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Lybach Nguyen
2 yr. ago
AAP
Australia 'gullible' over US commitment: Bob Carr

Story by Dominic Giannini • 18-5-2023

Former foreign minister Bob Carr says Australia was gullible about the relationship with the United States after Joe Biden pulled out of a major trip down under.

The US president pulled out of the Quad leaders' meeting - which was due to be held in Sydney next week - to handle negotiations with Congress over the debt ceiling, which needs to be resolved by the end of the month to avoid a catastrophic default.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese subsequently cancelled the meeting, which also included the Japanese and Indian leaders, on Wednesday after receiving a call from Mr Biden.

Bob Carr said Australians shouldn't believe the Quad "is as significant a forum as some suggest".

"We Australians have been enormously gullible and optimistic about our American partner," the former foreign minister and NSW premier told Sky News.

"We've got to start to factor into our view of the future in this world the prospect that America could be more unpredictable and unreliable.

"The fact the president can cancel the attendance and the meeting can apparently not proceed is a warning about the limits of America's attention span and one that Australia ought to take seriously."

The foreign minister's office said it didn't agree with the comments.

"President Biden is a great friend of Australia. We appreciate that friendship and the role the US plays in the region and in the world," a spokesman for the minister said.

The Indian prime minister will still travel to Australia for a bilateral meeting. The four leaders are planning to meet on the sidelines of the G7 in Japan this weekend.

Mr Albanese said it was disappointing Mr Biden couldn't visit but he was still invited to in the future. The president was set to address parliament on Tuesday.

"The Quad is an important body and we want to make sure that it occurs at leadership level and we'll be having that discussion over the weekend," the prime minister said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said the shake-up was disappointing but understandable.

"I hope the United States can give real priority to rescheduling that visit and ensuring that that engagement with the Pacific Island leaders happens as soon as possible," he said.
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
ABC News
Vietnam government furious about release of Australian commemorative war coins

11.49am - 6-5-2023

Vietnam's communist government has demanded Australia cease issuing commemorative coins that, it says, show the flag of the toppled US-backed South Vietnam, a claim Canberra has denied.

In April, the Royal Australian Mint issued 85,000 sets of gold and silver $2 coins to mark the 50th anniversary of Australian troops withdrawing from southern Vietnam.

South Vietnam's yellow and red flag was banned by the Vietnamese government.

"We regret and strongly protest the Royal Australian Mint and Australia Post for issuing items with the image of the yellow flag — the flag of a regime that no longer exists," Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy spokeswoman Pham Thu Hang said in a statement on the government's official Facebook page on Thursday.

She said that Vietnam has discussed the matter with the Australian government and requested a halt to the coins' circulation.

Australia and Vietnam flagged an intention to elevate their bilateral relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership during National Assembly chairman Vuong Dinh Hue's visit to Canberra last November.

"This is completely inconsistent with the good development trend [of those efforts]," the spokeswoman said.

The Royal Australian Mint defended the coins on Friday.

"The design of the coin reflects the colours of the ribbons of the service medals awarded to Australians who served in Vietnam, including the Vietnam Service medal, introduced in 1968," the mint said in a statement to AFP.

"The Australian Government does not recognise the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam."

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) spokesperson told the ABC the commemorative coin and stamp were intended to honour Australians who served in Vietnam.

"The design of the coin and stamp reflects the colours of the ribbons of the service medals awarded to these personnel, including the Vietnam Service medal, introduced in 1968, "A DFAT spokesperson said in a statement.

"The Australian Government does not recognise the 'yellow flag'," It added.

More than 60,000 Australian soldiers served in the Vietnam War, 523 died and almost 2,400 were wounded, according to Australia's war memorial website.

It was Australia's longest involvement in a war during the 20th century and the engagement became deeply unpopular, with thousands marching against Australia's role in the early 1970s.

Australian troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, two years before the Communists from the north stormed Saigon and declared victory on April 30, 1975.

