By Roxana Tiron
National Defense Magazine, May 2004.
China has been quietly at work pursuing unmanned aircraft technologies both domestically and from foreign partners. It also is marketing its drones to friendly nations in Asia and Africa, according to a Chinese industry official.
“It is the trend of customers in the world to have reconnaissance, intelligence and long endurance” unmanned systems, said Yang Ying, the vice president of the China National Aero Technology Import and Export Corporation.
Only recently did the Chinese Army receive a series of reconnaissance UAVs produced by CATIC, said Ying, who spoke to National Defense at the Asian Aerospace 2004 in Singapore.
A system called the ASN-105B is designed to penetrate the battlefield to perform real-time surveillance and intelligence collection. The vehicle is operated by remote control from a ground control station.
The navigation system is based on GPS (Global Positioning System). The UAV is launched by rocket boost and lands with a parachute.
ASN-105B has a wingspan of 5 meters and can carry a payload of up to 40 kg at a maximum speed of 200 km an hour. Its endurance is seven hours and it can cover up to 150 km.
An ASN-105 system is made up of six air vehicles, one main ground control station, a mobile ground control station, a photo processing shelter, a TV/infrared image interpreting shelter and a launcher.
Another system developed several years ago, the ASN-206, can perform day and night aerial reconnaissance, battlefield surveillance, target positioning and artillery shooting adjustment. The Chinese use it for border patrol, nuclear radiation survey and sample, aerial photography and disaster surveillance.
The ASN-206 has a wingspan of 6 meters and can carry a payload up to 50 km. It can travel up to 210 km per hour at heights of 6,000 meters. It can endure operations up to eight hours and cover a range of 150 km.
Mission equipment includes low light-level camera, infrared line scanner, airborne video recorder and laser altimeter. The ASN-206 system consists of one air vehicle, a power plant and a launch-and-recovery system.
The Chinese military has operated a light UAV system and a target drone for the past 10 years, both produced by CATIC, said Ying.
The ASN-15 is a hand-launched UAV for battlefield reconnaissance and surveillance, routine patrol, as well as search and rescue. It has a wingspan of 3 meters and can operate at a speed of up to 90 km per hour. It flies at an altitude of up to 500 meters and can cover an area of up to 10 km. Launched by rail, it can be recovered by parachute or by “belly skid landing,” according to CATIC.
A system is made up of three air vehicles, a ground control station, remote control transmitter, video receiver, real-time video downlink and film camera.
The target drone, meanwhile, is being used for air-defense training, ground-to-air missile training, anti-aircraft gun training and radar training. The ASN-7 zips at 360 km per hour and can fly as high as 5,000 meters and as low as 50 meters. Its endurance is one hour. It can perform in environments as cold as minus 50 degrees Celsius or as hot as 30 degrees Celsius. It is launched by booster rocket and recovered by parachute.
China keeps updating its UAV systems, said Ying. Upgrades are “continuous with the development of avionics,” he said. Chinese UAVs are capable of autonomous flight, he said. Since 1990, “UAVs became a trend in the country’s needs.”
For foreign customers, CATIC adjusts the systems to their specific requirements, and those systems are marketed under different names, he said. CATIC is a government-owned company and also develops fighter aircraft. These have been marketed to Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
CATIC is not the only organization working on UAVs. The Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics developed the Chang Hong UAV—a high altitude, high subsonic speed, multi-role aircraft. It was designed to be launched from an aircraft and is able to land on either land or water.
The China Aerospace Science Technology Center is developing mini-UAVs, an endeavor started in 1999. The Najing Research Institute for Simulation Techniques has designed a surveillance UAV, while Beijing Wisewell produces the AW-4 Shark UAV and the AW-12A.
Citation: Roxana Tiron. "China Is Pursuing Unmanned Tactical Aircraft," National Defense Magazine, May 2004.
Original URL: http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2004/May/China_Is.htm
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14 September 2008
09 September 2008
Muzzling the Pitbull: How to Make Palin a Liability
Carl Conetta
8 September 2008
Claiming to have learned the lessons of John Kerry’s failed presidential bid, the Obama campaign has vowed to respond quickly to Republican attacks. But if this is all they’ve learned, then the Democrats are likely to lose again. More than a good defense is needed. Democrats need to go on the offensive.
What’s required is nothing less than a political demolition campaign – one that defines and then assails the political character of the Republican Party and its candidates. Within this, key targets are those attributes of the “Red Team” that seem to be its strongest selling points. At the top of the list: Gov. Sarah Palin. Her inclusion on the Republican ticket has not only significantly boosted its appeal, but also represents McCain’s first executive decision. Both must be shredded.
