After the US withdrew from a major nuclear arms treaty with Russia in 2019, the Pentagon began to develop weapons that would have violated that agreement. Such a covert missile has now been deployed to the Philippines as part of the US military buildup surrounding China. The New York Times reports this system to be a covert missile launcher that Washington believes could jeopardize Xi Jinping’s position as president of China.
Capable of firing Tomahawks and other munitions, the Typhon launcher is concealed in a 40-foot shipping container and can hold up to four missiles. The Defense Department first deployed the launchers to the Philippines during war games late last month, after which China accused the US of “stoking military confrontation.”
According to the Times, Washington hopes to use the Typhon launchers to protect Taiwan from a Chinese attack. Sources who spoke with the outlet believe that Typhon’s strike power is enough to thwart an invasion of Taiwan and even force Xi from power in Beijing if an invasion fails.
The Typhon launcher would have been banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Signed near the end of the Cold War, the treaty outlawed land-based missiles and launchers with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Tomahawks have carried nuclear payloads in the past, although the US retired that variant of the missile in compliance with the INF Treaty.
The Times’ Pentagon reporter also notes that the Typhon system could be deployed to the southwestern Philippines for a potential conflict in the South China Sea. Tensions between Beijing and Manila have been rising for several months over dueling claims about sovereignty over reefs in the sea. The White House has reaffirmed its mutual defense pact with the Philippines, suggesting the Biden administration is ready to go to war with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Washington and Manila are additionally working on an intelligence-sharing agreement that is expected to be finalized this year. This pact, and a raft of other partnerships Washington has formed in the Indo-Pacific, are aimed at fighting a future war with Beijing.
We are intentionally creating a Philippino Missile Crisis. Do you think China is going to be nicer to us after this? We are bragging about it in the NYT!
After reading several articles this morning about runaway climate change (yes, its getting hotter, faster and more intensely than anyone thought). Then I stumbled on yet another article (this one) about the arms race 2.0. Its like living in parallel universes. Which one will destroy us is anyone’s guess, but the ghouls directing foreign policy, here and abroad, certainly have placed their bets on WWIII and mushroom clouds like never before.
Um, climate change will not destroy humanity, but it will enrich many involved in “stopping” it.
Biotech is the threat.
Nuclear power is apparently what we should utilize. And if war is reduced, we can spend more on power efficiency. I want superconductors, but those are expensive. The tech might could be improved.
Climate change may not destroy humanity, but climate wars are a near-certainty. A war between India and Pakistan over water rights is very possible and could easily go nuclear.
But that isn’t necessarily due to climate. Couldn’t Pakistan desalinate ocean water?
Anyone can desalinate. All it takes is a nautical ass-ton (metric measure, ha-ha) of power to do it.
“Um, climate change will not destroy humanity…”
Correct. Only societies, and possibly civilization.
“Biotech is the threat.”
ABSOLUTELY. A Certain Virus Of Unspecified Origin ™ in the past 4 years demonstrated this.
“Nuclear power is apparently what we should utilize.”
Agree. Thorium-salt reactors. Far more abundant fuel; little to no “dual use” weapons potential in the waste / daughter elements; safer reactor operation temperatures and pressures.
One of my reasons is why Th isn’t being developed – can you guess which one ?
Only societies, and possibly civilization
Won’t be missed.
“All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us ?”
Splitter! ..
Quit reading globalist propaganda
What’s a “globalist” and what’s their agenda ?
Please set aside a lot of time because if you are interested in an answer to those questions, I highly recommend you read Cory Morningstar’s 16 part series, titled, “The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex ”
It’s at wrongkindofgreen.org.
Incredibly dense, granular research.
Like reading medical or legal research. The footnotes are almost as long the text, in each section.
One of which will take a few hours – more, of course, if you peruse the footnotes.
You’ll get the drift after the first sections, though.
Especially, if you are familiar with the activities of the Tavistock Institute, the Committee for Public Information and the eugenics movement around the early 20th century.
