I don't think Sheldon Cooper would like this train. No, he wouldn't like it at all.
Unless he was riding in it, as opposed to dwelling in its ICBM target:
[Red] Chinese developers this month tested a rail car-based launching system for a missile capable of hitting targets in the United States, a development that could make the system even more deadly, according to Potomac Foundation defense expert Philip Karber.
"If that missile train hosts the DF-41 ICBM it means it will also have a MIRV potential," Karber, whose organization recently identified one of the missile at a special launch site in Taiyuan, told the Washington Free Beacon.
"The combination of high-speed mobility, launch cars disguised as civilian passenger trains, tunnel protection and secure reloading of missiles, coupled with multiple warheads, makes the system extremely hard to regulate or verify the number of systems." [emphases added]
Sound familiar?
The test was monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies, the Free Beacon reports, although [Obam]agon spokesman Commander Bill Urban declined comment while stressing the [Obam]agon does "monitor Chi[Comm] military modernization carefully."
Which means they'd have gotten caught gob-smackingly flat-footed if they ever bothered to pay attention to such things. Which they don't.
But here's the punchline:
The Chi[Comm] dedicated missile rail and tunnel system could also avoid missiles having to fly over Alaska, where they could be shot down by U.S. anti-missile forces. [emphasis added]
When Vladimir Putin talks about the Russians working on, or already possessing, that capability, I'm pretty sure this is the kind of thing to which he's referring.
Aaaaaaaaand it goes without saying that we don't have any such capability ourselves.
Just another terrifying paen to "Smart Power" to start out your Christmas week.
No comments:
Post a Comment