Why We Should Fear China's Nuclear Navy

Why the US Navy Should Fear China’s New 093B Nuclear Attack Submarine

Dave Majumdar
June 27, 2016

Is China’s new Type 093B nuclear-powered attack submarine on par with the U.S. Navy’s Improved Los Angeles-class boats?

At least some U.S. naval analysts believe so and contend that the introduction of the new People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) submarines is an indication of just how quickly Beijing is catching up to the West.

“The 93B is not to be confused with the 93. It is a transition platform between the 93 and the forthcoming 95,” said Jerry Hendrix, director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security—who is also a former U.S. Navy Captain. “It is quieter and it has a new assortment of weapons to include cruise missiles and a vertical launch capability. The 93B is analogous to our LA improved in quietness and their appearance demonstrates that China is learning quickly about how to build a modern fast attack boat.”

Other sources were not convinced that Beijing could have made such enormous technological strides so quickly—but they noted that the topic of Chinese undersea warfare capability is very classified. Open source analysis is often extremely difficult, if not impossible. “Regarding the question on the Type 093B, I really don’t know, anything is possible I suppose, but I doubt it,” said retired Rear Adm. Mike McDevitt, now an analyst at CNA’s Center for Naval Analyses. “I have no doubt that the PLAN has ambitions to at least achieve that level of capability and quietness.”

Though the Seawolf and Virginia-classes have surpassed the Improved Los Angeles-class as the premier U.S. Navy attack submarines, such older vessels will remain the mainstay of the service’s undersea fleet for many years to come. If the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s newest boats are able to match the capabilities of the U.S. Navy’s shrinking undersea fleet, Washington could be in serious trouble. Indeed, the U.S. Navy already anticipated that it could be facing-off against a Chinese submarine fleet that is nearly twice its size, but not as technically capable.

The U.S. Navy—which has roughly 52 attack submarines—is on track to have 41 attack boats by 2029. The Chinese, meanwhile would have “at least 70, and they’re building,” Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, the service’s deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources told the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower and projection forces subcommittee on February 25. “You get back into the whole quality versus quantity issue, but at the same time the Russians are also building…and they build much higher-end submarines.”

In a 2016 report to Congress, the Pentagon noted that Beijing continues to upgrade and expand its submarine fleet: “China continues to improve its SSN force, and four additional SHANG-class SSN (Type 093) will eventually join the two already in service. The SHANG SSN will replace the aging HAN class SSN (Type 091). These improved SHANG SSNs feature a vertical launch system (VLS) and may be able to fire the YJ-18 advanced anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM). Over the next decade, China may construct a new Type 095 nuclear-powered, guided missile attack submarine (SSGN), which not only would improve the PLAN’s anti-surface warfare capability but might also provide it with a more clandestine land-attack option.”

The problem, however, is if Hendrix’s assessment is correct and future Chinese submarines are only slightly less capable than the Virginia or Seawolf-class vessels, the Navy could be in trouble. The technological edge the U.S. Navy—which is already woefully short on attack boats—is counting on might not be sufficient to counter Chinese numerical superiority. However, the service is continuing to improve the performance capabilities of its submarines on a continual basis. Nonetheless, one former U.S. Navy undersea warfare officer suggested that the service would come to regret having truncated the high-performance submarine-hunting Seawolf-class at three boats and focusing instead on the more multi-role Virginia-class.

Aware of the coming attack boat shortfall, the U.S. Navy is hoping to boost its attack submarine fleet by continuing to build two Virginia-class vessels per year even while it builds the next-generation Ohio Replacement Program ballistic missile submarine. However, if the Chinese are truly catching up technologically, Congress might consider accelerating the attack submarine build rate to the maximum capacity of America’s two nuclear-capable shipyards. At the same time, the U.S. Navy might have to accelerate the development of the next-generation successor to the Virginia-class, which has been tentatively designated the SSN(X) program and is scheduled to enter service in 2044.

Obama’s Division With The China Horn (Daniel 7)

Obama’s pivot east fuels an Asian Cold War

Obama’s pivot east has done little to contain China’s strategic expansion.

Obama listens to remarks by Modi in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC [Reuters]

By Tom Hussain

Tom Hussain is a journalist and Pakistan affairs analyst based in Islamabad.

 

The balance of power in South Asia has been decisively tipped in India’s favour by the US decision on Tuesday to grant it “major defence partner” status and support its accession to influential clubs of “good” nuclear states.

The joint statement that emerged after US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at the White House describes an emerging defence partnership in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, an obvious response to China’s increasingly muscular assertions in those maritime theatres.

In seeking to contain China, however, the US has set aside long-standing diplomatic principles.
Hitherto, nuclear-armed states could not gain access to the finest US military technology – specifically, equipment with dual-use applications in strategic weapons – without becoming a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Narendra Modi bolsters Indo-US ties with Washington visit

US support for countries seeking membership of clubs of nuclear states such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group has also been conditional upon them providing evidence of security measures to prevent illegal proliferation.

Strategic arsenals

India has done neither and, like Pakistan, rebuffed President Obama’s call at the Nuclear Security Summit in April for them to reduce the size of their strategic arsenals.

Instead, India has been granted an indefinite waiver because it is key to the completion of a US-shepherded unofficial alliance of Asia-Pacific powers that feel threatened by China’s goal of becoming the dominant power in the region.

By extending the waiver to India but not to Pakistan, the US has chosen to discriminate between perpetual enemies with the fastest-growing arsenals of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles in the world.

The timing of the US decision is as noteworthy as the decision itself. India expects to induct its first nuclear-armed submarine later this year, thereby attaining a second-strike capability that will put it on a strategic par with China.

