China marches on to military might

If you want a sobering read try the Pentagon's latest report on China's military power.There are numerous paragraphs in the report to remind everyone that China is making huge progress towards turning itself into a military superpower. Beijing under President Xi Zinping, the same man now facing thousands of protesters demanding he resign over his zero Covid policy, has two dates in mind: 2027 to have a fully integrated combat force capable of taking on anyone and beating them (including the US), and 2049 when Xi wants China to be the dominating nation in the world. He calls it a rejuvinated China. We call it a threatening China. One little paragraph states that China last year test-fired more ballistic missiles than the rest of the world combined. That suggests a serious intent. Xi also wants to boost China's arsenal of nuclear warheads to 1,500 over the next few years. Ok, still way below the stocks held by the US and Russia, but this is 1,500 and rising, while Washington and Moscow, in between shouting at each other, are actually keen to reduce theirs, though how long that will last who knows. The annual Pentagon report on China follows a similar pattern. The Pentagon says China poses a major threat to international security and quotes a bunch of statistics to prove the point. Then Beijing answers back and basically says the Pentagon is being unkind, untruthful and hostile. This is the way diplomacy works between the US and China.

America's new super-stealth bomber to be unveiled

For years the US company building a new-generation strategic stealth bomber in total secrecy has given subtle hints at what it will look like, with artist's impressions of an exotic flying wing. Now the B-21 Raider which will form the backbone of America's airborne nuclear force in the future is to be unveiled to the world on Friday. The official roll-out of the US Air Force B-21 will take place at Palmdale, California where Northrop Grumman, the selected company to design the futuristic bomber, has been developing the classified programme. Although the flying-wing shape will be similar to the B-2 Spirit bomber built more than 30 years ago, the Raider will be smaller and more finely designed, making it far more difficult to spot by enemy radar. If the revolutionary B-2 was super-stealthy in design, the B-21 is expected to be barely visible in combat operations. Much of the focus during the design stages was on survivability. With America's potential adversaries developing and deploying new sophisticated air-defence systems the B-21 Raider will need to be capable of penetrating the toughest defences without being targeted. Like the B-2 which has been used in nearly every conflict in the last 30 years, including Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, the B-21 will be capable of carrying both precision-guided conventional and nuclear bomb payloads. With 100 B-21s planned at a cost of $550 million each (at 2010 prices), it will eventually replace the B-2 and the older B-1 bombers. The B-1 is no longer nuclear-capable. However, the B-21 will not be replacing one of America's oldest aircraft, the B-52H Stratofortress bomber which has been given numerous engine and avionics updates to ensure it stays operational far into the future. Although both Russia and China are building exotic weapon systems and next-generation strategic bombers, the B-21 will be the most advanced military aircraft ever built. "With the capability to hold targets at risk anywhere in the world, this weapon system is critical to our national security," Doug Young, vice president of Northrop Grumman's strike division, said at an air, space and cyber conference. It will also be cheaper than the B-2. The plan from the start of the programme was to design a new bomber at a unit cost of no more than $550 million. Northrop Grumman is confident it has met that target although at today's prices it is likely each aircraft will cost around $639 million. The B-2 was more than $1 billion. Costs were reduced by the use of the most advanced digital tools to design the bomber. Northrop Grumman also built the B-2 in the 1980s and the lessons learned from that bomber's revolutionary design played a key role in creating the new-style flying wing which will emerge from its previously secret hanger at the Palmdale facility. The giant US defence company won the contract for a new long-range strike bomber in 2015. It was designated the Raider in honour of the Doolittle Raiders of the second world war. On April 18, 1942, 80 airmen and 16 B-25 Mitchell aircraft flew the first raid on Tokyo after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The raid was planned and led by Lieutenant-Colonel James "Jimmy" Doolittle of US army air forces.

Should the West capitalise on China's protest problems?

Whenever any sort of uprising occurs in a country which is not allied to or friendly with the United States the government of that country will often acuse the Americans and the West of being behind the demostrations, stirring it up for ideological and hostile reasons. Tehran always tries to blame the US for anything going wrong in Iran. Like now for example, with young women and others protesting across the country over the killing of a woman in prison who had refused to wear the hijab in public. I sincerely doubt the CIA or any other US organisation is playing any role in the demonstrations. The young people of Iran have enough fire in their bellies to protest by themselves without any foreign backing. The same can be said about the spreading protests in China over President Xi Zinping's zero-Covid policy and the nationwide lockdowns that have shut Chinese people inside their homes for weeks. The angry Chinese demonstrators are brave enough to carry out the protests and demand Xi's resignation and the end of communist rule and don't need or want outside help. But with China facing demonstrations on a scale not seen since Tiananman Square in 1989, should the Biden administration make a conscious effort to highlight the repression that's going on in China and try to exploit the challenges now facing the Chinese president-for-life? It's a tricky one. Diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing are fragile at best and an overt policy of backing the protesters would hardly improve matters. In my view, Biden should refrain from gloating publicly about Beijing's problems but focus any criticism on the harsh methods being used by the Chinese security authorities to clamp down on the demonstrators. We saw how protesters were attacked and abused during the riots in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020. This sort of over-the-top police suppression needs to be highlighted. It will anger Xi no doubt but he is facing humiliation at the hands of the thousands of protesters and he needs to be held to account on the world stage.

Is Xi Zinping's dream of superpower status at risk with the Covid protests?

