Well, shit, if you don't consider Gates' statements and the premature termination of F-22 production to be colossal screw ups in the USAF's procurement OODA loop starting with 'Observation', then you're on another level of deluded we have nothing left to talk about.
To be fair, it's not just the USAF that's been making startlingly short-sighted and uninformed decisions, I believe the USN edges past them in idiotic procurement in the post-Cold War era.
I guess if you don't have an argument, it's time for insults.
So, you're saying that these individuals of great power are making false "but necessary" statements despite knowing the truth to be something else entirely?
How is such a claim easier to defend than the assertion that they merely made a mistake in underestimating and/or not taking seriously the intelligence that they were fed?
I hope you read what I wrote, specifically in what context Gates was speaking and what his aim was. He was a politician and the budget getting passed was the number one priority in that moment for him and his boss, the president. That politicians sometimes lie is not some unheard of idea that I just made up.
I claim it's quite likely that he found it more convenient and effective to say China will have no fifth-generation fighters by 2020 than having to explain they will have about fifty, while the USA will still have a massive numbers advantage.
Also, his statement is qualitatively similar to the ones the heads of USAF and IAF made (separately) about the J-20, where they essentially said that they're not concerned and downplayed it's importance. If people can accept that's basically what they had to say, even if it's not true, why can't they accept Gates had to (or chose to) lie on the job when he downplayed the timelines of the J-20?
Or, for example, if China's minister of defense or head of the air force are asked about the proliferation of the F-35 around China and say they're not concerned at all, does them not taking the F-35 seriously in that statement mean they're not taking it seriously in their work? Could I then claim they're not getting good intelligence?
Again, no one is disputing whether there have been individuals or groups inside the US intelligence community who may have been aware of this.
But the fact that such information had apparently not reached high levels of govt or defence officials as evidenced by Gates' completely incorrect statement in 2009 means we do not have evidence that individuals at high levels of service or govt were aware of J-XX in the capacity that at least we had been.
Explained above.
There is another interesting thing to note. Gates spent 26 years in the CIA and was Director of Central Intelligence in the '90s, which makes it even more unlikely he would disregard the importance of intelligence.
We also know that the USAF top's generals opposed cutting F-22 numbers. Does that mean they were realistic about the J-20? Wouldn't they have told Gates about it in the discussions they must have had to make this huge decision? Actually, it's almost guaranteed such decisions are made after considering complex projections about each available scenario and involve dozens, if not hundreds of people, which again reduces the likelihood of it all coming down to Gates not reading some briefings close to zero.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a 4.5 generation fighter -- but the lack of description of it as a 5th generation fighter, or one intended to compete with the F-22, or even the term "VLO" means we cannot reasonably assume that in 1997 they believed China was intending to develop such a fighter.
Again, refer to the service level/govt level argument above.
They also could have used other terms such as "very low observable" which in 1997 should have already been in circulation for the understanding of what a 5th generation fighter would be seeking to achieve.
In hindsight it's absolutely possible to think they could have been referring to a 5th generation fighter, but in 1997 do you think it would have been reasonable to interpret that from how vague their statement is? Absolutely not in my opinion.
I have already stated that anyone reading the ONI report without having made their mind up first would understand they are talking about a fifth-generation fighter (or next-generation, where they clearly state the J-10 represents the current, fourth-generation).
But again, nobody has to take my word for it. Let's take a look at how people understood it at the time.
First, we have Fisher's article from 2001.
Future combat aircraft. Since the late 1990s there has been speculation about the PLAs next-generation combat aircraft, referred to by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence in 1997 as the XXJ.
He clearly thinks they are referring to a next-generation fighter.
Then we have
, apparently the result of someone's hobby, that was last updated in 2002.
China's Jian-12 or J-12 (F-12 for foreign markets) is 5th generation multirole jet due to fly by 2012 and enter service by 2015. It has been codenamed XXJ by US's Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).
So this is another person (writing as close in time to the original report as available) who understood they were describing a fifth-generation fighter.
By now, insisting that they were somehow too vague is veering into dishonesty.
Secdef Gates, 2009, Chicago Economic Club. "Handful of 5th generation fighters only by 2025". Of course, if we accept that the statements from high level US govt and military officials no longer carry any water, then why are we even having this discussion in the first place?
We can just wave our hands and say nothing matters.
Can we agree the context, intention, audience and occasion on which statements are made influence how much importance they should be accorded?
This is not an issue of double standards -- the arguments and premises that we are raising did not just magically arrive out of nowhere.
I'm not sure how new you are to PLA watching, but I've been doing this for over a decade now, and I've consumed US govt and military declassified reports on PLA developments this whole time -- initially because I imagined they must surely be the ones who are most on top of new PLA developments -- but now I read them because I want to see how far behind their reports are from the leading edge of OSINT PLA watching.
I'm not badmouthing the ability of the US to gather raw intelligence -- again, see my definition of what I mean by "US intelligence" ("whether that information would have been adequately conveyed to the sufficient high levels of US govt and military responsible for the US to actually conduct actions (i.e.: procurement and strategy) in response to new intelligence is another matter. So when I speak of the "US" or "US intelligence" this is what I refer to.") -- but I am criticizing the way in which that intelligence does not seem to have reached their govt officials and high level service officers, including the open declassified reports that the US govt and military releases.
There are few if any occasions I can think of when they had managed to pre-empt the PLA watching community on a new weapons development programme.
To say that the PLA's weapons developments tend to exceed US (public/declassified) estimates and projections, and to say that the US estimates and projections and statements tend to underestimate PLA weapons developments is not praising China at the US's expense. It is a reflection of what we have been able to see over the course of a decade of unveiling new ships, aircraft, and other systems.
I hope you're able to agree that any reports are not made with you in mind, i.e. they don't seek to fulfill your expectations or give you more information than what's already out there. For example, in the case of the annual DOD report the fact the J-20 was only mentioned after its first flight in 2011 to me clearly reads like a
choice to focus on present developments, in line with the general absence of detailed projections or other discussions of the future. The same goes for many publicly available reports: they limit what they say by choice, not because they couldn't do any better.
: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress has this to say about its sources:
This report is based on unclassified open-source information, such as the annual Department of Defense (DOD) report to Congress on military and security developments involving China, 2015 and 2009 reports on China’s navy from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), published reference sources such as IHS Jane’s Fighting Ships, and press reports.
Also, if there are declassified (not ones that were always public) reports that show US intelligence actually being behind the curve compared to "the leading edge of OSINT PLA watching", do post them. It's hard to take people's word for it when it sounds very improbable and sources aren't provided.
Actually, it seems to me that the results of serious intelligence gathering (spying, hacking) wouldn't be declassified for decades in order not to reveal what one knows and one's methods and sources.
