Tigeranger

Saw my first USO show 4 month after President Bush declared" Mission Accomlished". Chinese troop leave home for a couple of weeks, the cuties has already come, before the exercise even started!!! Does anyone still want to argue that the USAR is softer than PLA????


U.S. has answered such message with Valiant shield 2007. If you ask me, I think that is how you sending a message-with 3 CV battle groups
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Zinja

So the Warsaw pact is dead, in comes the SCO!

This exercise is very pregnant with speachless messages, it will be interesting what the full report of the whole exercise will reveal.

However, i can't help commenting on a few issues here. Why has mongolia been left out as an observer around member states? Iran obviously relishes to be part of this pact but raising Iran's profile would be counter productive internationally. But, what about India? Whilst China may not favour the inclusion of India due to the rivalry but this can present an opportunity for the 2 to mend with each other. At the same time Pak is an observer as well, inclusion of any of these two or both for that matter would be very complicating. This SCO pact is going to be very interesting indeed.

I notice also that Gen Motenskoi mentioned combarting separatists as one of the functions of the pact, does Russia have 'separatists' problems of their own? Or is he indicating willingness to be involved in the other countries' 'separatists' problems? If this is infered in any way, i can't help wondering how far they are really willing to go and what else is meant in what was not said. But then again they denied trying to form a millitary bloc.

I am not very well versed with international millitary laws, what was Gen Zhu meaning when he was talking about the ligality of the exercise. Why was he so quick to emphasise the point, it seemed like a comment out of the blue for me.

And oh, does anyone know why they called off the air drops? Whilst it is easy to ascribe this to unpreparedness (or inability for that matter) of China, could it be that its maybe a case of unwillingness to reavel the colour of one's underwear. OoE alluded that these countries may be 'checking' each other out.

I can't help also noting the publicity of this exercise, it seems the SCO is really asserting itself. I predict that this pact is probably going to evolve its name withing the next 5-10 years to adopt a name that is more fitting to its purposes, as the pact's objectives become clearer. I wouldn't be surprised if we will be talking of a more than 6 states pact then.

tphuang

this says air drop proceeded.

Officer of Engineers

This was the dress rehersal, not the main drop on the "town."

From the article

__________________
Chimo

Officer of Engineers

From Sgt-Maj Sandyj at CDF

Alot of this is surprising to me. It would seemed the Chinese lost alot of the operational art of 1962. I had thought the 1984 Sino-VN War represented at least represented operational effectiveness on par with the Warsaw Pact. Apparently not.

And I have another name for Tajik paras - kamakazie.

However, one thing I did note very strongly. No two forces are training together. The Russians do their own thing. The Chinese do their own thing. Everybody do their own thing. No one is supporting each other. I don't even see a Chinese ambulance carrying Russian wounded out.

Feanor

In the Soviet Army they had a name for exercises like this: "pokazuha".

Ray

It sure is disturbing for western powers to find that Iran is seeking a greater more involved role in the SCO and both Russia and China being vague and yet hinting that such an eventuality may come to pass.

Indeed, if it does, the area (CAR) and its oil and gas resources will be lost to the influence of the western powers, apart from being able to monitor Russian and Chinese from this area.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Zinja

So far Russia and China deny that SCO is a millitary bloc - at least officially. I had predicted that this is going to change withing 5-10 yrs, it seems this might even be sooner. With the talk about changing the rules, it is clear that the intentions of SCO are still yet to be clear. This is laying base for a full fledged bloc with declared intentions. This will be evidenced by a new name and admittance of new member states, lets just wait and see.

Allowing Iran though will be a gross misjudgement for the bloc. I just can't think how China & Russia could explain that to the international community since Iran is under sunctions. Moreover, soon the Iranian Revolutional Guard is likely to be classified as a terrorist organisation by the US, it would be difficult for the pact to work around all these obstacles. I would say Mongolia has more chances of joining the pact than Iran.

Feanor

Inducting Mongolia would probably be a more moderate move, simply asserting the pacts influence over an area it already controls. However it would not send a powerful political message to the west. Inducting Iran would send a message, but would also damage Russian and Chinese image abroad. Realistically one move is too little, and the other too much.

Zinja

I hear what you are saying. But it is not in China's interest to be giving 'powerful political message' especially to the US. It seems Russia is the one pushing for an agressive posture (disgruntlement over NATO expansion & the missile defence system) but i don't think China is going to give in to Russia, they don't want to agitate US. Consequently it only leaves Mongolia as the only fitting bill for initial expansion for the pact.

Zeng

^^^
Mongolia issued a new foreign policy of creating a third national border, a virtual border or a 3D border to the Japan and western countries. Somehow, they found a virtual reality for themselves and started to live in it.

