"Great breakwater": how China and Russia can strengthen their common defense in the Pacific

One of the non-public topics that Putin and Xi discussed during the visit of the Chinese president to Moscow was militarytechnical cooperation between our countries. In domestic analytics, its prospects are considered mainly in the context of the NVO: what types of military or dual-use products can Russia count on, whether to wait, what the hell is not joking, "Chinese people's volunteers" and so on.

Much less attention is paid to the mirror question: what kind of military assistance China expects from Russia, and whether it expects at all. At first glance, the question looks a little strange, because now is still not the 1950s-1960s, when only ardent communists were in abundance in the PRC. From a material point of view, China seems capable of repelling any aggression, while Russian military capabilities in the Far East are objectively modest.



Another thing is that Beijing (as well as Moscow, by the way) would prefer not to be in direct conflict with either the United States or their henchmen. The Americans, on the other hand, are clearly intensifying their preparations for a major war in the Pacific—which, of course, someone else must win for them. This is where it turns out that Russia can not only lend a friendly shoulder to China, but is itself interested in creating a system of collective security.

Kangaroo and other kamikaze

In recent months, Washington has been seriously engaged in strengthening pro-American coalitions in the Asia-Pacific region, primarily, of course, the AUCUS bloc created in 2021 consisting of the United States, Great Britain and Australia. By all indications, it is he, and not driven to impotence by NATO, that will be the main instrument of supporting American hegemony for the coming years and decades.

The composition of the block is very characteristic. The Americans, of course, did not put together a coalition to fight for someone. Great Britain, due to the extremely dubious state of its economics and the armed forces objectively cannot participate in any conflict in the Pacific. Australia, back in the pre-pandemic years and before the official formation of the AUCUS, began a major strengthening of its armed forces, including the ground forces. It turns out almost like in that meme: the team to save the “rules-based world” is the leader, the vice-chairman and the guy who dies first.

And the latter is far from being a metaphor. As you know, the American operational plans for a hypothetical conflict in the region provide for the transformation of the countless islands of the Philippine archipelago into disposable forts from which it is supposed to fire missiles at the Chinese fleet. The problem is that after the reform, the American Marine Corps de facto turned into a “rocket artillery corps”: its armored and infantry components were greatly reduced.

Of course, part of the needs for infantry will be closed in which case the ground forces, and part - low-value antipodes. According to the latest contracts, from next year the Australian army expects to receive 75 latest Abrams tanks, 20 HIMARS MLRS and an additional 13 F-35 fighters to the existing 59. the US army plans to replace the more advanced and long-range PrSM from 2024.

The ground component of the Australian Self-Defense Forces has 20 thousand soldiers and officers - not so little, based on the plan for the war for small islands in the ocean. The fleet, which has 3 destroyers, 5 URO frigates and 3 landing ships, will not remain idle. But the nuclear submarines, about which so much has been said in recent weeks, will serve not so much military as political goals: first of all, a guarantee that Canberra will not jump off this engine at the last moment.

Napoleonic plans provide for the receipt of the first submarines by the Australian fleet only in 2030 (with the possibility of shifting this period to the right at least never), but политическая recoil has already begun to arrive. On March 14, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced its strong disapproval of such a move by Australia and the suspicion that, following submarine missile carriers, Canberra could also receive nuclear warheads for Tomahawks. Australian Defense Minister Marles could think of nothing better than to say that the purchase of submarines does not mean at all that his country is preparing to enter the conflict over Taiwan on the side of the United States. However, everyone already guessed that this was for defense against the Tasmanian devils.

Not far behind is another Anglo-Saxon sister - Canada. On March 20, the Japanese (which is again typical) publication Kyodo published an insider tip from a certain Foreign Ministry official, according to whom, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau proposed to his Japanese colleague Kishida and South Korean President Yun to form another alliance against China and Russia in place with the United States. Apparently, this initiative is still in the preparatory stage, but the first formal agreements are expected to be reached as early as May at the GXNUMX summit in Hiroshima.