AFP

The coins mark the 50th anniversary of Australian troops withdrawing from southern Vietnam.(Supplied: The Perth Mint)

The bodies of Private Peter Gillson and Lance Corporal Richard Parker, killed in the Vietnam War, arrive in Darwin.(ABC TV: File)
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Reuters
China's aircraft carriers play 'theatrical' role but pose little threat yet

Story by By Greg Torode, Eduardo Baptista and Tim Kelly • 3h ago - 5-5-2023

By Greg Torode, Eduardo Baptista and Tim Kelly

FROM SKI JUMPS TO CATAPULTS

As the Liaoning and Shandong gradually increase the tempo of their drills, China is preparing for sea trials of its next-generation carrier, the 80,000-tonne Fujian, state media reported last month. The Fujian is significantly larger, though conventionally powered, and will launch aircraft from electromagnetic catapults.

The ship, which the Pentagon report said could be operational by 2024, is expected to carry new variants of the J-15 jet fighter, replacing the existing model that foreign analysts consider underpowered.

"The Fujian, with its more modern capabilities, will be just another test bed for a good few years," said Collin Koh, a defence scholar at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

"It won't be until we see the next generation of carriers that the Chinese designs and the PLAN's intentions will really settle down."

The carrier program reflects the ruling Communist Party's aim of making the People's Liberation Army (PLA) a "world class" military by 2049, part of President Xi Jinping's vision of building "a great modern socialist country".

One indication of China's ambitions, the attaches said, will be if carriers built after the Fujian are nuclear-powered like U.S. ones, allowing global range.

A study published in December by the non-partisan U.S. Congressional Research Service noted that China would use its carriers to project power "particularly in scenarios that do not involve opposing U.S. forces" and "to impress or intimidate foreign observers".

Several countries operate aircraft carriers but the U.S. remains the most dominant, running 11 carrier battlegroups with global reach.

China, by contrast, could use its carriers primarily in the Asian theatre, working in tandem with submarines and anti-ship missiles to attempt to control its near seas.

The Shandong's appearance off Taiwan's east coast to stage mock strikes last month surprised some analysts, given the island's proximity to land-based airfields. But, in the short term at least, China's military would struggle to defend the carrier out in the western Pacific in a clash with U.S. and allied forces.

"China's objective with the deployment of the Shandong is clear, it is a symbol of its political anger" over U.S. engagement with Taiwan, said Yoji Koda, a retired admiral who commanded the Japanese fleet.

In a battle, he said, it "would be a very good target for U.S. and Japanese forces, and they would take it down at the very beginning."

A U.S. defence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk publicly, said while China had made progress with its carriers, it had yet to master operations in difficult conditions or how to protect the vessels.

One question was how the ships would be relevant in a conflict, the official said.
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Daily Mail
China's Xi Jinping is accused of betraying Putin by Russian state TV

8:52 pm - 3-5-2023

China's Xi Jinping is accused of betraying Putin by Russian state TV

Vladimir Putin has been betrayed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, according to the Russian dictator's closest popular supporters. Xi's telephone talks and engagement with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in recent days have outraged Putin's biggest cheerleaders. Last week, Xi called Zelensky for the first time since the Russian invasion for an hourlong call that the Ukrainian president described as 'long and meaningful.'

Zelensky has since named an ambassador to Beijing, and China will send the envoy for European affairs to Kyiv. But the move has rattled spectators in Russia. War analyst Sergei Mardan (pictured) said on SolovyevLive that Xi's visit to Moscow last month had undermined the Kremlin. 'What are we supposed to think?' he
said. 'Are we friends or what?!'

Mardan said on his show '[we had] joy and confidence in believing that Xi Jinping saw Zelensky as a puppet, definitely will not call him...' 'And then boom – this,' he told viewers. China has supported Russia by buying its energy, when to its advantage, in spite of western sanctions throughout the war. Exporting to large buyers like China has also helped soften Russia's recession, with fiscal revenues increasing overall. Exports from Russia to China increased 43% year-on-year in 2022. But China has avoided directly sending munitions to Russia – much to the ire of onlookers backing Putin's campaign.

