’s military assets from afar.

In the western Pacific, that would mean targeting or putting in jeopardy America’s aircraft-carrier groups and its air-force bases in Okinawa, South Korea and even Guam. The aim would be to render American power projection in Asia riskier and more costly, so that America’s allies would no longer be able to rely on it to deter aggression or to combat subtler forms of coercion. It would also enable China to carry out its repeated threat to take over Taiwan if the island were ever to declare formal independence.

By: Brant

Philippines and China Facing Off

The Philippines have withdrawn their warship in their stand-off with China

The Philippines says it has withdrawn its largest warship from a continuing stand-off with Chinese boats in the disputed South China Sea.

Earlier on Thursday a Philippine coastguard vessel arrived in the area, known as the Scarborough Shoal.

The Philippines also says China has sent a third ship to the scene.

The Philippine foreign minister said negotiations with China would continue. Both claim the shoal off the Philippines' north-west coast.

The Philippines said its warship found eight Chinese fishing vessels at the shoal when it was patrolling the area on Sunday.

It did not say why the warship had been pulled back. "That is an operational undertaking I can't discuss with you," Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

"We are pursuing the diplomatic track in terms of coming to a resolution on the issue," Mr Del Rosario said.

The most ridiculous part of this is looking at the map from the BBC, with the territorial area claimed by China. It's kind of like looking at what the Japanese tried to claim back in WWII...

By: Brant

Trouble in Paradise?

There's been a coup in the Maldives.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, widely credited with bringing democracy to the hideaway resort islands, resigned on Tuesday after weeks of opposition protests erupted into a police mutiny and what an aide said amounted to a coup.
Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president, handed power over the Indian Ocean archipelago to Vice-President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, explaining that continuing in office would result in his having to use force against the people.
"I resign because I am not a person who wishes to rule with the use of power," he said in a televised address. "I believe that if the government were to remain in power it would require the use of force which would harm many citizens.
"I resign because I believe that if the government continues to stay in power, it is very likely that we may face foreign influences."
It was not immediately clear to what influences he was referring. India helped foil a coup on the islands in 1988 by sending a battalion of soldiers to back the government.

By: Brant

ASG Leader Killed in Philippines - Maybe

After running a big exercise on this last year, happenings in the Philippines tend to catch my eye. This one in particular has me thinking about how to integrate village-level events into a strategic-level game.

Abu Sayyaf commander Umbra Jumdail had deviated from the brutal image of his al-Qaida-linked militant group by playing doctor to poor Filipino villagers, whose backing he needed to stay safe from military troops. But those villagers may have been used by the military to finally track him down last week.
A U.S.-backed airstrike killed Jumdail, his son and several militants while they slept in huts or hammocks Thursday near Parang town on southern Jolo island, dealing the latest blow to the Abu Sayyaf and depriving it of a key leader. Jumdail had harbored a top Southeast Asian terror suspect, Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan.
Among the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, Marwan, a U.S.-educated engineer, had been crucial in helping turn mostly desperate peasant recruits into Abu Sayyaf bombers and training them to carry out deadly attacks.
The Philippine military had announced that the long-hunted Marwan and his Singaporean ally Abdullah Ali were killed in the air raid along with Jumdail and other Filipino extremists. Two security officials, however, said Sunday that new intelligence shows that Jumdail was killed but that the two foreign terror suspects were alive and were not in the Abu Sayyaf lair that was bombed.
Not a single body was retrieved by police in the bombed hilly jungle lair near Lanao Dakulah village, fueling different versions of who was killed.
Philippine officials, nevertheless, hailed Jumdail's death as the latest major blow to the Abu Sayyaf, which has carved its name in blood through bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. The extremist group is on Washington's list of terrorist organizations. The militants, currently estimated to number less than 400, have endured years of battle setbacks and the loss of key commanders.

By: Brant

Pentagon Announces New Military Strategy

So 2MRC is dead. The question now is, "what's next"? There was an attempt at answering that yesterday, as President Obama and Secretary Panetta announced a new "strategy" yesterday that's focused on Asia and stresses 'cheap' stuff like drones and foreign engagement.

quotes, and more articles, after the jump...

