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China Tests Nuclear ICBMs, US Analyst Warns "Arms Control Is Failing To Increase American Security"

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China carried out a long-range missile flight test on Saturday using multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, according to U.S. defense officials. As The Washington Free Beacon reports, the test of a new DF-41 missile, China’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile, marks the first test of multiple warhead capabilities for China (the DF-41 is capable of carrying up to 10 warheads and has a maximum range of 7,456 miles, allowing it to target the entire continental United States). Rick Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, warned "the beginning of China’s move toward multiple warhead-armed nuclear missiles is proof that today, arms control is failing to increase the security of Americans."

 

 

As The Washington Free Beacon reports,

China carried out a long-range missile flight test on Saturday using multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, according to U.S. defense officials.

 

The flight test Saturday of a new DF-41 missile, China’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile, marks the first test of multiple warhead capabilities for China, officials told the Washington Free Beacon.

 

China has been known to be developing multiple-warhead technology, which it obtained from the United States illegally in the 1990s.

 

However, the Dec. 13 DF-41 flight test, using an unknown number of inert maneuvering warheads, is being viewed by U.S. intelligence agencies as a significant advance for China’s strategic nuclear forces and part of a build-up that is likely to affect the strategic balance of forces.

 

China’s nuclear arsenal is estimated to include around 240 very large warheads. That number is expected to increase sharply as the Chinese deploy new multiple-warhead missiles.

 

The current deployed U.S. strategic warhead arsenal includes 1,642 warheads. All 450 Minuteman III missiles have been modified to no longer carry MIRVs. However, Trident II submarine-launched missiles can carry up to 14 MIRVs per missile.

 

Additionally, the development of China’s multiple warhead technology was assisted by illegal transfers of technology from U.S. companies during the Clinton administration, according to documents and officials familiar with the issue.

 

“The DF-41, which could be deployed as early as 2015, may carry up to 10 MIRVs, and have a maximum range as far as 7,456 miles, allowing it to target the entire continental United States,” the report said. “In addition, some sources claim China has modified the DF–5 and the DF–31A to be able to carry MIRVs.”

Analysts are sounding a warning...

Larry Wortzel, a former military intelligence official who specialized on China, said the Chinese military has been working on a MIRV-modified DF-41 for a number of years.

 

Wortzel said Chinese military research literature has documented work on the DF-41 but the Pentagon “has been reluctant to discuss or confirm these developments.”

 

“The United States is now threatened with a more deadly and survivable nuclear force that makes our weak ballistic missile defenses less effective,” Wortzel said. “We need to improve our own defenses and modernize our own deterrent force as the Chinese are doing.”

 

Rick Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military, said the advent of China’s MIRV capability should mark the end of U.S. efforts to reduce the number of nuclear warheads.

 

“The Chinese have not and likely will not disclose their nuclear warhead buildup plans, Russia is modernizing its nuclear forces across the board and violating the INF treaty with new classes of missiles, so it would be suicidal for the Washington to pursue a new round of nuclear reductions as is this administration’s preference.”

 

Fisher, with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said China may deploy a combination of single-warhead and multiple warhead DF-41s, with the single warhead version carrying a huge “city buster” multi-megaton bombs.

 

“The beginning of China’s move toward multiple warhead-armed nuclear missiles is proof that today, arms control is failing to increase the security of Americans,” Fisher said. “Instead, it is time to be rebuilding U.S. nuclear warfighting capabilities, to include new mobile ICBMs, new medium range missiles and new tactical nuclear missile systems.”

 

Georgetown University Professor Phillip Karber has studied China’s nuclear forces and believes its arsenal is far larger than the U.S. intelligence estimate of 240.

 

“The Chinese development of the DF-41 has been a long term, methodical process,” Karber said. “However, if as we suspect they are going to put a MIRVed version of the missile on both rail and road-mobile launchers, the number of reentry vehicles could grow quite rapidly depending on the number of warheads they end up putting on the missiles.”

 

The DF-41 was revealed inadvertently by the Chinese government last summer when details, including the fact that it will be a multi-warhead missile, appeared on a provincial government website before being quickly censored and removed.

And even the US government is making public statements:

After several years of silence on the DF-41, the Pentagon disclosed the existence of the new missile in its latest annual report on the Chinese military, made public in June.

