PLA

High resolution private satellite images gathered and analyzed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) seems to suggest that China is rapidly expanding its aircraft carrier construction infrastructure in the area around the shipyard where they currently have one carrier in production. Based on the level of construction shown in pictures taken in […]

Over the past few weeks, images of China’s new supersonic-capable, unarmed reconnaissance drone have begun making their way online, and SOFREP was among the first to notice that the design bears a striking resemblance to a similar platform employed over China by the United States in the 1960s. However, China’s propensity for stealing aircraft designs […]

New images have surfaced on the web of a supersonic reconnaissance drone Chinese officials unveiled for their upcoming military parade on October 1. The images show the general shape of the drone hidden beneath camouflage netting, but that was all most military historians needed to see for something to start smelling fishy. China has a […]

Last week, the United States Navy released industry solicitations for their new conceptual large unmanned surface vehicles (LUSV), as they begin the hunt for the right ship builder to assemble a fleet of ten of these large drone ships. Building off the successes the Navy and DARPA have had with their autonomous Sea Hunter drone […]

China celebrated the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy on Tuesday by showing off its latest naval advancement, the Type 055 destroyer. This new naval platform boasts far more firepower than America’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, and represents the most potent element of China’s growing naval prowess in the Pacific. […]

Diplomatic tensions between the United States and China have risen throughout the the ongoing presidential trade dispute, but in the nearby South China Sea, American and Chinese forces have long been staring one another down from either side of the horizon. The People’s Liberation Army’s massive modernization and reorganization effort, which has included the launch […]

According to reports on Chinese state-owned media, a group of intercept fighters were scrambled from China’s East China Sea fleet to patrol a portion of China’s Air Defense Identification Zone that was apparently the site of unidentified aircraft reported by radar on February 10. Other fighters were equipped with missiles while China’s carrier-based helicopter brigade […]

According to reports on Chinese state-owned media, a group of intercept fighters were scrambled from China’s East China Sea fleet to patrol a portion of China’s Air Defense Identification Zone that was apparently the site of unidentified aircraft reported by radar on February 10. Other fighters were equipped with missiles while China’s carrier-based helicopter brigade […]

The metrics by which we compare the military strengths of nations often serve as better representation of the countries’ fiscal priorities than their actual combat power. America, for instance, employs the largest, most capable military force on the planet, but because of its diverse obligations and responsibilities the world over, it would be difficult—if not […]

China’s Navy has undergone a period of rapid expansion in recent years. With more than twenty new vessels launched in the past 24 months, the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) seems intent on first dominating the South China Sea and eventually, making the transition toward a globally capable blue water navy. Nowhere is that push more […]

Diplomatic tensions between the United States and China have risen throughout the developing trade predicament between leaders, but in the nearby South China Sea, American and Chinese forces have long been staring one another down from either side of the horizon. The People’s Liberation Army’s massive modernization and reorganization effort, which has included the launch […]

Analyzing threats to national security requires a geopolitically and chronologically macro-perspective. That’s increasingly difficult to adopt for an American public that is so deeply entrenched in a political system that chases daily headlines and that considers national policy to be in its twilight every three to six years as the nation prepares for a shift […]