Obama’s feel-good approach puts nuclear deterrent at risk
More worrisome, Mr. Obama has called for de-alerting all of our 450 Minuteman III missiles - taking their warheads off and putting them in storage. This would effectively eliminate this critically important leg of our nuclear Triad. It would make it useless in a crisis, as it would [...]

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KP: Is it really possible that nothing will be able to reach the U.S.?
Polezhaev: Let’s talk about the worst-case scenario — an unexpected nuclear attack by the U.S. Of course, this is theoretical. Let’s say the attack leads to the destruction of 90 percent of our silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). Our lightly sheltered Topol [...]

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Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Problems, commenting on Russia’s triad of strategic nuclear weapons, including ground-based missiles, submarines and bombers said, “We are really worried by what is happening. The mobile Topol-M missile systems are vulnerable to conventional strikes; their mobility is no longer a guarantee of concealment or [...]

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As recent reports make clear, Russia is now forcing its way back into the Middle East - and not necessarily in the most encouraging manner. By dangerously increasing its arms sales to the region, Moscow is seeking to restore prestige, bolster influence and - not least - to make money.
The latest example came with reports [...]

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The question is, should we be concerned about Sanya? The answer: Yes.
The naval base centres on a huge underground complex even the most sophisticated spy satellites cannot penetrate.
It is being prepared with berths for up to 20 of the most advanced Chinese submarines, the C94 Jin-class boat, which will be capable of firing both anti-satellite [...]

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The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold war nuclear submarines.
When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of [...]

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According to the reports, the talks will focus on arms sales - including submarines, anti-aircraft missiles, the latest model MiG fighter jets and advanced surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.
Israel is particularly concerned with a Syrian request for long-range S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could threaten IAF jets flying on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
The S-300 is [...]

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As America and its allies focus their diplomatic energy on the Middle East and Afghanistan, China continues to alter the balance of power in East Asia with little fanfare and even less resistance. Consider recent revelations that China has built a massive new naval base in Sanya, on Hainan Island. The strategically located base, which [...]

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Hong Kong, China — Over the past 20 years, China’s military investment has grown faster than any other country. The bamboo curtain that formerly enveloped the country has become a copper curtain.
Furthermore, China has become more difficult to negotiate with than even the former Soviet Union. The tactic of deceiving one’s opponent or competitor is [...]

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NEW DELHI: The absence of nuclear-powered submarines armed with nuclear-tipped missiles has come back to haunt the Indian defence establishment, even though plans are afoot to test the China-specific Agni-III missile within this week.
Though tabs were being kept on China’s underground nuclear submarine base on the southern tip of the Hainan Island in South China [...]

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The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has registered the reduction of combat duties of Russian submarines, while the duties of nuclear submarines became more frequent in such countries as the USA, the UK and France.
Today about 20 percent of Russian ballistic missiles (624 warheads in all) have naval deployment. By 2015 their number may increase [...]

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Experts attempting to understand the strategic aims behind China’s aggressive military expansion have generally focused on Taiwan. But a new naval base points at Beijing’s significant and growing interest in projecting power into waters far from the Taiwan Strait. China, in fact, is equipping itself to assert its longstanding and expansive territorial claims in the [...]

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The maritime arms race in Asia has crossed another threshold with the publication of satellite pictures of a massive Chinese underground submarine and warship base giving it a significant tactical advantage in the strategically important South China Sea.
The naval base has been constructed by tunnelling into the mountainous shoreline of China’s southern Hainan Island near [...]

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The number of deterrence patrols conducted by Russia’s 11 nuclear-powered ballistic missiles submarines (SSBNs) decreased to only three in 2007 from five in 2006, according to our latest Nuclear Notebook published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
In comparison, U.S. SSBNs conducted 54 patrols in 2007, more than three times as many as all the [...]

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High-resolution satellite imagery from Digital Globe has enabled Jane’s to confirm the construction of a major underground nuclear submarine base at Sanya, on Hainan Island off the southern coast of China.
Although Asian military sources first suggested the existence of the base to Jane’s in 2002, the satellite imagery has allowed independent verification for the [...]

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Anticipating a showdown with Iran, Israel decides secretly to deploy a submarine off its arch-foe’s coast.
But how? The quickest route from Israel’s Mediterranean coast is via the Suez Canal, which runs through Egypt and which the classified vessels shun. So the submarine is hidden in the belly of a commercial tanker, which delivers it [...]

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However, as respected defense analyst David Crane pointed out in an important article in Defense Review in November 2006, U.S. nuclear-powered super-carriers today don’t carry anything lie that armor. They rely on their own speed, the size of their protective support groups and their ability to stay far out in the ocean, launching their aircraft [...]

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Similarly, neither U.S. policymakers nor the American public realize the vulnerability of giant aircraft carriers to torpedo attacks from modern fast submarines was demonstrated in 1968 when a fast Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarine matched the USS Enterprise at top speed in the Pacific Ocean. That moment, vividly and thoroughly discussed in Patrick Tyler’s “Running Critical,” [...]

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Russia expects to sell at least three submarines to Venezuela in a deal to be inked when President Hugo Chavez visits next month, Russian news media reported Friday.
The Interfax news agency and the daily Kommersant cited unnamed military-industrial officials as saying that the subs would be diesel-electric models, of the Varshavyanka class.
“As of today, work [...]

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China’s growing wealth is good for the world, and there will come a time when the influence of the United States shrinks to the level of its share of the world population, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on Friday.
Asked at a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank in Miami whether he regarded China’s growing influence [...]

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The U.S. Navy is stepping up anti-submarine warfare programs following the surprise surfacing of an armed Chinese attack submarine within five miles of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier.
The September 2006 incident involved a Song-class submarine that surfaced undetected and was only spotted by an incoming F-18 jet.
Adm. Tim Keating, commander of U.S. forces [...]

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