Imagine having to explain to all of thoes anti war groups and angry citizens why your silly plan got some of thier country's most important cities cratered.
But that is the problem.... there are no anti war groups in the US any more... it just earns too much money...
China has huge tunnel network to hide her BMs, warheads, BM trains, road mobile ICBMs, SSBNs, & works on an intercontinental strategic bomber. With such a full nuclear triad, disarming her with a 1st, 2nd & 3rd strikes is already impossible.
Good, I am glad to hear that... but unfortunately that doesn't help if US politicians think they can do it it might be attempted.
The fact that it will fail and get lots of people killed is little compensation... you can bet the US politicians and their families will be in safe places...
"Given the growing degree of military technical cooperation and military-political coordination between Beijing and Moscow, we have to consider that eventually Russia and China could combine their nuclear weapons in a ‘tilt’ to coerce the United States, lets say in a military crisis over the future of democratic Taiwan," he said.
Like Russia or the US should have any say in relations between China and Taiwan...
what a dick.
IMO only Japan & perhaps Taiwan will allow US IRB/CM on its territory.
Australia would be keen as well...
You could have a squadron of 6 of those in a carrier and have always 4 of them orbiting 24h at more than 500 km of the ship, 10 km altitude for a radar horizon of almost 500 km and not leaving gaps between them, something that today is not possible.
But that is teh thing about the Russians.... they will be open to different solutions, and wont just say... this is the best I will only have this solution... a mix of drones and helicopters and fixed wing aircraft could be used... I mean imagine a float plane model of the new upgraded An-2 with fuselage mounted sideways looking antenna arrays... the stall speed of the plane is about 40km/h so it wouldn't even need to be a float plane.... sitting on the deck with the ship running at 20 knots and it would probably take off on its own... it wont be able to fly at enormous altitudes but it could be made to cruise for very long periods.
There was an old design from WWII I think that had a biplane whose bottom wing folded up into the top wing when the undercarriage retracted... so it was a low speed biplane for takeoff and landing with low flight speeds, but a relatively lower drag monoplane during normal flight... that sort of clever design could make even quite a heavy aircraft able to operate from a carrier without cats.
But keep in mind no current aircraft on the Kuznetsov needs cats to get airborne... so why are they talking about them?
They have a few drones that can take off vertically and therefore would not need cats either....
Personally I still think the best solution for AWACS is an airship...
They just want a cheap excuse to ditch START too, China should make them regret by accepting, using the opportunity to raise their nuclear stock and besides stealing US' argument... not that US needs any rational one of course, but it would be fun to watch them scrambling to explain why they withdraw from START even when China accepted
Even if China said yet it is not mentioned in the treaty so it could not be just extended because it would not actually include China.
The only way it could go into effect would be if China either accepted the same terms as Russia and the US have.... which means they can have 1,500 warheads too, which the US wont approve or Russia and China share Russian totals which would mean Russia does not comply because it does but with all Chinese weapons added they don't.
They have until about feb 2021... there is not even enough time for Russia to ratify it if nothing is changed.... they need to adapt their laws to allow for the extended treaty.
It is dead already.
Rewriting it to actually include China could not be done in 2 years anyway.
Even if the US got everything it wanted it would still likely say the new Russian weapons developed since they withdrew from the ABM treaty are unacceptable too... like the un-limited range nuke cruise missile and Poseidon etc etc etc.
Any runaway arms race is exceptionally good for MAD.
X2
China won't formally ally with any1, & therefore won't sign a treaty limiting her nukes by combining the total of hers with Russia's, or counting her own to be equal to other parties. Being a proverbial monkey watching the 2 tigers fight, she won't disclose the exact # of her nukes. That's also in keeping what Sun Tzu wrote: being weak, appear to be strong; being strong, appear to be weak.
Which is sensible. Cooperate with Russia against the US when it is in Chinas interests to do so, but there is no need for them to be joined at the hip.