China's Military Nearly Impenetrable

[unhappycamper]

China's Military Nearly Impenetrable
Associated Press | September 29, 2007


KADENA AIR BASE, Japan - While the U.S. has been tied up in Iraq, China is modernizing its military and its air defenses are now nearly impenetrable to all but the newest of American fighters, the senior U.S. military official in Japan said.

Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, commander of the roughly 50,000 U.S. forces in Japan, Washington's biggest ally in Asia, said in an interview with The Associated Press this week that the Iraq war is reducing the availability of U.S. troops and equipment to meet other contingencies.

~snip~

China, meanwhile, is rapidly filling the skies with newer, Russian-made Sukhoi Su-27 "Flankers" and Su-30s, along with the domestically built J-10, a state-of-the-art fighter that Beijing just rolled out in January.

~snip~

Doing so would require the F-22 or the Joint Strike Fighter, which both have stealth capabilities. The Air Force sent a dozen F-22s to Japan earlier this year, but only for a temporary deployment. It has no plans to bring more here permanently.

The Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35, is not yet combat-ready.

"Our planes are much older than the planes they would be matched against," Wright said. "For the first time in history, we are seeing another nation, in this case China, with newer fighters than we have. We know that they continue to invest at a level that is unprecedented. We need to be watchful of Chinese military capabilities."


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,150877,00.html



uhc comment: We better get those F-22s and F-35s out there or we are doomed! Doomed, I tells ya.

[bullimiami]

1. we spend 10-15 times what china does on defense every year

our defense increases every year are bigger than chinas entire budget.

so wtf are we getting for our money? waste, pocket lining, crony billionaires.
just like everything in our crony capitalist economy, we spend much more and get much less for it.

[Flatulo]

3. Americans earn 10-15X as much as their Chinese counterparts. nt

[Flatulo]

2. Hopefully their military hardware is of the same quality as everything else they make. nt