It seems extraordinary that Covid-19 started in China (in December 2019)- no one disputes that except Beijing - and yet here we are nearly three years later and the country is still suffering from a rising number of cases. Unlike other countries where Covid is also still a problem, Beijing, or more particularly President Xi Zinping, is behaving like he did when the first outbreak began in Chinese cities, ordering total lockdowns. Most scientists would say that now after the long pandemic the world has to get used to having Covid around in some form and to treat it like annual flu. Very few people in the UK bother to wear masks anymore, even on packed Underground trains. But Xi is a leader who wants total control over people's lives and so he has ordered towns and cities where Covid is rampant to close their doors and not emerge until he says so. When that edict led to people losing their lives in an apartment block fire, protests erupted and are still erupting. Those with more bravery than most Chinese people are calling for Xi to resign. He won't of course, he is the president for life. But I wonder if there are members of the Communist party Central Committee who might be worried that if millions of Chinese people start to demonstrate against the Covid restrictions, it could prove fatal for the Beijing leadership. It's the one area where Xi is vulnerable. Social unrest could undermine his grand vision for China to become a military and economic superpower. He is so hell-bent on this dream that he won't allow China's population to spoil his plans. But if the protests get worse he could face another Tiananmen Square disaster of 1989 when hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese people were killed by the security authorities who used tanks to quell unarmed protesters. That could just finish off Xi, and his dream of leading a superpower to rival the US.

How can the West stop the Russian missile strikes?

Suddenly, just arming the Ukrainians to fight and defend against the Russians doesn't seem enough. Whatever the Ukrainian military can do to shoot down some of the missiles, rockets and artillery shells pouring onto the country from a long way off, they keep on coming. The Ministry of Defence in London says Moscow is running out of missiles but tell that to the Ukrainian people. They have noticed no let-up in the constant strikes that are destroying their homes, power stations, water plants and railways. Nato, especially the US, has supplied billions of dollars worth of equipment from air-defence systems to winter clothing to help the Kyiv government confront Putin's invasion force but the missile and artillery assaults are never-ending. Can the West do more to stop this destruction? I know that Biden and co are desperately worried about doing anything that might cause a full-scale war between Russian and Nato because of the risk of it going nuclear. But Putin, as I wrote yesterday, is intent on destroying Ukraine's total infrastructure. And he will keep going until Ukraine begs for mercy. Whatever the MoD says in London about Moscow running out of stocks, Russia must have enough to terrorise Ukraine throughout the winter. So should Nato finally, at last, intervene and if it does, what could the alliance do to stop Putin's attempted annihilation of a country and its people? I believe the answer lies in helping Ukraine to carry out a series of spectacular attacks against the Russians which will so shock Putin that he will be forced by his own people to end the war. The US should provide all the intelligence and much longer-range missiles and artillery for Ukraine to go on the offensive with strikes on every military site in Crimea and destroy Russia's ability to wage war from Crimea. At the same time, the same intelligence and weapons should be provided for Ukraine to destroy every warship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet hiding in port at Sevastopol. That might make Putin halt in his tracks. There would be huge risks but the destruction of Ukraine by a vengeful Russian leader can no longer be allowed to continue.

Putin's new objective: the destruction of Ukraine

I suspect Vladimir Putin has given up on defeating Ukraine with troops and tanks. They have failed abysmally. So now he is just concentrating on firing artillery shells and missiles every day at civilian infrastucture to obliterate the country. That is his sole objective now, to punish Ukraine and in particular the Kyiv govenment, for daring to fight back and not surrender to the mighty Russian army. It almost doesn't matter whether the Ukrainian military liberates towns and cities because the Russians will continue bombing and shelling the cities they have abandoned until there is nothing left. Russian combat troops don't have a role anymore in this war of attrition. It's now all about long-range cruise missiles and artillery. Kherson was liberated and Ukraine rejoiced. Indeed, the western world rejoiced. But Putin's answer, once he had got the surviving Russian forces out of Kherson and into relative safety on the other side of the Dnipro river, was to order mass shelling and missile strikes in revenge. Kherson is being blasted into a scraheap. All the residents are being advised to leave. So much for liberation. Putin is no fool and he doesn't care about the Ukrainian civilians. He wants revenge for his army's failures and the easiest way is to annihilate Ukraine's towns and cities, and that is what he is doing. He once said he didn't want to destroy Ukraine but now he does.

Who will be the first to take on Trump?

As Donald Trump's fortunes continue to wane, the big question now is: which Republican is going to be brave enough to throw his or her hat in the ring and announce a campaign for the White House? There are lots of names around but no one has yet come forward to take on Trump following his formal announcement soon after the midterm elections were over that he is standing again. Until now the impression given within the Republican party was that Trump was a leader to be feared and that anyone confronting him for the White House race would be obliterated. There is no qustion that Trump is a formidable politician and although I have never met him or even stood in the same room as Trump I can well imagine that he is pretty scary. He has the look and self-assurance of the biggest bully in the playground. But now things are changing. Quite dramatically. Trump is no longer seen or feared as the rampaging winner. He has suffered so many losses in recent weeks and is facing so many legal challenges over the next few months - the declaration by the Supreme Court that his tax returns must be handed over to Congress being the latest setback - that he looks more like a wounded buffalo surrounded by predators than the king of the jungle. His rivals in the Republican party have yet to come out formally but all of them have been hinting about the way things are going and, most importantly, emphasising that the Republican party needs new leadership for the 2024 battle. In other words, step down, Trump, and let younger people take over. Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley have all been voicing their opinions recently and none of them are saying: "Hey let's support Trump". And of course there's Ron DeSantis, the new darling of the Republican party after his huge victory in the Florida governor election. He hasn't yet been calling for a new generation to take over the Republican leadership but he boasted that his success in Florida was just the start of something ever greater! So who will be the first to declare? I suspect we will have to wait. The principal candidates will bide their time, make carefully worded speeches and then when the time is right, probably when Trump has another major setback, they will all move in for the kill.