In recent months China has pushed to lead negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to de-escalate the violence that has claimed the lives of more than 350,000. Russia has not openly opposed this. In February, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the proposals should be 'analyzed in detail,' though Russia did not see a way out of the war just yet. But the call between Xi and Zelensky was a bridge too far for Putin supporters. 'How do we take this call? Why did he call our enemy? Comrade Xi Jinping, why did you come to Moscow? And spend three days here, interrupting Putin's work? So as a result of his three-day stay in Moscow, he goes back to his Beijing, spends a week talking to his advisors – and then decides to call Zelensky.'

The slap down for Xi comes as Putin's supporters also feel aggrieved that their close Chinese ally has not sent advanced weapons and drones to help Russia's beleaguered war effort. As early as March last year, U.S. officials reported that Russia was seeking military equipment to help bolster its sluggish invasion of Ukraine. China denied the claim that Russia had asked for equipment after running out of weapons during its initial invasion. The SolovyevLive channel is led by Vladimir Solovyov, Putin's favorite state TV propagandist. Mardan (pictured) is a military analyst for pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Reuters
Australia to prioritise long-range strike capability in defence shakeup

Story by Reuters • 1h ago - 24-4-2023

By Kirsty Needham

CANBERRA (Reuters) -Australia's government will prioritise long-range precision strike, domestic production of guided weapons, and diplomacy - key points of a review released Monday recommending the country's biggest defence shakeup since World War Two.

The review said that the United States was no longer the "unipolar leader of the Indo Pacific", intense competition between the U.S. and China was defining the region, and that the major power competition had "potential for conflict".

The country's northern bases will become a focus to deter adversaries, and protect trade routes and communications, the review said.

China is undertaking its largest buildup since World War Two, and is engaged in strategic competition in Australia's near neighbourhood, it said.

A public version of the classified report released on Monday said Australia must "avoid the highest level of strategic risk we now face as a nation: the prospect of major conflict in the region".

The military threat to Australia does not require invasion in the "missile age", it said.

Australia would work more closely with the United States, including increased bilateral military planning and hosting more rotations of U.S. forces, including submarines, it said.

Australia must also strengthen engagement with Pacific and South East Asian nations, the review said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the review's findings "will strengthen our national security and ensure our readiness for future challenges".

Defence funding will increase over the next decade, but will stay steady over the next four years at A$19 billion, with A$7.8 billion diverted from cancelled projects.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Praveen Menon and Gerry doyle)

FILE PHOTO: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in San Diego
© Thomson Reuters
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Reuters
South Korea says summit with Biden to give significant attention to North Korea rights

Story by Reuters • 10h ago - 22-4-2023

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -South Korea's Washington ambassador Cho Hyun-dong said on Friday he was sure North Korean human rights would be given significant attention in summit talks between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden next week.

In a virtual address to the same event at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said the "dire" rights situation in North Korea must not be forgotten and the world should work together to address it.

South Korean President Yoon is to meet with Biden on Wednesday during a weeklong state visit to the United States.

Yoon has sought to turn the spotlight on North Korean rights following a failed policy of engagement with Pyongyang pursued by his predecessor Moon Jae-in. He said last month the international community should have better knowledge about the situation.

"We should never allow ourselves to forget the suffering of the North Korean people," Park said. "For only by remembering and recounting the dire human rights situation on the ground can we bring about change."

South Korea's Washington envoy Cho Hyun-dong said that with Yoon's state visit just around the corner, he was "sure that our two presidents' discussion will afford significant attention to the critical issue of North Korea and human rights."

U.N. human rights investigator Tomas Ojea-Quintana said last month that the world powers bear responsibility for ignoring crimes against humanity that may still be perpetrated in North Korea amid a focus on its nuclear program.

