Students uncover nuclear weapons in China's hidden tunnels!!

Digging into China’s nuclear tunnels

I'm not sure how these students got in to see this, but it's quite interesting. With all that's going on at the moment this will certainly throw gas on the fire.

If it's sparked a congressional hearing....then there must be something to this!

The Chinese have called it their “Underground Great Wall” — a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal.

For the past three years, a small band of obsessively dedicated students at Georgetown University has called it something else: homework.

Led by their hard-charging professor, a former top Pentagon official, they have translated hundreds of documents, combed through satellite imagery, obtained restricted Chinese military documents and waded through hundreds of gigabytes of online data.

The result of their effort? The largest body of public knowledge about thousands of miles of tunnels dug by the Second Artillery Corps, a secretive branch of the Chinese military in charge of protecting and deploying its ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads.

The study is yet to be released, but already it has sparked a congressional hearing and been circulated among top officials in the Pentagon, including the Air Force vice chief of staff.

Most of the attention has focused on the 363-page study’s provocative conclusion — that China’s nuclear arsenal could be many times larger than the well-established estimates of arms-control experts.

Read more here....

Someone with more knowledge in this and the ramifications of this please chime in!

reply to post by chrismicha77


They also have more shelter per person for their citizens than any country on Earth. Nuke em', yea right they would just come out of the ground and annihilate the opposing country in a twinkle of an eye.

So much for the American superiority complex...... i think that may feel a little shallower if this report is true.....

The balance of power is shifting alot faster than anyone in the West ever wanted it too..

PDUK

I know another word for what they've been doing other than homework...it's called espionage and is a very serious act. And the prof USED to work at the pentagon and is just doing this on his own accord. These students must realize they are being used right?

Originally posted by Vardoger
I know another word for what they've been doing other than homework...it's called espionage and is a very serious act. And the prof USED to work at the pentagon and is just doing this on his own accord. These students must realize they are being used right?

Exactly, and this could get them killed but, the Chinese are probably doing the same if not more.

Here's a great example of the American miss-conception of China and the egotistical view that Americans have of their country.

Just read the "Look at China" Paragraph to get an idea



Makes you wonder, where the hell are our bunkers and shelters America?

Originally posted by Vardoger
I know another word for what they've been doing other than homework...it's called espionage and is a very serious act. And the prof USED to work at the pentagon and is just doing this on his own accord. These students must realize they are being used right?

What kind of ethics do you practice? Just how do you view the world of warfare?. In other words, who's side areyou on? You want to send them to China to be shot, or to applaude their work as, if little else, meaningful? .

We as Amercians have basically funded the Chinese to make such weapons. While our kids are poisoned with lead from toys from China, their prepping weapons that could wipe us out!

Originally posted by Aliensun

Originally posted by Vardoger
I know another word for what they've been doing other than homework...it's called espionage and is a very serious act. And the prof USED to work at the pentagon and is just doing this on his own accord. These students must realize they are being used right?

What kind of ethics do you practice? Just how do you view the world of warfare?. In other words, who's side areyou on? You want to send them to China to be shot, or to applaude their work as, if little else, meaningful? .

I'm on no countries "side" as all countries are controlled by anyone but the people. I'm just saying I hope these students realize what they are a part of and that their lives may be at risk. They may think it's just a really cool research project. As soon as you touch secret documents......look out.

If I were helping a government (or any other organization) do some spying...I sure as hell wouldn't broadcast it.

reply to post by chrismicha77


Not mention American spent billions on bailing out failing banks, billions on "helping/occuping" countries, wars that never end and do nothing to help the people of this country. Money spent well? America has not done much investing in it's own people. We have 800 something FEMA camps fully staffed and no occupants with crematoriums instead of shelters. I guess it's easier to burn your people than to protect them God Bless America, I guess.

Originally posted by chrismicha77
Digging into China’s nuclear tunnels

..that China’s nuclear arsenal could be many times larger than the well-established estimates of arms-control experts.

And this is a surprise to whom exactly????? I'm amazed it took this long to become exposed. After all the discovered espionage activity from China (and others) regarding our electrical grids and such.....

WASHINGTON -- Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians."

The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn't target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. "There are intrusions, and they are growing," the former official said, referring to electrical systems. "There were a lot last year."

Many of the intrusions were detected not by the companies in charge of the infrastructure but by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said. Intelligence officials worry about cyber attackers taking control of electrical facilities, a nuclear power plant or financial networks via the Internet.

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, "If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on."