The Great Encirclement of China

It's not enough to station a bunch of Marines in Australia.

America's strengthened military pact with Australia is a figment of "Cold War thinking" that will destabilize the Asia-Pacific region, China's Defense Ministry said Wednesday, in Beijing's strongest criticism yet of a move widely seen as intended to counter China's rising assertiveness.
Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng's comments at a monthly news conference came short of the scathing attacks on the agreement from China's nationalist press and outspoken academics.
However, they appeared to reflect a harder tone from the armed forces, whose expanding budget and reach have rattled many of China's neighbors and prompted them to seek strengthened alliances with the region's dominant military power, America.
"Military alliances were created by history. We think that all moves to strengthen and expand military alliances are a product of Cold War thinking that run counter to the era's trend of peace, development and cooperation," Geng said.
The agreement, announced during a November visit by President Barack Obama to Australia, will send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia.

Now the US is looking to station Navy ships in Singapore and the Philippines.

The U.S. Navy said it would station several new coastal combat ships in Singapore and perhaps in the Philippines in coming years, moves likely to fuel China's fears of being encircled and pressured in the South China Sea dispute.
Regional defense analysts said the ships were small, but agreed the symbolism of the moves, which come after Washington announced it was increasing its engagement in Asia, would upset Beijing.
Last month the United States and Australia announced plans to deepen the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, with 2,500 U.S. Marines operating out of a de facto base in Darwin in northern Australia.
In coming years, the U.S. Navy will increasingly focus on the strategic "maritime crossroads" of the Asia-Pacific region, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert wrote in the December issue of Proceedings, published by the U.S. Naval Institute.
He said the navy planned to "station several of our newest littoral combat ships at Singapore's naval facility," in addition to the plans announced by President Barack Obama for marines to be based in Darwin from next year.

All this as the Philippine military is focusing on the Spratlys and moving away from COIN missions, with a little help from old US Coast Guard cutters.


By: Brant

Philippine Military Refocusing Away from COIN?

After spending years tamping down a variety of insurgencies, the Philippine military is likely to start refocusing off-shore, particularly on the Spratly Islands, which China somehow seems to think are theirs, despite about 7 other countries having better claims to them.

A battle-scarred general took leadership of the underfunded Philippine military Monday, vowing to bolster his country's external defense so it could adequately respond to "untoward incidents" amid territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
The 125,000-member Philippine military, one of Asia's weakest, has been struggling to modernize its dilapidated air force and navy and train its forces due to a lack of funds. President Benigno Aquino III recently said he would seek modern fighter jets from longtime ally Washington when he visits next year.
Army Lt. Gen. Jessie Dellosa, who took over the military leadership in austere ceremonies led by Aquino on Monday, said recent developments in the South China Sea — obviously referring to renewed territorial spats in the potentially oil-rich region — have made upgrading external defenses inevitable for the Philippines.
"It compels us to look into our maritime security deeply," Dellosa said in his speech. "Development of navy and air force bases and facilities to efficiently respond to untoward incidents is something we can no longer ignore."
Dellosa formerly was an army combat officer and was wounded twice while battling Muslim guerrillas and al-Qaida-linked militants in the southern Philippines. He also led an elite unit that helped Aquino's mother, the late pro-democracy Philippine leader Corazon Aquino, subdue coup attempts.

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By: Brant

US Assistance to Philippines in Facing Down China

The US is hoping to counter China's rising Pacific influence in a variety of ways, including the handover of a used Coast Guard cutter to bolster their navy.

The United States will provide a second warship to the ill-equipped Philippine military as it confronts China in increasingly tense territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a Philippine official said Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton assured Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin during talks in Manila on Wednesday that Washington would give its longtime ally a second Coast Guard cutter virtually for free some time next year.
The first second-hand cutter from the U.S. Coast Guard sailed into Manila in August and became the most modern vessel in the dilapidated Philippine fleet. Clinton assured the Philippine military of intensified U.S. assistance Wednesday when the allies marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of their Mutual Defense Treaty aboard a U.S. naval destroyer in Manila.
The first U.S. ship, which has been renamed the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, would be deployed to secure Philippine territorial waters in the South China Sea as early as this month, the military said.

