THEY ALSO OWN MUCH OF OUR DEBT – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  One of the most underreported stories of 2010 is the massive Chinese military buildup, including the development of missiles aimed at the U.S. Navy, which projects our power overseas.  Great defense reporter Bill Gertz reports for the Washington Times:

China's military is deploying a new anti-ship ballistic missile that can sink U.S. aircraft carriers, a weapon that specialists say gives Beijing new power-projection capabilities that will affect U.S. support for its Pacific allies.

Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, disclosed to a Japanese newspaper on Sunday that the new anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) is now in the early stages of deployment after having undergone extensive testing.

"An analogy using a Western term would be 'initial operational capability (IOC),' whereby I think China would perceive that it has an operational capability now, but they continue to develop it," Adm. Willard told the Asahi Shimbun. "I would gauge it as about the equivalent of a U.S. system that has achieved IOC."

The four-star admiral, who has been an outspoken skeptic of China's claims that its large-scale military buildup is peaceful, said the U.S. deployment assessment is based on China's press reports and continued testing.

The new weapon, the "D" version of China's DF-21 medium-range missile, involves firing the mobile missile into space, returning it into the atmosphere and then maneuvering it to its target.

COMMENT:  There are a number of military commentators who fear that, distracted by the war on terror, we're ignoring China's military buildup.  The United States Navy today enjoys generally unrestricted passage throughout the Pacific.  If China can put in place an effective anti-carrier missile, that passage becomes substantially more difficult.

But please note that the political left in America is beating the drums for substantial reductions in our defense budget.  And they may get them.

America was the one great nation that learned the lesson of how unpreparedness helped cause the Second World War.  I'm afraid we're forgetting, and there's a whole generation of journalists "informing" us who probably never knew that lesson in the first place.

December 28, 2010