 

“China also is developing a new road-mobile ICBM known as the Dong Feng-41 (DF-41), possibly capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV),” the report says.

*  *  *

Between Russia and China, it seems 'isolation' is building.

 

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Sun, 12/21/2014 - 09:16 | 5577729 DonGenaro
DonGenaro's picture

they'll nuke DC 1st, right ?

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 16:45 | 5578861 Arnold
Arnold's picture

Tang cuidado jefe, queramos ellos gente en este lugar para ahora.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 09:28 | 5577741 Sandmann
Sandmann's picture

Americans are immune to radiation and nuclear blast. No tests have ever been conducted on US civilians which proves that they are able to survive any Chinese or Russian nuclear attack

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 10:10 | 5577793 Manipuflation
Manipuflation's picture

I am a big pro Second Amendment supporter.  I have enough guns and ammo to arm 30 people.  The thought behind the Second Amendement was defense an not the annihiliation of women and children and elderly.  What the fuck are you going to do with a nuke besides that?  Now you are being an asshole because you made the whle landscape radioactive for ten thousand years.  What good does that do you?  I am glad we recycling our warhead into power generating plants.  It really go out of control there through the 70's and into the 80's.  There is no reason do this again and there is no reason to spend the money on.  Capital missallocation if I ever saw it.

I do not want to play this game again.  Strategically speaking, China is fucked.  They have to know this.  Those densely packed cities they have?  Really?  You are fucked China.  They would fuck there own market up as though it isn't already.   

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 10:56 | 5577877 Max Steel
Max Steel's picture

What ya smokin' ?

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 13:46 | 5578269 Manipuflation
Manipuflation's picture

Alright you fucking moron.  A good friend of ours went in to labor last night and the child was stillborn.  Does that put things into perspective for you?

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 10:14 | 5577797 grunk
grunk's picture

Is that a nuclear-tipped missile or are you just happy to see me?

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 10:34 | 5577828 highwaytoserfdom
highwaytoserfdom's picture

Rodman

Rumsfeld

 

vote who is sane... HOBSON CHOICE LIKE ELECTIONS

 

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/rumsfeld-was-on-abb-board-during-deal-with-n...

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:04 | 5577867 homebody
homebody's picture

Our enemies will not be deterred until this superior nation (USA) is on its knees.  Do not believe that we will be safe if we just give up our weapons and assume a posture of peace.  Alas Babylon

 

Tribal warfare is and always will be part of our nature.  What makes you think that we can be isolated and different from the senseless violence that occurs every day - we call it madness but its part of being human.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:51 | 5577980 Boubou
Boubou's picture

A truly regrettable truth Homey. I felt a lot better before I came to that same conclusion.We have little to be proud of as we decimate all other species and prepare to eradicate our own.

On the cosmic scale, I doubt we will be missed.

As far as tribal goes, I think US exceeds all other past contenders now when it comes to world domination and bloodthirstiness, the modern methods notwithstanding,  We seem to have turned our back utterly on those qualities which said we exemplified and tried to proselytize. 

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:02 | 5577884 Boubou
Boubou's picture

US full spectrum dominatiom is complete.

Experience shows only nuclear nations can be free from bullying, domination and extermination.. Even then it's not guaranteed. Ask the occupied nations of  Europe and Japan.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:15 | 5577908 Atticus Finch
Atticus Finch's picture

" arms control is failing to increase the security of Americans."...

It's not arms control that is failing American security. It's the maddening doctrine that the US has for destabilizing sovereign societies around the world that is failing American security.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:24 | 5577932 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

It's time to talk about Libertarian Realism.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:33 | 5577945 123dobryden
123dobryden's picture

its not china, china is a country, means its the land, the sky and the people there together.

 

the test was carried out by chineese GOVERNMENT

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:43 | 5577962 Atticus Finch
Atticus Finch's picture

" the potential damage of an all-out exchange of nuclear weapons..." Goodbye Northern hemispere and maybe everything south of the Equator

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:42 | 5577963 Atticus Finch
Atticus Finch's picture

" the potential damage of an all-out exchange of nuclear weapons..." Goodbye Northern hemispere and maybe everything south of the Equator

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 11:45 | 5577969 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

The Free Beacon is a neocon/ziocon militarist rag.  The editor in chief is a puppet of Israel Firster, windbag, and foreign policy amateur Bill Kristol, and married to his daughter, who is a rather fetching lass, and may very well give birth to the anti-Christ one day.