As Kurt Vonnegut often remarked,
“…..and so it goes…….”
Blessings
L
Haven’t the time; barely the inclination.
Just give me the “elevator pitch”.
Basically how it’s not an anti-Progressive anti-Humanist conspiracy theory with few(er) aliens. If possible.
I’m generally on board with climate-change being our “long game killer”, but I am increasingly convinced that unhappy / malevolent sentient A.I. is 100x likelier to kill us 100x sooner.
Some youg people I know say say climate change is reaching historical heat levels that could foster hummingbird sized mosquitos plaguing dog sized squirrels and rats.
The US tested that missile three days after it withdrew from the INF Treaty after Russian complaints of flagrant violations by the US by putting missile launchers in Poland and Romania. The idea that fielding a missile could somehow oust the leader of China is outright idiotic.
As is the idea that the Pentagram could possibly develop and build a weapon system like that in three days. There’s no way in hell that it hadn’t already been developed and tested before they withdrew from the treaty.
Aww dammit, Fave Martian. I come to the same conclusion you did, well AFTER you did.
Excellent question, huh ?
I guess if China were defeated, it would hurt Xi’s support.
Why do they think Putin and Xi being humiliated would lead to a more pliable or compliant leader? I would guess the opposite would happen and revenge or a serious escalation would take place.
That does seem to be the way. Look at sh*tball President Bush II. He sucked even BEFORE he really sucked, yet 9/11 and Iraq made him magically re-electable. Americans flocked around a “war-time prez-dent”.
Um, huh, quick question from the Press Box to the US government … uh, ha-ha, awkward question (not for us, but for you) :
If the INF treaty banned such weapons for YEARS, how did you manage to test one THREE DAYS after you withdrew from the INF ?
I mean, that sorta suggests you were…y’know…developing the weapon the whole time you were signatory to its ban.
More laughable junk from the NYT.
In any conflict with China, a puny 4-rocket Tomahawk missile launcher would be quickly identified and destroyed by China, and they wouldn’t even need hypersonic missile to do it.
This is moronic. The Russians already developed such a concealed missile system years ago. How and where it is deployed is unknown. China may well have a similar system, but I’m unaware of that. Certainly they could do the same thing, it’s not “rocket science” to deploy missiles on a container ship.
A few Tomahawk missiles aren’t going to deter China from anything. Tomahawks are old and slow and Chinese air defenses – similar to when not based on Russian S-400 – can easily deal with them.
This Times article is about as dumb as anything the paper has printed before.
If you do not understand that this containerized weapon represents a dangerous escalation, you simply are not paying attention.
Before five years ago, such a weapon was banned by a treaty, agreed upon by the US and Russia. Unless you believe that Russia was violating the treaty (as alleged by the US), there is no reason to believe that Russia was installing such a weapon.
Maybe they had plans or prototypes, as is likely also for the US. But that is something different.
“Unless you believe that Russia was violating the treaty (as alleged by the US),”
And as pointed out brilliantly by Brian “Bill II” Bixby above; the USA tested just such a weapon 3 days after withdrawing from the INF treaty, basically demonstrating they had such weapons build & stored.
“Tu quoque” writ enormous.
“The Russians already developed such a concealed missile system years ago. How and where it is deployed is unknown.”
I would HOPE so. Flashes me back to that famous Robin Williams line about stealth bombers – “Why build them ? Just spread some wreckage in a forest and say, ‘Look – one of them crashed!'”
Ah, here it is: as I said, NINE YEARS AGO Russia had this:
Club-K Container Missile System
The coloring of the container and the “Club K” name suggests it was a K-Mart prototype in case the Retail Cold War against Target & Wal-Mart went hot.
The NY Times is a conduit for CIA/government disinformation.
Has been since at least the 50s, when Project Mockingbird was established by the CIA and managed by the Washington Post.