Palin’s greatest vulnerability is not her inexperience, however. Nor is it her track record in Alaska. Instead, it’s the political character or "persona" that she’s gleefully showing to the world. This character needs to be “re-coded” by the Democrats as representative of all that’s wrong with Republican rule. (Such would be the rough equivalent of the Republicans’ taking down John Kerry as a war hero and their branding of Democrats as “elitists”.)
Unfortunately, there’s a real danger that Democrats will take a more passive approach, hoping that the Red Team will self-destruct. Or hoping that Palin’s threadbare and tawdry resume will “speak for itself”. Or hoping that some scandal in Alaska will sink her. Or hoping that Americans will be “shocked, shocked” to discover that Palin is as conservative (or more so) than George Bush. Problem is: nothing speaks for itself. What Democrats need to do is help Americans understand what to make of all this.
When Americans go to vote on 4 November they will not choose between the “real” Barack Obama and the “real” John McCain. They’ll choose between two political constructs or representations – two characters in a great political and moral drama. These characters embody political values. Values, in turn, are broadly perceived to be the spring from which policy flows. The three-part nexus is: Character, Values, Platform. A fair part of modern campaigning is a contest to define not just your own, but also the other team’s character. That contest will determine the choice that voters perceive on 4 November.
Targeting a “political character” is not the same as launching personal attacks. Instead, the target is the leadership image that the other side has put forward for public affirmation. It’s not the person, but the persona. And it must be hit hard and relentlessly as unworthy of affirmation. Among the things for Democrats to strike at are the idea that Republicans are “anti-elitist”, that McCain’s political temperament is sound and trustworthy, and that the nation needs a snarky “pit bull” in the number two position (or anywhere else, for that matter).
The necessary effort to convert Palin into a political liability might take a tack something like this:
Gov. Sarah Palin, and Senator McCain’s decision to put her forward for the vice presidency, neatly encapsulate all that’s wrong with the Republicans’ way of doing things. You can’t put a pretty face on what they’ve done to the country these past eight years. Our nation is in deep trouble at home and abroad. So what do they offer as a solution? A bucket full of bile and distortion. Characteristically: they refuse to face facts. They refuse to accept responsibility for their own failed policies. And they fail to offer any constructive alternatives. Instead, they blow smoke and try to shift blame. Palin’s is the politics of irresponsibility. And whining. What they’re offering now is the same old whine in a new bottle. Yes, it’s a new team – but they’re singing the same old song, full of spite and lacking in anything new or constructive. That’s the Republican play book. Well, after eight years, it’s been played out.
Gov. Palin likes to describe herself as a pitbull with lipstick. One that seems particularly eager to snap at her fellow Americans, I’d add. Is that what our nation needs right now? Is that the “big change” that McCain promises? Why, that’s no change at all. We’ve had eight years of Republican pitbulls running amuck – blundering at home, blundering abroad. Yapping and snapping. They’re rash and reckless and they don’t care enough about who they bite. They routinely turn on their masters – the American people. We don’t need to put lipstick on that. What’s called for is a muzzle.
Sarah Palin certainly has a great future – in talk radio, I’d say. She’s got what it takes for that. We should wish her Godspeed and send her on her way.
Of course, any serious effort to best the Republican Party also must refigure it as the Party of Lies, the party of smoke and mirrors. This should be as easy to argue as it is essential. They lied the nation into war. They claim to represent the “little guy” and “small town America,” while doing nothing for either. And now they cynically portray themselves as agents of change.
The final requirement may the hardest for Democratic politicians to manage: They need to find their anger. They need to tap into and channel the anger that so many Americans feel about the Republican shenanigans that have so badly damaged this land that we love. Democrats’ personal and professional relationships with Republicans – “good man” McCain and all that – are irrelevant. Palin’s presumed “intelligence” and political “skill” are irrelevant. All that matters is that the political persona of the Republican Party is an ugly thing. Assuming that Obama and Biden can see it, they need to call it.
********
Carl Conetta is a senior fellow of the Commonwealth Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He lives and works in the Washington DC area. (Affiliation for identification purposes only).
8 September 2008
Claiming to have learned the lessons of John Kerry’s failed presidential bid, the Obama campaign has vowed to respond quickly to Republican attacks. But if this is all they’ve learned, then the Democrats are likely to lose again. More than a good defense is needed. Democrats need to go on the offensive.
