Cheap Chinese Arms
are doing what cheap Chinese EVs did
Thanks to China, the Global 90% can defend themselves affordably against the West’s costly offensive weapons and the West, confident that nobody could attack it, neglected to develop weapons to affordably defend itself. The US Navy paid $1.45 billion for a Burke class destroyer this year, while China paid $1.8 billion for three – more modern and better armed – destroyers. From military satellites to small arms to nano-drones with cameras and megadrones with bombs. All weapons 50% off.
Having demonstrated its mastery of mass automobile manufacturing, China is now mass manufacturing defensive weapons. Fully automated factories churn out 1,000 missiles a day because their supply chains are tightly coupled and use IoT, cloud computing, 5G and AI to continually raise productivity and lower downtime. And pass the savings onto consumers!
China’s IQ-19 missile defense system, above, uses a powerful propellant and a light warhead thanks to their mastery of physical chemistry, which means they can fit six onto a single carrier. A full HQ-19 battery costs $180 million for six missile carriers, sixty missiles @ $1 million each, plus radar, support, parts and service. America’s THAAD battery costs $1.35 billion for 9 launchers and 48 missiles whose range is shorter1 than the HQ-19. China also offers anti-aircraft/missile systems with ranges from 30 km to 3,000 km, all half price, of course.
After watching tiny Yemen’s cheap, defensive weapons defeat the US Navy, the 134 Defense Ministers who attended the recent Zhuhai Air Show spent $40 billion on missile-carrying drone ships, assault-rifle-carrying robot dogs, jet fighters, directed energy weapons, self-propelled howitzers and gigantic UAVs. An Al Arabiya reporter there asked one if he’d seen a weapons system he would like to purchase for his country. “All of them, God willing,” he replied fervently.
$40 billion in sales is a quarter of America’s annual weapons exports. If China captures the world’s arms market as quickly as it captured the EV market, arms exports could reach $100 billion by 2030 and equal America’s $200 billion by 2035. That would pay for developing even better weapons and selling them even cheaper.
Xi: "Prepare for War"
Xi Jinping, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, told the armed forces to prepare for war. The country should ''grasp the new situation and.. focus on preparing for war''. His message was rebroadcast on national TV.
The HQ-19’s range is 3,000 km., or 2,000 miles.
modern wars among major powers are fought at industrial scale. a few pieces of ultra-expensive, overengineered weapons won't win wars and doesn't even scare the Houthis.
the US military muscle memory is fighting insurgents, peasants in sandals riding on scooters. their war experience is not just irrelevant but a deadly liability on the next battlefield - as the military will keep fighting yesterday's wars. Michael Hudson, the best economist in the west nobody listens to, said it well: the US army is a spending army, not a fighting army.
Also don't forget mercenary armies like the US don't fight wars with the high probability (even certainty) of death. It takes a brave man (more likely a brainless man) to die for the military industrial complex and a president who conveniently pardons his own son for all crimes committed (or may have committed) under the sun.
My letter to Santa Clause includes a wish China would dramatically increase its aid and development assistance to Syria to help it weather the crushing sanctions imposed by the United States to effect regime change for Israel. Syria is a BRI member and China has done much to help, diplomatically, economically, and as Syria's top trading partner.
But a lot of the help looks good on paper, like the "strategic partnership" of 2023 without providing real defensive help. Israeli jets fly around the Middle East bombing anyone and anything they want with impunity. Syria is high on its list with a hundred bombings a year, roughly. Reconstruction projects will help in the future, but meanwhile Syria could use some of those vaunted anti-aircraft systems that no one seems willing to supply.