Not quite true. It is a conduit for propaganda but it also is a conduit for very useful information, as demonstrated by the link contained in the article. You just have to learn how to sift the grain from the chaff.
I didn’t use say ‘exclusivly CIA propaganda’ but anytime the CIA wants, the NYT will publish CIA talking points.
And wishful thinking.
China nor Russia will ever be defeated it`s a wet dream of the Americans / Brits has been for a hundred years to invaded and defeat Russia as the worlds natural resources have been plunder by the West for centuries they are now running out Russia is the last frontier regards untapped natural resources and the Americans are desperate to get into Russia and rape the country for every resource they can get their GREEDY hands on .
And what is the US / “Right-wing West” definition of “defeated” ?
Armchair generals and sour-grapes Cold War I w(h)inners seem to have some scenario in mind; whether it’s a Yeltsin style pseudeo-vassalisation of the RF and/or DPRC…the complete devastation of the nation, state, country, culture, and citizens…fragmentation into small warring states at an Iron Age level of tech…what ?
I don’t see how ANY of those lead to the kind of supremacy or hegemony the Right thinks it will. Half end in nuclear exchange which is a disaster at any scale; and/or create fertile ground for the rise of despots and idealists like Saddam Hussein or OBL that are temporarily on the leash until they certainly aren’t. AND drive “surviving” nations into trade blocs and alliances to shun or shut out the USA entirely.
“Tell me how this ends,” I suppose, is my ultimate question to them.
China’s not negotiating itself out of a war. Xi’s civil approach is not working. We continue to persuade China that its waiting to invade Taiwan until after we defeat Russia might not be a smart move. Taiwan is important for us to choke China to death. Is it just me who doesn’t see a peaceful end before screaming “Unprovoked, Unjustified?”
NYT is a garbage dump.
What a joke. A few old US cruise missiles aren’t enough to regime-change China.
Wow, not just “prove a potent weapon,” but “lead to Xi’s ouster,” underpants gnome style. These people really think like children, don’t they?
A useless idiot taking on China!
Ah. Wonderful. Now, in the event of war between the USA vs. DPRC, China now has cause to target all “civilian” container-ships it does not trust.
Well played, you American government strategic mental-giants.
Sorta like clandestine CIA going into Pakistan in a super smart pretend polio vaccine good-will tour.
Oh, swell. A nuclear-capable missile launcher that you can hide in a standard shipping container. I’ve been wanting one of these to put in my back yard, to deter my pesky neighbor from throwing his empty bottles over the fence.
The Trump administration sank the INF treaty, but perhaps it’s going too far to blame Trump himself, who would find it challenging to read and comprehend; more likely Mike Pompeo and his gang of neoconservatives.
And it’s increasingly likely that the neocons will get us all killed, since they are as dominant in Biden’s cabinet as they were in Trump’s.
Agree. But we shouldn’t be afraid to use the term “neolib” in place of “neocon” when it’s clear that the Authoritarian Left now holds sway, in a magnetic-pole-flip we have seen in the GOP and Democratic Party every quarter-century or so.
The likes of Cheney, Pearle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld are out of the picture. We must accept that Sullivan, Biden, Blinken, and Austin are their (nominally Left) present equivalents.
More nonsense. Tomahawks, anywhere, are obsolete, easy to counter. China won’t invade Taiwan. Xi will just wait for the “prodigal son” to come home. Meanwhile the US goes full Third World politically, socially and mentally.
Raft of alliances? They will all run for cover as soon as it gets tricky. Phillipines has elected little Marcos on the fuzy remembrance of good times when US was around. But soon memory of dangerous times will be back. And Dutetre 2 will emerge. How about Japan? With China being their #1 trading partner — Japan hardly needs trouble. South Korea? China also #1 trading partner.
In the case of any trouble they will run for hills.
US thinks they are same as Europeans — after being squeezed a bit, now all Europeans are just asking US how high to jump.
No such thing in Asia. Asia has options.
The Cuban missile crisis II?
American wishful thinking.