He said he had received information confirming the findings of a landmark 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry on extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, rape, forced abortion, sexual violence, political persecution and "the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation" in the isolated country.

Ojea-Quintana said the U.N. Security Council should refer grave North Korean violations to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Reuters
Analysis-Australia prepares more assertive military stance to deter conflict

Story by By Kirsty Needham • Yesterday 7:04 pm - 21-4-2023

By Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia will outline its defence plans next week, and its leaders are previewing a more assertive posture - in which it can strike farther, faster - while working with mid-size allies to reduce tensions as the United States and China square off.

The Labor government of Anthony Albanese is expected to lay out those proposals in response to a wide-ranging and secret defence review of Australia's investment in modern military systems and logistics, and how they would fare in a sudden conflict.

The review examined how Australia could better integrate with its AUKUS partners the United States and Britain, as well as other allies, the government has said. The AUKUS countries last month announced Australia would spend A$368 billion on nuclear-powered submarines, and will jointly develop hypersonic weapons to catch up to China.

British and U.S. nuclear submarines will also start rotations through a Western Australian naval base in advance of the joint production of the AUKUS nuclear submarine in the next decade.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell have said in recent days that Australian forces need to be capable of responding to potential adversaries whose weapons are faster, can strike farther and are more precise than in the past.

Changing that equation is crucial to the future of Australia's military, they said.

In an address to the National Press Club on Monday, Wong said the region should not be reduced to a binary competition between the United States and China; Australia wanted to work with other middle-sized countries, including in Southeast Asia, to deter aggression, she said.

"America is central to balancing a multipolar region... We cannot just leave it to the U.S.," she said.

Since 2017, after Australia's top trading partner, China, began militarising islands in the South China Sea along vital trade routes, and the Trump presidency called into question the United States commitment to U.S. international engagement, Australia's foreign policy has focused on building a mesh of middle-sized democracies to balance China's rise.

It revived the Quad of Japan, India and the United States, which will in August hold its Malabar naval exercise off the Western Australia coast for the first time. Australia's largest joint land military exercise will be held in July involving 30,000 troops from 11 nations, with Philippines, Singapore and Thailand observing.

Campbell said Australia's defence forces would enhance how they could operate alongside partners, but has ruled out foreign bases on its soil and will always retain control of its forces. The military will focus not just on territorial defence but national interests, including trade routes and submarine cables that connect the island to international telecommunications.

Wong said Australia must avert war, and would not speculate on Taiwan, other than to say a conflict would be "catastrophic for all".

The most important new assumption in the review is that Australia could come under attack with no warning from Chinese missiles and that Chinese ships will operate far from their home shores, said Michael Green, chief executive of the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham. Editing by Gerry
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Sydney Morning Herald
Australia’s no longer a small player in global politics, so we must be ready for hard choices

Story by George Brandis • 3h ago - 17-4-2023

Next month, Anthony Albanese welcomes the President of the United States Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida for the first leaders-level meeting of the Quad hosted by Australia.

He will also attend the G7 meeting in Hiroshima to which Australia has been invited – along with fellow ad hoc members India and South Korea. Albanese has also been invited to the critical NATO summit on Ukraine in July; it would be a serious mistake not to attend.

Those international engagements, together with last month’s announcement on the AUKUS acquisition program and the coming release of the Defence Strategic Review, all focus attention on the challenging strategic position which Australia now faces as the democracies come to terms with the belligerence of the world’s two great authoritarian states, Russia and China.

Some Western politicians and commentators refer to the current strategic situation as a “new Cold War”. Yet the comparison is too glib, and in many important ways inaccurate.

The Soviet Union, unlike contemporary China, was not an economic superpower. After the Sino-Soviet split of 1960, the two communist powers were mutually hostile. The heart of Cold War competition was Europe, fractured by what Churchill famously called the Iron Curtain. The conflict was cast in explicitly ideological rather than territorial terms – as a struggle between systems and ideas.