By: Brant

Malaysian Commandos Rescue Hijacked Tanker's Crew

Yesterday's rescue of a hijacked tanker ship's crew off the coast of Somalia shows that Royal Malaysian Navy commandos can kick pirate ass just as well as their South Korean counterparts. Bravo Zulu!

Malaysian naval commandos have rescued 23 crew and captured seven Somali pirates following a firefight to free a hijacked oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, according to reports.

The commandos were called in after the Malaysian tanker MT Bunga Laurel, sent out a distress call late Thursday after pirates armed with AK-47 assault rifles boarded and took control of the ship.

State media said the tanker was headed to Singapore with a cargo of oil worth more than 30 million ringgit (10 million dollars) when it was hijacked.

Malaysian navy chief Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar said the commandos, who were manning a commercial vessel protecting shipping in the area, responded to the distress call.

He said one of the navy's Fennec attack helicopters was also involved in rescue, according to the New Straits Times newspaper Saturday, which ran a front page picture of the captured pirates held at gunpoint.

"The attack helicopter kept the pirate's mother ship at bay with several rounds of machine-gun fire while the commandos boarded the tanker," he told the paper.

"The pirates were overpowered after a ... gun battle which saw three of them (pirates) suffering gunshot wounds," Abdul Aziz said.

He said the crew were uninjured as they had locked themselves in a safe room after setting off the ship's security alert system.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak praised the swift action by the navy.

By: Shelldrake

GrogNews Daily Headlines

Apple has dumped a WikiLeaks app from the App Store. Caving to the government? Or was it just a crap program?

Secretary Gates has released a statement on the new START Treaty.

The President has signed the DADT repeal. Now here comes the "woe is America" rhetoric.

Are the Brits training Bangladeshi "death squads"?

France has warned their nationals to leave the Ivory Coast as the incumbent not-gonna-quit president threatens to starve out the UN peacekeepers.

So the AP is all up in arms about a high percentage of recruits "failing" the military "entrance" exam. OK look, first of all the ASVAB is not an "entrance" exam. It's not designed to tell you whether or not you should be in the military. It's designed to tell you what specialties you'd be good at in the Army. Now, it's possible you could come back with a result that says you're qualified to be a doorstop, or a target goalie, or a the stick pusher on freefall wingsuit testing without a chute or something else undesirable. But it's not a "test" to see if you can join the military. It's there to tell you what job you might be good at.

By: Brant

GrogNews Weekend Headlines

Is the head of the New Zealand Defence Force a wargamer? Woohoo!

CNN is running a behind-the-lines documentary from Afghanistan. Maybe they can explain with the AfPak intel reviews are bleak.
The history of one blogger's critique of the Afghan War has been turned into a book.
There are some damn old rifles in circulation in Afghanistan.
And as odd as it may seem, there's a Christmas Tree in the middle of the Afghan desert.

The Mirror (UK) sees a bleak outlook with North Korea situation?

Pirates have seized a U.S.-operated ship.

Is Iran selling medium-range missiles to Venezuela?

Putin thinks that Assange being arrested is undermining democracy. OK, I guess he's the expert, huh?

The Navy has successfully fired a rail gun.

The Russians would love to project power with aircraft carriers the way the US does, but just can't afford them.

By: Brant

China Holds Live-Fire Exercises In Tibet

Is China gearing up for another border war with India? The recent PLA exercises in Tibet can only add to India's worries.

China's military on Wednesday said it held its first live-fire joint ground and air drills on the Tibetan plateau, likely setting off alarm bells in nervous neighbor India.

The exercises were held at an altitude above 15,420 feet (4,700 meters) and involved fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, artillery, tanks and electronic warfare units, the official People's Liberation Army Daily newspaper said.

