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* Judith Bergman: China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding U.S. to Defeat
* Lawrence A. Franklin: Sweden Would Strengthen the NATO Alliance


** China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding U.S. to Defeat ([link removed])
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by Judith Bergman • May 9, 2022 at 5:00 am
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* "The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020." — Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2021, US Dept. of Defense.
* "In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and "fielding operational systems at an incredible rate." — General David Thompson, the Space Force's first vice chief of space operations, quoted in The Washington Post, November 30, 2021.
* "Look at what they [CCP) have today.... We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed." — General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, breakingdefense.com, November 4, 2021.
* "he Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time." — Timothy Heath, senior international and defense researcher at Rand Corporation, Business Insider, January 4, 2022.
* "To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well." — Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.
* There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination.... a strategic partnership of "no limits" and with "no forbidden areas" in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.
* This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine.
* "The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad." — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Associated Press, March 7, 2022.
* "For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently." — Admiral Charles Richard, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.
* [T]his is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.
* Meanwhile, Biden's proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. "This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it's almost 8%," said Milley. "Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate."
* "Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation. Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability." — Representative Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.) House Armed Services Committee, Defense News, April 5, 2022.

The accelerating pace of China's nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China's general military buildup and modernization. Pictured: DF-17 hypersonic missiles at a military parade in Beijing, China, on October 1, 2019. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

When the Pentagon assessed China's nuclear arsenal in its annual report to Congress on China's military power in November 2020, it projected that China's nuclear warhead stockpile, which the Pentagon then estimated to be in the low 200s, would "at least double in size" over the next decade. The Pentagon also estimated that China was "pursuing" a "nuclear triad", meaning a combination of land-, sea- and air-based nuclear capabilities.

Just one year later, in November 2021, the Pentagon found itself acknowledging that China's nuclear buildup was taking place at an astonishing speed, with the nuclear warhead stockpile now possibly quadrupling from the estimated low 200s in 2020 over the next decade:

"The accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020."

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** Sweden Would Strengthen the NATO Alliance ([link removed])
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • May 9, 2022 at 4:00 am
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* The Swedes need little proof of Russia's disregard for the sovereignty of nation states.
* After the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War in 1991, Sweden downgraded its defense posture -- until Putin's Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and seized Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. Sweden has continued the upgrade of its national defense ever since.
* In addition, Sweden possesses a historic sensitivity to democratic values and to global crises and humanitarian needs. When, for instance, other nations closed their doors to Jews attempting to escape German-occupied Europe in the early 1940s, it was Sweden -- even though caught between two totalitarian states, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia -- that extended a merciful welcome to Jewish refugees... Now NATO will have the opportunity to extend a welcome to Sweden.

The Swedes need little proof of Russia's disregard for the sovereignty of nation states. After the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War in 1991, Sweden downgraded its defense posture -- until Putin's Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and seized Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. Sweden has continued the upgrade of its national defense ever since. Pictured: A Swedish Air Force JAS 39 Gripen fighter jet takes off from the F17 Blekinge Air Force Wing, based in Kallinge, on April 2, 2011. (Photo by Patric Soderstrom/AFP via Getty Images)

The Swedes need little proof of Russia's disregard for the sovereignty of nation states.

Several Russian fighter aircraft were intercepted near NATO airspace over the Baltic and Black Seas several times in late April by alliance Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) warplanes. On April 29, a Russian spy plane also violated Sweden's sovereign airspace. NATO fighter interceptors from Denmark, Poland, Spain, and France responded to the Russian challenge over Baltic Sea airspace. Romanian and British fighters intercepted Russian aircraft over the Black Sea.

The Swedish government and people apparently now favor NATO's defensive umbrella. This became especially true after a March violation of Swedish airspace by Russian SU-27 Flanker Fighters and SU-24 Fencer Bombers, which were reportedly carrying nuclear weapons.

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