In order to fulfill the dream of their virtual reality, they officially made the announcement to support the US’s decision of invading Iraq as the first country in the entire world to kiss the butt of the Uncle Sam and annoy Russia and China.

Mongolia also sold its bid for a non-permanent Security Council seat to Japan. Japanese told Mongolian that it is too expensive for Mongolia to have an UN mission in New York sufficiently staffed to serve as a council member nation.

Their efforts got them a visit from G. W. Bush with small pocket money $11 million military aid and Mongolia sent 100 or 200 soldiers to Iraq, which is normally ignored or not noticed by the world including Americans.

They also got a visit from Koizumi and got even less money of close to $3 million aid. Japanese PM should be able to offer that small pocket money himself.

Those efforts of Mongolia showed that it probably doesn’t want to become the full member of SCO. With its behavior, Russia and China want the world forgetting the existence of Mongolia and don’t want to give Mongolia this opportunity for an exposure.

The lack of enthusiastic love from Japan and western countries toward Mongolia may eventually wake it up from its virtual reality. When coming back to reality, Mongolia may finally find out that it does only have two borders with two giants. By then, there is possibility to have a full membership seat in SCO for Mongolia. Mongolia will be as important for SCO as Mongolia is for America in Iraq. But Mongolia will be entitled to ask for aid from Russia and China.

There is no way that Russia and China (especially China as Zinja pointed out) would let Iran to achieve a full membership in SCO today. But the Iran’s willingness to join SCO is a great asset for SCO. Russia and China (especially Russia) will use it as a bargain with western powers. That is the reason that both Russia and China are vague and yet hint that such an eventuality may come to pass.

I think that Iran will not get a full membership in SCO until they get a much more moderate president or even a political system change that removes the religious spirit leader. But Iran may get more involvement in the SCO activities based on the relations between Russia, China, Iran and America.

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I am here for exchanging opinions.

Tigeranger

According to the Chinese jczs.news.sina.com's report, Chinese troop suffered two minor incidents during the life fire exercise. They quoted a report from a Russian weekly magazine called <<independent military observer>>. Could anyone here find that article in that magazine?

The Chinese website also reported that Russian spend 700,000 rounds of ammo vs. China's 50,000. I don’t know if we could make an accessment on Chinese troop’s firepower base on this. Because it seems this is all ammo that the Chinese have brought to the exercise site.

xinhui

Central Asia
Not quite the pact that was
Central Asia | Not quite the pact that was | Economist.com


Aug 23rd 2007 | ALMATY, BEIJING AND MOSCOW
From The Economist print edition
China, Russia and the countries sandwiched between them can stage a fine military show—but they are not about to merge into a new monolith
EPA

WHATEVER else it may be, a military exercise—especially if it involves many countries—is a form of public drama, designed as much to impress the world as to hone combat skills. And as action movies go, the one just staged on a Russian plain wasn't bad.

A breathless dispatch from the Chinese national news agency, Xinhua, captured the mood as forces from six countries (China, Russia and four Central Asian states) swooped on the specially built village of Pashino and gave hell to the bad guys. “On the paths [that] the fleeing terrorists must pass through, two armed helicopters descended and firmly stayed there. The...military emblems painted on their bodies glittered under the sun. Then the cabin doors opened, and the commandos of a Tajik airborne unit in dark camouflage uniforms, and commandos of a Chinese special task-force in light camouflage uniforms, sprang out rapidly...”

Very soon, Pashino, or what remained of it, was free once more. (The only real-life losers were the people of a nearby village who had hoped that six armies might pulverise their own ghastly shacks, and then rehouse them.) All in all, the plot was fairly easy to follow—but it was hard to work out the dividing line between fact and fiction.

Regardless of its other purposes, the exercise was obviously designed to tell the world that the six-country Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) is more than a talking-shop. Russian and Chinese generals insisted that the putative foe was a generic gang of “terrorists”, not a specific country. But in Russia there was much enthusiastic talk in the pro-government media about SCO's emergence as a counterweight to NATO. President Vladimir Putin said the analogy was not quite right, but he did not seem displeased by it.

Does the comparison hold? In narrow military terms, the ability to co-ordinate the movements of more than 6,000 troops, and a broad range of armour, across long distances was quite successfully proved: a feat comparable with a medium-sized drill by the Atlantic alliance, says Christopher Langton of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank.

