🇨🇳/🇺🇸2024 China Military Power Report

The PLA Rocket Force now has 1300 MRBMs.

"Those missiles have a range that really only makes sense for hitting bases/targets in Japan (and maybe a few targets in the Philippines or India)."

📎 Tom Shugart

Also note: with 400 ICBMs China now has as many as the US’s 400 deployed Minuteman III’s - a situation I could scarcely have imagined just a few years ago when China’s inventory was in the dozens, not 100s.

(Note: the US does have additional spare MMIII’s + 50 unused silos.)

📎 Tom Shugart

🌏🇺🇸❌🇨🇳 Major US air bases in the Pacific within range of a MRBM with a 1,500mi range fired from inland China. There are approximately 35,000 active duty US military personnel serving on these bases (excluding Andersen).

📎 ripplebrain

🇺🇸❌🇨🇳 Key revelations from the DoD's China Military Power Report:

— By CMPR’s suspense date of “early 2024,” China already had over 600 operational nuclear warheads.
— All of China’s roughly 400 ICBMs can reach the continental United States (CONUS).
— PRC has the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal.
— 3 new silo fields add 320 silos for solid-propellant ICBMs.
— China working to double its DF-5 liquid-propellant ICBM force to likely 50 silos.
— September 2023, China test-launched two CSS-10 Mod 3/DF-31AG ICBMs from training silos in Western China.
— China simulated “Joint Firepower Strike Operations” against Taiwan, in part by live-firing PCH191 close-range ballistic missiles in its 2022 exercises, and drilling with the missile in its 2023 exercises.
— China’s four Type 093B Shang III guided-missile nuclear attack submarines, 3 of which may be operational by 2025, may have land-attack cruise missiles.
— China now has 5 types of ASBMs: DF-21D, DF-26, DF-17, DF-27, YJ-21.
— 5,000-8,000 km-range DF-27 IRBM/ICBM: The “long-range” DF-27 ballistic missile is deployed to the PLARF and likely has a HGV payload option as well as conventional land-attack, conventional antiship, and nuclear capabilities.”
— Potential targets include Guam, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Pentagon estimates China’s actual defense budget is $330-450 billion.
— China has world’s largest military force: 2.035 million active, 510,000 reserve, and 500,000 paramilitary
— China’s navy already has over 370 ships and submarines, including more than 140 major surface combatants.
— CMPR anticipates 395 PLAN battle force ships by 2025, including 65 submarines; and 435 by 2030, including 80 submarines.
— China’s air force has 51 Y-20A heavy lift transports, whose up to 2,400 nautical mile range may be extended by 16 Y-20U tankers.
— China stations 400 Marines at its Djibouti base.

https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615417/-1/-1/0/2024-CMPR-FACT-SHEET.PDF

https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2024.PDF

📎 Andrew Erickson

NATO published a list of 12 defence critical raw materials essential for the Allied defence industry. These materials are integral to the manufacture of advanced defence systems. Western armies cannot survive for long without a secure supply of raw materials.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_231765.htm

📎 Wachter_M

🇷🇺🇸🇾🇱🇾 Exclusive: Russia transfers fighters, arms from Syria to Libya

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has obtained information from monitoring and surveillance units of the new Syrian government confirming that Russia has transferred former Syrian soldiers and officers from the army of the deposed Bashar al-Assad regime to Libya.

The sources said the objective is to integrate them into Russian military bases located in areas controlled by the Libyan National Army (LNA) under Khalifa Haftar.

https://www.newarab.com/news/exclusive-russia-transfers-fighters-arms-syria-libya

🇨🇳 China’s amped-up nuclear power ambitions at core of energy security amid safety concerns

China is leading the world in nuclear power installations and projects under construction as Beijing amps up investment efforts to decarbonise its energy mix.

The country – the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, accounting for more than a third of global emissions – will kick off construction of more nuclear plant projects in coastal regions in 2025, with more in the state-planning pipeline.

https://www.scmp.com/economy/article/3291041/chinas-amped-nuclear-power-ambitions-core-energy-security-amid-safety-concerns

📝 James Hopf on X: "When China finishes its reactors currently under construction, it will pass the US and be the nation with the most nuclear capacity. They plan to have 150 GW of nuclear by 2030, and 380 GW by 2050."

🇨🇳 For Xi Jinping, 'Made in China 2025' has been worth every penny

Bill for technology upgrades and increased self-reliance reaches trillions of yuan: https://s.nikkei.com/49KGL5W

📎 NikkeiAsia

🇸🇷🇬🇾 ExxonMobil’s Exit from Suriname Raises Pressure on Guyana Amid Natural Gas Concerns

By some estimates, there might be 2.4 billion barrels of oil deep below the waters of the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Suriname, South America’s smallest country.

The problem for multinational oil companies seeking to extract that oil is what’s mixed in with it: trillions of cubic feet of methane, often referred to as natural gas.

In May, the U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil and its partner, the Malaysian oil company Petronas, announced their latest well in Suriname’s waters had struck oil. The find — their third fossil fuel discovery in the region — stirred speculation about the potential for a floating oil production platform off Suriname’s coast, and even the possibility of a floating liquified natural gas (LNG) export project.

ExxonMobil has already established itself in neighbouring Guyana, where for the past decade the company has discovered increasing amounts of oil under a partnership with Hess Corp. (pending acquisition by Chevron) and the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) — amid legal challenges from environmental advocates.

But last month, just six months after announcing its latest discovery in the region, ExxonMobil pulled up its anchors and left Suriname, closing out its only remaining foothold in the nation’s waters. The third — and final — offshore well drilled by the partnership, known as the Fusaea-1 well, had produced more natural gas than expected, oil industry analysts noted in May.

https://www.desmog.com/2024/12/18/exxonmobils-exit-from-suriname-raises-pressure-on-guyana-amid-natural-gas-concerns/

#BREAKING
🏴❌🇩🇪 — Cars which crashed into Christmas market in Germany drove "straight into the crowd," according to witnesses!

🇸🇦🏴❌🇩🇪 | The Magdeburg terror attack perpetrator is a man from Saudi Arabia born in 1974, WELT learned from security sources.

🇩🇪🚓❗️ — The German police are evacuating a second Christmas market in the city of Erfurt

🇸🇦🏴❌🇩🇪 — The Saudi citizen arreted by German police over the terror attack in Germany is claimed to have not been previously known to Law Enforcement as an Islamic Extremist