The better 20th-century comparison (although there are important differences) is with the 1930s, when authoritarian states, often asserting baseless historical claims, acted in defiance of the emergent system of collective security represented by the League of Nations: Japan in Manchuria, Italy in Abyssinia, Germany across Europe.

The war that followed was the only time that Australia has felt existentially threatened. While we now know from archival research that Japanese policy was not to invade Australia but to isolate it, that was not how it seemed at the time – particularly to those who lived in northern Australia.

There are few still alive who remember the Pacific War; every generation since, from the Baby Boomers onward, has grown up in a sense of relative security. Even Vietnam, the most serious war in our region which many Australians remember, was not accompanied by widespread fear of communist invasion if South Vietnam fell.

Australians’ sense of security has been buttressed, in particular, by two assumptions. First is our belief that we live in a peaceful corner of the world, sequestered from great power conflict historically centred on the Euro-Atlantic. Memories of the Pacific War passed into history with earlier generations. Vietnam divided us but didn’t threaten us. The south-west Pacific, as its name suggests, was a peaceful ocean, about as far away from the world’s trouble spots as it is possible to get.

Allied to our sense that we live in a peaceful part of the world, deep in the national psyche has been the belief that we are a small nation; if not irrelevant to global affairs, then at least of marginal significance to them: a kind of subtropical Scandinavia.
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Washington Examniner
How and why the US must prevent Russia from downing more drones

by Tom Rogan, National Security Writer & Online Editor | March 16, 2023 03:34 PM

Still, the Biden administration cannot allow Russia to hold either a perceived or effective veto over U.S. military operations in international airspace. Doing so would undercut the central contention of U.S. operations in relation to the Taiwan Strait and the near entirety of the South China Sea, which China illegitimately claims as its own. Namely, that the U.S. will operate in international waters and airspace without being intimidated. If the U.S. now suspends these normally daily drone flights, it risks signaling unambiguous weakness to Moscow. The U.S. should instead keep calm and carry on.

The U.S. should send up more drones with the stated expectation Russia will not endanger their operations. If Russia then downs another drone, the U.S. can deploy fighter escorts to defend future drone flights. I have previously argued in favor of such action in response to dangerous Russian intercepts of manned U.S. aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea. But escorts are not unprecedented over the Black Sea.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine last February, the British air force has occasionally deployed Typhoon fighter jets to escort its manned RC-135W intelligence collection aircraft over the Black Sea. Like any U.S. fighter jets that would conduct escort activities, the Typhoons are significantly more advanced, and their pilots better trained than their Russian counterparts.

Put simply, the Russians would be very unlikely to directly challenge these flights because doing so would put them at unacceptable risk. The political ramifications for Putin of an unsuccessful air-to-air engagement between a U.S. and Russian jet, especially in proximity to Crimea, would be very problematic.

Put simply, the U.S. should continue doing what it's doing. Russia cannot be allowed to set the conditions for U.S. flights in international airspace. If Moscow wants to challenge that understanding, it must be restrained.
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Aukus isn’t enough to secure the region’s prosperity – there is still much more work to be done

James Laurenceson - The Guardian - 18-3-2023

It will be difficult because unlike conventionally powered submarines, nuclear-powered ones have obvious relevance for a Taiwan Strait contingency – or perhaps one in the South or East China seas. Indeed, Australia’s defence minister has openly stated an intention to acquire “impactful projection”, rather than simply defend Australia’s maritime approaches.

The one big advantage Australia can parlay is its track record, which contrasts significantly with America’s. The Trump administration was explicit in its intention to keep China subordinate in its own region. And in terms of policies, the Biden administration has only gone further. Last October, it cut off China’s access to advanced semiconductors in a move that Australia’s trade minister described as “draconian”.