IOW - it is not to be taken seriously.  And it is a shame to see their propaganda, whether Ziofascist or Taiwanese, sullying these pages.

 

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/washington_free_beacon

 

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 12:02 | 5578002 moneybots
moneybots's picture

International Assessment and Strategy Center, warned "the beginning of China’s move toward multiple warhead-armed nuclear missiles is proof that today, arms control is failing to increase the security of Americans."

 

That isn't what is failing to increase the security of Americans.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 12:14 | 5578035 Caleb Abell
Caleb Abell's picture

“"The beginning of China’s move toward multiple warhead-armed nuclear missiles is proof that today, arms control is failing to increase the security of Americans,” Fisher said.”

 

Or perhaps warmongering against any foreign country the US can't loot has something to do with it.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 12:50 | 5578134 roadhazard
roadhazard's picture

Chinese crowd control?

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 13:07 | 5578177 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

And you're worried about the Chinese?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/ufos-at-nuclear-missile-site-ey...

There you go...Aliens.

YOU CAN'T TRUST ALIENS.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 13:50 | 5578272 bid the soldier...
bid the soldiers shoot's picture

Who is America's own worst enemy?

U.S. Approves Sale of Ships to Taiwan China Says Move Is Damaging to Its Security Interests

 

ENLARGBy 
ARIES POON

Dec. 19, 2014 4:49 a.m. ET
 TAIPEI—The U.S. approved the sale to Taiwan of four used warships, drawing a swift rebuke from China, which called the move damaging to Chinese security interests.

A White House statement said President Barack Obama signed into law on Thursday the legislation authorizing the sale of the Oliver Hazard Perry class guided-missile frigates.

The authorization was long expected, with the bill having slowly progressed through Congress this year, and Taipei has already said tight defense budgets mean it will only buy two of the vessels, instead of all four. The ships won’t alter the military balance, which is tilted in Beijing’s favor, according to Taiwan lawmakers and military experts.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-approves-sale-of-ships-to-taiwan-1418982...

"Tit for tats on the left of them.  Tit for tats on the right of them.

Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred."

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 14:01 | 5578318 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

Rest assured, if a nuclear weapon goes off in the United States, it shall be much more likely to have been the work of the US and/or Israeli governments, and immediately blamed on Iran, or Russia, or both.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 14:49 | 5578487 Counterpunch
Counterpunch's picture

Chinese manufacturing is garbage because they are given orders to build garbage, for the most part, but they're also new to the game.


But their recent electronics [cell phones, computers] and fighter jets are fantastic.  In some ways they've really improved on the US tech they've stolen.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 20:56 | 5579634 Grimaldus
Grimaldus's picture

Well no to the fantastic jet fighters, arrogant Chinese assholes still cannot manufacture fighter jet engines without major issues.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/articles/20140916.aspx

China is good in killing their own citizens. They kinda hold the record for the most citizens killed. Maybe Stalin beat them but not by much.One totalitarian murdering dictatorship after another for thousands of years now.

Do not look for anything else but death of millions from the belligerent and arrogant Chinese bastards----- as history proves.

Grimaldus

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 19:29 | 5579296 'argar the 'orrible
'argar the 'orrible's picture

10 warheads eh!, the question is, which Ameracan cities are going to be sacrificed by the millitary, you can't shoot them all down you know, stands to reason.

Have a good thunk about it. Where do you live, any millitary bases nearby. Time to think about moving i'd say.

have a nice day.

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 19:51 | 5579385 'argar the 'orrible
'argar the 'orrible's picture

counterpunch

Time for an history lesson. Whom do you think invented gunpowder, no, not the usa, china, in about 800.

So, go from there. You probably think the nsa is hunting for thosa nasty t%%ist% don't you, their not. Its the millitary secrets of other nations and some industrial espionage going on. Oh they do get some 'nastys' that do silly things like, post on facetwitter etc but in the main its other secrets they want. I'll leave the rest to you to figure out.

 

Sun, 12/21/2014 - 20:46 | 5579605 Grimaldus
Grimaldus's picture

But wait....um.....obombya says the world will disarm and have no nukes and we will all just dance around the choomwagon singing kum-by-ya! Is this not true?

/sarc

Grimaldus

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