But talk of a new set-piece confrontation between two military blocks that spend most of their time and energy planning to fight one another is wildly overdone. The SCO is not, in fact, a new version of the Warsaw Pact, which was a giant, closely integrated military structure with a single Soviet master. For one thing, the Eurasian body has two dominant members with overlapping but far from identical strategic aims. Nor are the Russian and Chinese armies, which remain suspicious of each other, going to merge. China's need for Russian arms may diminish as its defence industry grows. Compared with Russia, China seems a little less keen on militarising the SCO, and more queasy about Iran's role as an “observer” of the group. Whatever China's long-term geopolitical ambition may be, it certainly does not want to be dragged into a conflict with the United States by a gung-ho Russia.

Indeed, the individual aims of the leaders who gathered this month in Central Asia—first for a summit in Bishkek, and then to the Ural mountains for the war games—are much easier to discern than any common purposes. Mr Putin and President Hu Jintao of China were both playing to domestic galleries. Mr Hu's progress through Central Asia was portrayed by the Beijing media as though he were a statesman on an historic mission. Every time he inspected a guard or raised his binoculars, his achievements in “bringing about a harmonious region” were exuberantly lauded. To China hands, it seemed that Mr Hu was building up strength for the autumn's Communist Party congress, a five-yearly event, when hard decisions on policy and personnel need to be taken.

Mr Putin, too, was using Central Asian diplomacy to impress the folk back home: it was during the war games that he made a dramatic announcement that Russia was resuming strategic patrols by nuclear-armed long-range bombers. So the Russian public was simultaneously served up with images of high Eurasian strategy, with their president in the midst of it all, and the stirring message that, as one headline put it, “the Russians are flying” once more.

Aside from all the fanfare, Russia and China—and in varying degrees their Central Asian partners—do have some common concerns. All fear separatism and militant Islam; and in Moscow and Beijing at least, there is a keen sense that the Eurasian heartland should not be dominated by the United States. In 2005 an SCO summit declared that it wanted to see American and NATO bases withdrawn from Central Asia as soon as possible. The sharpness of that rhetoric owed something to the anger of Uzbekistan's rulers, who had just been rebuked by the West over the killing of unarmed protesters.
AP Hu and Putin: to every man his gallery

Two years on, resentment of American hegemony is alive and well, along with a sense that it may be on the wane anyway. But the Western presence in Central Asia has certainly not been exorcised. Though Uzbekistan ejected an American base in a fit of pique, it still hosts a German one, used to supply German troops in Afghanistan. In Tajikistan, the French use an airfield as part of the war against the Taliban.

Strategic competition in Central Asia exists, but it does not consist of a straight confrontation between West and East. Instead, big countries jostle for a share of influence, knowing they cannot monopolise the scene; small and medium-sized powers struggle to keep room for manoeuvre by playing off would-be patrons.

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev is a master of such manoeuvres. During the SCO summit, he flattered Mr Putin by virtually urging him to join the presidents-for-life club. But in matters of substance, Mr Nazarbayev has in recent days done more favours to China than to Russia. As soon as the thunder of war games died down, China's president went to Astana, Kazakhstan's new capital, and did some business. It was announced that an additional oil pipeline would be built from Kazakhstan to China; and that a new gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan with China would run through Kazakhstan.

What these deals brought home is that China, no less than America, wants energy corridors through Asia that bypass Russia. From China's viewpoint, the new deals were a nice counterpoint to the coup Mr Putin pulled off in May, when he unveiled plans to build a pipeline along the Caspian coast that would bring gas from Turkmenistan to Europe via Russia.

Nor will Kazakhstan let pan-Eurasian solidarity wreck its relationship with the United States. Mr Nazarbayev has agreed with Azerbaijan on an American-backed plan to bring energy across the Caspian Sea. At the same time, Kazakhstan remains a member of Partnership for Peace, a NATO-led military co-operation club—as does every other member of the SCO, save China, albeit with widely varying levels of enthusiasm.

For Eurasia's minnows, playing one big power against another is a bit harder. Take Kyrgyzstan, which hosted part of the summit. At the risk of irking its SCO partners, it has said it will keep open, for the foreseeable future, the American air base near its capital. But in the commercial arena, Chinese influence over Kyrgyzstan is massive. There is only so much leverage that a nation of 5m people can have when it confronts one of 1.3 billion. This helps explain why China, whatever the glamour of summitry and war games, prefers to do some kinds of business one-to-one.

Francois

I am always amazed by the huge number of deads, both military and civilians, on the chinese side, with each such exercice.
Seams that the price of life has not the same price as in our Western societies.

akinkhoo

err, you consider the fact that china 1/4 of the world... what is a couple of 1000?

if you deploy more troop, u expect more accident... china has begun downsizing it's army but it still have years to go reach the hitech compare military of developed countries. desprite it size, is still a developing country. the western societies doesn't know how good they have it...