What’s required is nothing less than a political demolition campaign – one that defines and then assails the political character of the Republican Party and its candidates. Within this, key targets are those attributes of the “Red Team” that seem to be its strongest selling points. At the top of the list: Gov. Sarah Palin. Her inclusion on the Republican ticket has not only significantly boosted its appeal, but also represents McCain’s first executive decision. Both must be shredded.
Palin’s greatest vulnerability is not her inexperience, however. Nor is it her track record in Alaska. Instead, it’s the political character or "persona" that she’s gleefully showing to the world. This character needs to be “re-coded” by the Democrats as representative of all that’s wrong with Republican rule. (Such would be the rough equivalent of the Republicans’ taking down John Kerry as a war hero and their branding of Democrats as “elitists”.)
Unfortunately, there’s a real danger that Democrats will take a more passive approach, hoping that the Red Team will self-destruct. Or hoping that Palin’s threadbare and tawdry resume will “speak for itself”. Or hoping that some scandal in Alaska will sink her. Or hoping that Americans will be “shocked, shocked” to discover that Palin is as conservative (or more so) than George Bush. Problem is: nothing speaks for itself. What Democrats need to do is help Americans understand what to make of all this.
When Americans go to vote on 4 November they will not choose between the “real” Barack Obama and the “real” John McCain. They’ll choose between two political constructs or representations – two characters in a great political and moral drama. These characters embody political values. Values, in turn, are broadly perceived to be the spring from which policy flows. The three-part nexus is: Character, Values, Platform. A fair part of modern campaigning is a contest to define not just your own, but also the other team’s character. That contest will determine the choice that voters perceive on 4 November.
Targeting a “political character” is not the same as launching personal attacks. Instead, the target is the leadership image that the other side has put forward for public affirmation. It’s not the person, but the persona. And it must be hit hard and relentlessly as unworthy of affirmation. Among the things for Democrats to strike at are the idea that Republicans are “anti-elitist”, that McCain’s political temperament is sound and trustworthy, and that the nation needs a snarky “pit bull” in the number two position (or anywhere else, for that matter).
The necessary effort to convert Palin into a political liability might take a tack something like this:
Gov. Sarah Palin, and Senator McCain’s decision to put her forward for the vice presidency, neatly encapsulate all that’s wrong with the Republicans’ way of doing things. You can’t put a pretty face on what they’ve done to the country these past eight years. Our nation is in deep trouble at home and abroad. So what do they offer as a solution? A bucket full of bile and distortion. Characteristically: they refuse to face facts. They refuse to accept responsibility for their own failed policies. And they fail to offer any constructive alternatives. Instead, they blow smoke and try to shift blame. Palin’s is the politics of irresponsibility. And whining. What they’re offering now is the same old whine in a new bottle. Yes, it’s a new team – but they’re singing the same old song, full of spite and lacking in anything new or constructive. That’s the Republican play book. Well, after eight years, it’s been played out.
Gov. Palin likes to describe herself as a pitbull with lipstick. One that seems particularly eager to snap at her fellow Americans, I’d add. Is that what our nation needs right now? Is that the “big change” that McCain promises? Why, that’s no change at all. We’ve had eight years of Republican pitbulls running amuck – blundering at home, blundering abroad. Yapping and snapping. They’re rash and reckless and they don’t care enough about who they bite. They routinely turn on their masters – the American people. We don’t need to put lipstick on that. What’s called for is a muzzle.
Sarah Palin certainly has a great future – in talk radio, I’d say. She’s got what it takes for that. We should wish her Godspeed and send her on her way.
Of course, any serious effort to best the Republican Party also must refigure it as the Party of Lies, the party of smoke and mirrors. This should be as easy to argue as it is essential. They lied the nation into war. They claim to represent the “little guy” and “small town America,” while doing nothing for either. And now they cynically portray themselves as agents of change.
The final requirement may the hardest for Democratic politicians to manage: They need to find their anger. They need to tap into and channel the anger that so many Americans feel about the Republican shenanigans that have so badly damaged this land that we love. Democrats’ personal and professional relationships with Republicans – “good man” McCain and all that – are irrelevant. Palin’s presumed “intelligence” and political “skill” are irrelevant. All that matters is that the political persona of the Republican Party is an ugly thing. Assuming that Obama and Biden can see it, they need to call it.
********
Carl Conetta is a senior fellow of the Commonwealth Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He lives and works in the Washington DC area. (Affiliation for identification purposes only).