Over the last 50 years, Australian governments of both persuasions have consistently welcomed China’s growing wealth. There’s been no change of late.

Earlier this month, when asked how to respond to an increasingly assertive China, Australia’s ambassador in Washington, Arthur Sinodinos, stated, “I think the first thing to say is that I start from a proposition that a strong and prosperous China is in everybody’s interest.”

And whereas Beijing now assesses Washington to be “fudging”, “hollowing out” and pursuing a “fake” One China policy – in essence, encouraging Taiwanese independence – the Australian foreign minister, Penny Wong, has given no such signal.

The diplomatic challenge then will be to convince Beijing that Aukus is simply a continuation of Australia’s long-term practice of welcoming China’s rising prosperity and pursuing economic engagement, while simultaneously hedging in the security realm. Beijing may not like this, but it is hardly surprising or exceptional.

Policy steps can give credibility to well-crafted messaging. Initiating discussions with China on joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership if it is prepared to meet its high standards is one example.

The challenges are clear. Still, compared with actually acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, managing the China relationship might be the easy part.

Prof James Laurenceson is director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. His research focuses on the Australia-China economic and broader relationship
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Aukus nuclear submarine deal will be ‘too big to fail’, Richard Marles says

Story by Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent • 6h ago - 17-3-2023

“Just as there is a lot of effort going into illuminating the seas, there is a lot of effort going into creating more stealth around a submarine,” Marles said.

“You could flip the question and say: how confident are we that the veil of the sea will be lifted by 2050 such that we don’t need a submarine capability? Well, that would be a negligently risky call to make on the part of any Australian government.”

Marles said the fact many countries were investing heavily in submarines showed that they would be “really useful parts of military capability for decades to come”.

“But precisely because there is an effort to illuminate the sea is why a submarine capability, based on a diesel-electric power system, is going to be through the latter part of this decade and into the 2030s a comparatively diminishing capability, because more of that will be able to be seen.”

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said this week that the best way for Australia to reassure the region about the submarine plan would be to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

It is Labor party policy to do so, but only “after taking account” of several factors, including the need for an effective verification and enforcement architecture and work to achieve universal support from other nations. The nuclear weapons states including the US have opposed the treaty, arguing it is out of step with the current security environment.

Marles said Australia wanted “a world where there are no nuclear weapons”, and had sent observers to the first meeting in Vienna last year.

“A meaningful contribution to the removal of nuclear weapons needs to involve the engagement of the countries which have the nuclear weapons,” he said.

“We completely get the intent of it, and we agree with the intent of it … but what the treaty needs to seek to achieve is universality in terms of those countries signing up to it, so that’s the issue.”
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Space Force chief says China is developing anti-satellite missiles, electronic jammers and lasers

Story by Rob Crilly, Senior U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com • 10h ago - 16-3-2023

China has launched dozens of satellites in the past six months and the People's Liberation Army now has 347 orbiting craft that can gather intelligence on American armed forces, according to the head of the U.S. Space Force.

Gen. Chance Saltzman told senators that Beijing was the 'most immediate threat' to U.S. operations as it develops lasers to disrupt satellite sensors, electronic warfare jammers and even builds craft that could grab and move rival orbiting platforms out of position.

It is all part of its plan for a fully modernized, world-class military designed to achieve China's 'Space Dream' of being the most powerful nation in space by 2045, he said.

'Over the last six months, China conducted 35 launches adding advanced communications and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites to their orbital architecture,' he said in a written statement to the Senate Armed Service Subcommittee on Strategic Forces on Tuesday.

'Of China's over 700 operational satellites in orbit, 347 are People's Liberation Army ISR platforms providing optical, radar, and radio-frequency capabilities which track the Joint Force worldwide.'

Senior American generals have repeatedly warned that China's investment in space technology, including reusable rockets, threatens U.S. supremacy in space.

Chinese officials have even compared the moon and Mars with islands in the South China Sea that Beijing is attempting to claim as its own.