Read more: online.wsj.com...

reply to post by chrismicha77


The most remarkable part of this story is the way an Open Source Intelligence project was able to put together such a large and complete picture of the Second Artillery Corps activities. A project as ambitious as this would have been unthinkable five years ago and it really shows the true potential of the web. Using Google earth, milbloggers, Chinese news sources that only quite recently had a web presence and other research outlets the GWU research team has made a significant contribution on what has been a very cloudy subject.

The longstanding assumption has been that the Chinese nuclear arsenal is small with the Chinese being able to deploy anywhere between 80 and 400 weapons. China has encouraged that perception and has argued that its arsenal is only for a small deterrence, but given the secrecy with which it operates and the lack of transparency of its military, all assumptions have a potentially wide margin of error. This study could dramatically change that. Former defense secretary Frank C. Carlucci was quoted in the article to provide perspective on the dismantling of the Soviet weapons program where the US offered materials and assistance to secure 20,000 Russian warheads, the best estimate at the time, when the number was over twice that.

RAND corp analyst Herman Kahn wrote the definitive book on the subject of Mutually Assured Destruction and the thought process behind it policy makers used called Thinking about the Unthinkable in the 1980s, if you haven’t read it and are interested in these things, check it out.

According to Kahn, policy planners divided deterrence into three levels.

Type I Deterrence: the ability to attack and cripple an adversary with a first-strike but not be able to mount a counterattack if you were the target of a first strike.
Type II Deterrence: the ability to mount a counterattack effective enough to cripple an adversary after their first strike on you
Type III Deterrence: the ability to deter conventional war by fielding tactical weapons and being able to credibly use them if provoked

All arms treaties to date have been negotiated to ensure that the US and Russia still maintain their respective levels of deterrence with the fewest number of warheads possible. Currently the US maintains 5,000 warheads available for deployment with 2200 deployed, and Russia maintains 8,000 available for deployment with 2800 deployed. If the Chinese are capable of deploying more than they admit to, and the results of this study make that highly probable, what does that say about the nuclear balance among the superpowers?

If for example, the Chinese can actually deploy 4000 weapons, and given the size the of the Second Artillery Corps infrastructure the GWU team thinks this is a distinct possibility, how will this effect the balance of power if the US continues with the START II treaty and pears its deployed weapons down to 1,550? This might reduce the US to a Type I Deterrence, and put the Chinese in the position of having a Type II Deterrence.

Not that I am stating there would be a nuclear war over this, but if history is a guide, the Soviets became much more aggressive and confrontational when they built their arsenal into a Type II Deterrence. Would the Chinese be able to seize all the disputed Islands in the South China sea without interference? Would they be able to invade Taiwan with impunity?

As an aside, the report is not without its critics. They mainly seem to be from the disarmament community … are they criticizing the report based on real flaws or simply refusing to acknowledge it because it conflicts so strongly with their goals? They have fought hard for decades for nuclear disarmamant and these revelations could be quite the fly in the ointment.

All good questions to ponder and kudos to the GWU team for the effort.

Subterra, bane of spy satellites. You can really hide anything if you have the adequate means of doing so. It makes you wonder.

reply to post by chrismicha77


Wow. How many times larger?, I'm sure is the burning question.

Perhaps this was an effort to undermine what China wouldn't allow the Pentagon to do? That sounds wrong, though, since China should be keeping this information hidden from everyone in the first place.

this helps confirm my thoughts of my own government doing much the same.
i really have no doubt, my names just not on the list.

little late

I wonder if these students are just like the students detained while "hiking" near Iran? And if so, isn't the whole student spy ring a big Israeli thing?

reply to post by Gridrebel


You're wrong. Robert Redford did it.

It sucks to be a Jap at this point in time. They must be pissing their pants now.

In China, they practice the best of Capitalism for profits, and the best of Communism in helping their people. Same in Russia, where they have underground bunkers.

In the US, your on your own, if there is no profit in it.
So, when TSHTF in this country and my "leaders" need me to defend the country, I'll also tell them, your on your own, that is communistic thinking.

Originally posted by mileslong54
reply to post by chrismicha77

 

Not mention American spent billions on bailing out failing banks, billions on "helping/occuping" countries, wars that never end and do nothing to help the people of this country. Money spent well?

America has not done much investing in it's own people. We have 800 something FEMA camps fully staffed and no occupants with crematoriums instead of shelters. I guess it's easier to burn your people than to protect them God Bless America, I guess.

edit on 30-11-2011 by mileslong54 because: (no reason given)