A top secret desert assembly plant starts ramping up to build Northrop’s B-21 bomber

Artist rendering of Air Force’s new B-21 bomber. (Northrop Gruman)

 

A once-empty parking lot at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s top secret aircraft plant in Palmdale is now jammed with cars that pour in during the predawn hours.

More than a thousand new employees are working for the time being in rows of temporary trailers, a dozen tan-colored tents and a vast assembly hangar at the desert site near the edge of urban Los Angeles County.

It is here that Northrop is building the Air Force’s new B-21 bomber, a stealthy bat-winged jet that is being designed to slip behind any adversary’s air defense system and deliver devastating airstrikes for decades to come. The Pentagon is aiming to buy 100 of the bombers by the mid-2030s for at least $80 billion, though the exact amount is classified.

Asia Times: Chinese Espionage and Intelligence Activities at All Time High, Experts Say

The US announced criminal charges in 2014 against five Chinese army hackers for stealing trade secrets from American companies

 

Chinese intelligence operations worldwide to steal important information both through human agents and cyber attacks are a growing threat, according to experts who testified at a US congressional commission last week.

Beijing’s spies, operating through the civilian Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army Intelligence Bureau (IB), have scored impressive gains against the United States in particular, where economic espionage — the theft of trade secrets and high technology — remains at unprecedented levels.

Technology espionage by China was highlighted by the conviction in California last week of Wenxia Man of San Diego who was convicted of illegally conspiring to export fighter jet engines and an unmanned aerial vehicle to China.

On War Preparations and Secret Structures

A recent piece in The European  depicts the EU sanctions against Russia as fundamentally misconceived. “The sanction policy is in no way, shape or form working,” says the article. The sanctions have failed because Putin “controls the perceptions” of the Russian population. Meanwhile, anti-war sentiment is gaining ground in Germany and all over Europe. Russian propaganda is gradually getting the upper hand. What this reveals, of course, is that the West has no strategy while Russia is all about strategy.

PLA’s CJ-10 cruise missile more advanced than Indian counterpart

After India tested its subsonic Nirbhay cruise missile–which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads–on Oct. 17, the Sina Military Network based in Beijing said that China’s CJ-10 cruise missile is much more powerful than its Indian counterpart.

U.S. Navy admiral says he’s open to idea of giving Chinese Navy tour of carrier

A top U.S. Navy official said he is “receptive” to idea of letting his Chinese crewmen tour a U.S. aircraft carrier based in Japan, but experts warn such access could be a risky intelligence giveaway.

Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, chief of naval operations, told The Wall Street Journal that his Chinese counterpart mentioned the idea of a U.S. carrier crew touring its lone Liaoning carrier and a Chinese crew touring the USS George Washington.

“I’m receptive to that idea,” Greenert, who saw the Liaoning and other Chinese ships on a recent trip, told the paper.

Nan Li, an associate professor in the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute, however, said Beijing would likely benefit more from a tour than the U.S. Navy.

FBI: Chinese hacker accessed gold mine of data on F-22, F-35 and 32 U.S. military projects

A Chinese hacker allegedly broke into the network of world’s largest aerospace company and other defense contractors to steal sensitive information on the United States’ F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, as well as Boeing’s C-17 cargo plane.

The FBI believes that Su Bin, formerly of the Chinese aviation firm Lode Technologies, and two Chinese-based co-conspirators accessed a gold mine of information from Boeing and other contractors in Europe. The plan was to gather enough information so that the communist nation might “stand easily on the giant’s shoulders,” The Register reported Monday.

Russia Says It Will Have Radar-Evading Nukes by 2021

So long as the American Shopping Mall Regime can still buy things and the World Cup serves as the distraction de jour, the threat just won’t sink into the minds of the public. If it does, they likely won’t care.

‘The sword is coming.’

Russia on Friday said it plans to finish modernizing its nuclear-capable missile forces within several years, ITAR-Tass reports.

“By 2016, the share of new missile systems will reach nearly 60 percent, and by 2021 their share will increase to 98 percent,” said Col. Igor Yegorov, a defense ministry spokesman for Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces. The project would replace Russia’s active-duty, nuclear-ready missiles left over from the Cold War.