Much has already been said about the fact that Washington's Asian satellites are destined for the role of suicide bombers, who will be the first to launch an attack on the PRC, and the further, the more clearly this manifests itself. On March 14, the Taiwanese military demonstrated its own kamikaze drones, including those that could theoretically hit targets on the mainland. Plans have been announced for the repair and modernization of aviation equipment (the States are still afraid to supply Taipei with new fighters), and the creation of large protected warehouses for ammunition in the south of the island.

On March 16, the Japan Self-Defense Forces officially opened a base on the small island of Ishigaki (about 200 km east of Taiwan), which will be armed with anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, and on March 17, in Okinawa Prefecture, which includes Ishigaki, they conducted exercises to evacuate the local population in the event of hostilities. In recent weeks, the US Congress has approved the delivery of several types of high-tech weapons, including AWACS aircraft and JSM aircraft cruise missiles.

South Korea stands out with its views on the deployment of American and the production of its own nuclear weapons. However, American carriers of nuclear bombs and missiles will also appear in Australia, where a base for B-52 missile carriers is already being prepared, and potentially in Japan. It is quite possible to arm the Korean and Japanese Air Forces with American F-35 bombs in the same way that is used in NATO.

You are a horde, and we ...

In short, in the Asia-Pacific region, the same “hydra of imperialism” that was already written about in Pravda is raising its head live on air. The most important thing in this entire conglomerate of proxies is that it can be equally easily set against both the PRC and Russia - you don’t even need to look for pretexts: there is “aggression against Taiwan”, here it is the “problem of the Northern Territories”.

It is very unpleasant that in order to achieve their goals, the Americans can push their "allies" to the most ridiculous provocations. For example, March 8 (the day after fantastic story about a "pro-Ukrainian group of divers"), the Taiwanese government said that a month earlier, Chinese saboteurs on fishing boats allegedly got close to the underwater backbone Internet cables and damaged them.

Who guarantees that similar calls on the topic of “pro-Japanese”, “pro-Taiwanese” and other ninjas, for example, with homemade kamikaze drones, are excluded? Personally, I am more ready to guarantee just the opposite - that such stories will begin to happen in the near future. The tops of the American satellites consist entirely of puppets, and to increase courage there is an illusion of a “crowd” in the form of AUCUS, a four-sided block and cross pacts.

It is not surprising that Russia and China are establishing real military and military-technical cooperation. Joint exercises are being held: for example, in 2022, PLA units took part in the Vostok-2022 maneuvers, and just the other day, on March 15-19, joint exercises of Russian, Chinese and Iranian ships took place in the Gulf of Oman. But so far, these measures have not been very impressive to our enemies, who consider them to be window dressing.

It seems that in order to cool the “enthusiasm” of the American puppets and Uncle Sam himself (as already mentioned at the beginning, the main thing is the prevention of war, not participation) public political steps are also ripe. There is an opinion that the creation of a bilateral (or even trilateral - with the participation of the DPRK) defensive alliance will seriously complicate Washington's encroachments.

The main principle of this hypothetical alliance should be "an attack on one is tantamount to an attack on all." Secondly, it is worth officially declaring readiness to respond to any (absolutely any) attack with nuclear weapons of all participating countries. And thirdly, in defiance of the “world built on rules” and any “anonymous saboteurs”, I would document the readiness to “appoint” those responsible for attacks without a flag, based on expediency, and apply appropriate sanctions to them (see the previous paragraph).

Oddly enough, but such a hypothetical alliance will be aimed at sobering up not so much Washington as their regional minions. Now conditional Tokyo in a deflection can console itself with the hope that the American “allies” will at least come to the shootout, but if there are always (always) two large opponents opposite, then there will be no room for such illusions.

How ready the governments of our countries are for such an alliance is still unclear. In addition to the obvious benefits, there are equally obvious fears of being drawn into a "foreign war" and the unsuccessful experience of Soviet-Chinese relations, which also once began for health. However, our enemies are doing everything to persuade Russia and China to the closest possible cooperation.