By Carlo Kopp
The PLA is in the process of creating an almost impregnable air defence system for China. Washington should take note.
The recent deployment of China's first four indigenous KJ-2000 AWACS aircraft marks an important milestone in the PLA Air Force’s long march from being a ‘numbers intensive’ low technology force, to a much more modern high technology one.
More fundamentally, though, the AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) extends China's deep and broad network of air defence Command Control Communications Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (C3ISR) systems into a key airborne area. In doing so, China is now acquiring the radar and passive early warning and air defence command, control and communications it needs to counter foreign fighters and cruise missiles.
Yet despite the fact that this system employs radar technology two generations ahead of that used by the US Air Force’s E-3C AWACS—generally seen as a benchmark by the rest of the world—the deployment of China’s new aircraft elicited almost no response from Washington.
Airborne C3ISR systems such as AWACS aircraft typically operate as extensions to ground-based networks of air defence radar systems and defensive Surface to Air Missile (SAM) batteries, providing forward coverage against targets that are hidden from ground-based sensors by ‘terrain shadowing’ or the earth’s curvature. Such targets can be low-flying combat aircraft, but in an increasing number of cases are likely to be low-flying cruise missiles.
So, how important a step is this new system for China? To better understand the implications, it’s useful to look at the evolution of China's air defence capabilities more generally.
During the 1950s, the Soviets exported a range of air defence equipment to China, much of which reflected what was then state-of-the-art Soviet radar technology. But the Khrushchev-era tensions put an end to that, and over time China proceeded to reverse engineer all of these Soviet designs.
By the 1970s, China was producing clones or derivatives of most of this equipment, especially ‘acquisition’ radars designed to search for aircraft that could then be targeted by SAM batteries or interceptor aircraft. This area of military technology was so valued by the PLA that in 1969 it had initiated development of an indigenous AWACS—the KJ-1. This radar design was built into a 1950s Tupolev Tu-4 Bull aircraft which itself was a reverse engineered Boeing B-29 Superfortress. This project was repeatedly disrupted by the unstable political environment, and never produced an operational capability. Still, the efforts highlight the PLA’s long-standing interest in having credible airborne C3ISR.
Reddit
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Technorati
Yahoo
Google
Plurk
ozivan
Hi..Prabhu. If you are Indian by the sound of your name, isn’t Arunachal Pradesh was once Southern Tibet? It was annexed as the 24th Indian province in the 1940’s.
The people there looks very much like Tibetans, so are the Bhutanese and Sikkimese…genetically, by color or whatever biological classification you may think of…but certainly they don’t look like the dark looking Indians or the beautiful hazel eyes of Northern Indians.
Please enlighten me about AP province of India.
fibo nacci
China’s New J-20 Stealth Fighter Jet – First “Flight” Video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTzlhAH7aeY
Paul
Chinese capabilities are an unknown quantity until they actually have to do something. The most notable deployment I can think of was the recent Chinese earthquake and subsequent mobilization of PLA and PLAA elements in support of a rescue operation. The logistical and organizational problems displayed in that endeavor (and subsequent domestic outrage over the snafus) do not lend confidence that the Chinese military establishment can project power outside its borders, given it can’t project power very well within its borders.
The Chinese – aside from some notable asymmetric weaponry like the DF-21 – seem to suffer the same myopia that all militaries have in the sense they are procuring and constituting themselves to fight the Last War and not the Next War. For instance, what the hell does China need an aircraft carrier for other than making some nameless Admiral happy on Christmas morning? Even the Soviets realized the uselessness of an aircraft carrier for their strategic situation. The Chinese need is for sea control and denial; that M.O. is submarines, not carriers.
The Chinese also have only the most bare-bones air-to-air refueling capability, airlift capability, rotor-wing fleet (the dearth of choppers during the earthquake fiasco was amazing), sea-lift capacity, and a HUMVEE rip-off/afterthought as their basic grunt-mover. The logistics system that feeds and provisions the whole mess I bet is more Great Leap vintage than Wal Mart efficient. They still depend on requisitioning commercial trains and rolling stock (incredibly vulnerable trains and rolling stock) to supply any force more than a few hundred miles from depot. Their nuclear forces are still run as a CCCP direct-line monopoly, by a grandfathered artillery outfit no less.
All they’re doing with AWACS, carriers, and other snazzy toys is satisfying a deep wish list for their senior military leadership while inadvertently inventorying a vast target list for US-MIL. These assets don’t do them a whole lot of good in either guaranteeing control of air and sea space on China’s periphery or projecting power over to Taiwan for a sustained campaign. Only hard-core investments in logistics back-end, logistics capacity (air, land and sea), a re-org of command-and-control for joint operations (a political bitch I bet in the Byzantine world of the CMC and CCCP), and a subtle but absolutely critical movement away from grunts + CCCP officers + CCCP tool hierarchy at the small-unit level to a grunts + professional non-comms + professional officer (few officers) – CCCP tool hierarchy will get the Chinese to the promised land of a superpower military that you can use in more than a parade.
Prabhu
A thumbs up for the reply.I would say technology is half of the story.The rest comes in the operation and efficiency with which it can be used.We have acknowledge at instances US security supervisor would be as experienced as an officer.
I always have doubted , somebody in china is saying their top brass that they are at a level playing field in defense with US.I find it nothing more than absurd.
Cheers
Prabhu.G