No exact locations for the exercises or other details such as numbers of troops involved were given in keeping with usual military secrecy. Almost all the vast Tibetan plateau lies at or above 13,000 feet (4,000 meters).

The exercises stand to add to concerns in India over a Chinese military buildup in Tibet. The countries fought a brief but bloody border war in 1962 and continue to argue over territorial claims. More recently, New Delhi has complained that Chinese troops along the frontier have grown more aggressive and expressed concern over China's increasingly close ties to the military of India's archrival, Pakistan.

The drills are part of a strategy by Beijing to upgrade training - increasingly involving the firing of real ammunition - and the integration of air, land and sea assets following a two decade-long process of acquiring sophisticated new equipment, much of it from Russia.

The PLA Daily report said the exercises included precision strikes on simulated enemy command posts, artillery positions and other targets.

It said participants successfully overcame hardships related to the high altitude, low oxygen, and extreme cold.

"This is extremely significant in regards to exploring models for training in mountainous terrain and raising the overall level of systematized warfare," the newspaper said.

By: Shelldrake

Notorious Arms Dealer Extradition Back On

After a legal hurdle in Thailand is cleared, Viktor Bout's extradition to the US is moving forward.

A Thai court has dismissed charges of money laundering and fraud against alleged Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout, removing the last legal obstacle for his extradition to the US.

Mr Bout was to be extradited in August, to face trial for conspiring to sell weapons to a Colombian rebel group.

But it was postponed while the extra charges brought by the US were heard.

The US and Russia have been squabbling over his fate since his 2008 arrest in a joint Thai-US sting operation.

After more than 15 years of allegedly running guns to African warlords and Islamic militants, Mr Bout was arrested at a Bangkok hotel by US agents posing as Colombian FARC rebels, after he allegedly tried to sell them weapons.

By: Brant

COIN Successes in the Philippines

Yes, the US has been active there for a while, and yes, it's succeeding.

It’s been touted as a rare U.S. military success against Islamic extremists in the so-called global war on terror.
Since early 2002, a small number of U.S. troops, mostly Special Forces, have been supporting the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in their fight against terrorism in the Mindanao group of islands. The region is historically lawless, impoverished and politically removed from the national government in Manila.
Known as the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines (JSOTF-P), they enjoyed early accomplishments that have prompted some in the U.S. military establishment to hail it as a textbook case of effective counterinsurgency tactics that could be applied to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

By: Brant

Posthumous Medal of Honor Awarded to US Airman

The amazing heroism of Master Sgt. Richard Etchberger was at last officially recognized, following declassification of the radar technician's mission in Laos during the Vietnam War.

For decades, Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Richard L. "Dick" Etchberger's courage under fire was kept as secret as the mission that placed him on a remote Laotian mountain, high above the clouds, in March 1968.

Now, his bravery that day can be written in stone.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday posthumously recognized Etchberger for service "beyond the call of duty" by giving him the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor. Obama said those three words can now be etched into a granite monument to Etchberger's memory at Barksdale Air Force base in Louisiana.

"Even though it's been 42 years," Obama said at a ceremony with Etchberger's three sons, "it's never too late to do the right thing and it's never too late to pay tribute to our Vietnam veterans and their families."

Etchberger was part of a radar team that came under attack by North Vietnamese soldiers who had improbably scaled the heights to Lima Site 85, a radar installation helping to direct U.S. bombing of Hanoi. The mission was secret because the U.S. was not supposed to have troops in officially neutral Laos.

The 35-year-old radar technician from Hamburg, Pa., with no formal training in combat, acted on instinct. Using an M-16 and a radio to call in air strikes, he single-handedly held off the attackers until helicopters arrived at dawn.

He then braved enemy fire to help three wounded comrades into rescue slings.

After climbing into the chopper behind the others, Etchberger was fatally wounded when enemy fire struck the aircraft. The others in the helicopter made it to safety.

"Today," Obama told Etchberger's sons in the East Room ceremony, "your nation finally acknowledges and fully honors your father's bravery."

By: Shelldrake