German, French defense companies to merge

VERSAILLES, France, July 2 (UPI) —Two major European Defense enterprises are merging their businesses as early as next year through a joint holding company.

The merger deal is between Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter Systems of France, providers of land defense systems.

Inside the Ring: Power politics behind PLA general’s ouster

The ouster of retired People’s Liberation Army Gen. Xu Caihou from the Communist Party of China this week represents a major political blow to China’s all-powerful military.

For a decade, Gen. Xu was the most powerful man in uniform in China as the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in charge of political affairs. From that post between 2002 and 2012 he wielded enormous power, ultimately controlling all things military in China, from the PLA’s multibillion-dollar budgets to appointments and promotions of all senior leaders.

…

According to U.S. government China analysts, there is high confidence that the outgoing Mr. Hu warned his successor Mr. Xi that Gen. Xu, a Jiang loyalist and member of the ruling Politburo, was someone not to be trusted. And that is what officials say led Mr. Xi to the use the party investigatory system to bring criminal charges against the Chinese general, culminating his prosecution and disgrace within the party.

EU keen to fund military research

The European Commission has proposed using EU funds for research into new military technology as part of a plan to reform Europe’s defence sector. It already helps fund “dual-use” research on components for military items. It said the new scheme will help Europe remain a “world-leading centre” for defence manufacturing.

Article source: EU keen to fund military research (EUobserver)

UAVs, Stealth, Carriers, Amphibs: DoD Report Details China’s Weapons

WASHINGTON: The People’s Liberation Army has practiced jamming GPS signals, according to a Pentagon report today. The Chinese are testing those and other electronic warfare weapons and they have “proven effective.”

China plans to launch 100 satellites through 2015, including “imaging, remote sensing, navigation, communication, and scientific satellites, as well as manned spacecraft,” says a special section headlined  ”Special Topic: Reconnaissance Satellites” in the annual Pentagon report to Congress about China’s military capabilities and intentions. (Note: that includes manned spacecraft and most of the satellites mentioned are weather, agriculture and related satellites — not advanced spy satellites.)

In another “special section,” this one about low observable technology, the Pentagon report lists weapons “demonstrated” last year:

PLA makes debut at RIMPAC 2014 with 4 warships

The People’s Liberation Army Navy will send four warships to Hawaii to participate for the first time in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, also known as RIMPAC, held by the United States Navy every two years, according to the Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao on Jun. 5.

Russia to ‘restrict’ US-run GPS satellites

Not only are they going to kick the US satellite system out, they will build their own on American soil.

Russian authorities have “implemented measures” to restrict the use of satellite bases in its territories that serve the US-owned GPS network.

The country’s space agency said it would rule out “any military use” of the ground-based stations.

The move comes amid Russian attempts to build a US base for its GPS rival, the navigation system Glonass, which have been blocked by the US government.

China’s President Xi urges greater military use of space

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the air force to adopt an integrated air and space defence capability, in what state media on Tuesday called a response to the increasing military use of space by the United States and others.

While Beijing insists its space program is for peaceful purposes, a Pentagon report last year highlighted China’s increasing space capabilities and said Beijing was pursuing a variety of activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis.

Fears of a space arms race with the United States and other powers mounted after China blew up one of its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile in January 2007.

A detailed analysis of satellite imagery published in March provided additional evidence that a Chinese rocket launch in May 2013, billed as a research mission, was actually a test of a new anti-satellite weapon.

The EU’s Covert Military Satellite Program

The world’s biggest Earth-observation program gets underway in Europe.

The EU launched its Sentinel-1a satellite from French Guiana on April 3 as it began the rollout of its advanced fleet of Earth-monitoring satellites. Once the Sentinel-1a’s sister satellite, the 1b, is launched, the pair will be able to give radar images of anywhere on the Earth within three to six days.

They’re part of the EU’s Copernicus project which aims to give the EU an extensive view of the Earth’s surface.

“There is no Earth-observation project as big as this,” said Prof. Anne Glover, the EU’s chief scientific adviser.