'Both China and Russia continue to develop, field and deploy a range of weapons aimed at U.S. space capabilities,' the general said.

'The spectrum of threats to U.S. space capabilities includes cyber warfare activities, electronic attack platforms, directed energy lasers designed to blind or damage satellite sensors, ground-to-orbit missiles to destroy satellites and space-to-space orbital engagement systems that can attack U.S. satellites in space.'

altzman told senators that Beijing — and Moscow — had studied the way U.S. forces were reliant on satellites for a range of war fighting functions.

'Whether it's our precision navigation and timing, whether it's satellite communications, the missile warning that we rely on and the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance persistence that we have with space capabilities... they know we rely on that and so if they can blind us, if they can interfere with those capabilities, or God forbid, destroy them completely, they know that that will diminish our advantages and put the joint force at risk,' he said.

'So I can see interfering with, I can see blinding, I can see some of those grey area kinds of attacks on our capabilities to try and put us behind the eight ball.'

He described how the Space Force planned to switch from more vulnerable. big geostationary satellites to constellations of smaller satellites in low and medium Earth orbits.

'With regards to grappling satellites and pulling them out of orbit, much tougher to deal with when you have less than maneuvrable older legacy satellites,' he said.

The People's Liberation Army now has 347 satellites that can gather intelligence on American armed forces, according to the head of U.S. Space Force Gen Chance Saltzman
© Provided by Daily Mail
Mike Qadder
2 yr. ago
Could a Donald Trump-shaped torpedo sink Australia’s $368bn Aukus submarine plans?

Story by Daniel Hurst • 13h ago - 15-3-2023

On a day of hoopla surrounding the Aukus unveiling in San Diego, perhaps the most revealing moment occurred during a press conference 12,000km away in Canberra.

Given that Australia’s multi-decade plan to gain nuclear-powered submarines will require the support of successive US administrations, a reporter asked the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, a very direct question on Tuesday: “Are you concerned that a future US president will tear it up?”

The answer was not immediate. He took a deep breath and paused for eight seconds before settling on the response: “Well – I’m not – is the answer to your question.”

Perhaps it was just the fact that Marles was up before the crack of dawn to sell a project that carries the eye-watering price tag of as much as $368bn between now and the 2050s. But the pause seemed to betray an understanding of just one of many risks surrounding the Aukus gambit, which also requires ongoing British support under the three-country deal.

Marles is a strong supporter of the US alliance – and is no “Manchurian candidate” as he was cartoonishly portrayed before the 2022 election – but he is on the record as having aired some concerns in the past about the superpower’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific.

It was not just an increasingly assertive China that was fuelling the most challenging strategic outlook for Australia since the second world war, Marles wrote in his 2021 book, Tides That Bind.

It was also an “unpredictable” US, he wrote then, that posed difficulties for its allies in the region. “There is a question mark over the future role of the US both in East Asia and globally,” Marles wrote.

That followed a tumultuous period marked by Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, in which the then US president was openly sceptical of alliances and demanded Japan and South Korea shoulder more of the burden. Trump also abandoned a key regional trade agreement, which would have been a signal of enduring American economic engagement with the region. That deal, known then as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was meant to set the “rules of the road” rather than leaving it to China to do so; now China wants to join the rebadged CPTPP.

Fast forward to today, and Marles is now the deputy prime minister and defence minister in an Australian Labor government that is making a big bet in the face of that uncertainty. He is reassured by the approach taken by Joe Biden’s administration – but maybe the only sure thing in Aukus is that it will reach its peak in the post-Biden era.

Marles told reporters on Tuesday the US alliance had “thrived under successive administrations and governments” and he believed Aukus would similarly be “an enduring arrangement”. Citing strong support in the US congress, he added: “Across the political spectrum, there is complete support for the relationship with Australia and the Aukus arrangements, so we enter this with a high degree of confidence.”

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