It will also give it a marked advantage over Pakistan for the first time – a disparity that will be accentuated when India inducts the supersonic interceptor missile it tested in May.

Meanwhile, the US continues to pressure Pakistan to reduce its growing stock of battlefield-specific tactical nuclear warheads, its only strategic edge over India and the stated last-resort weapon for Pakistan, to be detonated on its own soil in the event of an overwhelming conventional Indian attack.
In the circumstances, Pakistan can be expected to try to keep pace with India. Without access to dual-use technology, it can either source it from the international black market – without which the Indian and Pakistani nuclear programmes could not have succeeded – or it can ask China to resume the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology exchanges that ceased in 1992.

In fact, Pakistan asked China to transfer technology for nuclear-armed submarines in 2014 and army chief of staff, General Raheel Sharif, was rushed off to Beijing for a meeting with Premier Li Keqiang, within days of India’s recent interceptor missile test.

Hesitant to date, because of the wider diplomatic implications, China might be tempted to agree to Pakistan’s requests in retaliation for the US granting major defence partner status to India, which will undoubtedly aid India’s quest to become China’s military and strategic equal.

Superpower behaviour

In the South China Sea, the epicentre of Sino-American tensions, superpower behaviour has been characterised by such tit-for-tat competitiveness.

China has worked tirelessly to establish a fait accompli by continuing construction of dual civil-military use facilities on artificial islands in the Spratly Archipelago, prompting the US to step up “freedom of navigation” flights and voyages there for surveillance flights along the Chinese coastline.

China has demanded that Washington cease the spy-plane flights altogether and, in the lead-up to annual bilateral strategic talks in Beijing on Monday, said it would be within its rights to establish an air defence identity zone over the South China Sea.

The US responded over the weekend by announcing two red lines: the establishment of the threatened “identity zone”, and any Chinese attempt to expand its construction activity in the Spratlys to Scarborough Reef, which would prompt unspecified “actions” by the US and other nations.

China’s response was to send a naval vessel into the so-called contiguous maritime zone around the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Thursday, the first time Beijing has deployed the military to press its territorial claim.

The fact that three Russian warships were passing by at the time may have been a coincidence, but it certainly identifes China’s major ally in the region within days of the US saying it was risking diplomatic isolation with its conduct.

The 20-plus countries in the region, home to more than half the world’s population, are under growing pressure to take the side of one superpower against the other. India, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam are firmly in the US camp, while Cambodia, Pakistan and Russia are China’s allies.
However, the vast majority of countries in Asia have adopted neutrality, to varying degrees, because they are mindful of their vicinity to China and their economic dependence upon it, while reliant on the US for security.

Thus, Obama’s “pivot east” has done much to fuel tensions in the Indo-Pacific, but has done little to contain China’s strategic expansion.

 

 Tom Hussain is a journalist and Pakistan affairs analyst based in Islamabad.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

China Nuclear Hegemony (Daniel 7)

This is the real reason China is deploying nuclear missile subs

QINGDAO, CHINA – APRIL 22: Chinese navy officers stand next to the entrance of Great Wall – 218 of Navy Submarine at Qingdao Port on April 22, 2009 in Qingdao of Shandong Province, China. The submrine will attend an international fleet review to be held on April 23 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army Navy. (Photo by Guang Niu/Pool/Getty Images)

Kyle Mizokami
June 1, 2016

Last week, The Guardian announced that China was preparing to send its nuclear missile-armed submarines into the South China Sea. China’s excuse — that it is merely countering American moves in neighboring South Korea — is a flimsy one, intended to paint China as the victim. In reality, China has planned this move for decades.

The People’s Republic of China is in the midst of a territorial grab that has placed itself on one side and virtually all of its neighbors — and the United States — on the other. At stake is freedom of navigation in one of the busiest waterways in the world, and China’s plans for fighting a nuclear war.
Lying off the coast of Southeast Asia, the South China Sea is one of the most strategic and economically vital stretches of water in the world. A third of the world’s merchant traffic passes through the area. It’s also packed with resources, including rich fishing grounds and large reserves of oil and natural gas. The South China Sea functions as a sea border for a number of countries, including China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

In recent years, China has laid claim to roughly 90 percent of the South China Sea, trampling competing claims by her neighbors. China has used dredging to turn several shoals, reefs, and islets into bustling military outposts.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States split their nuclear weapons between long-range missiles, bombers, and missile-firing submarines. Diversifying ensured that it would be difficult to destroy a country’s nuclear stockpile in a single, surprise attack.

The United States, with a powerful navy and technological edge, was less restrictive on where it could send its submarines. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, had inferior submarines, shorter-range missiles, and a less capable navy. In order to protect their missile submarines, the Soviets established two “bastions” — one in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific — adjacent to their territory where they could be better protected.

As a rising power, China is roughly charting the same course the Americans and Soviets did 50 years ago. China has land-based missiles, bombers, and missile submarines. And China is establishing its own bastion — in the South China Sea. This sea grab is a logical response to China’s strategic dilemma.

China’s coming submarine deployment is allegedly in response to the deployment of the American THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea. While it is true that the U.S. is deploying THAAD on the Korean peninsula, the system can only be used against missiles targeting South Korea — coming from China’s ally, North Korea. China’s explanation is designed to make Beijing look like the victim. But China, which has its main submarine missile base adjacent to the South China Sea, has been preparing to sail its missile submarines there for years.

China’s aggression in the South China Sea is not likely merely for aggression’s sake, or the result of a rising power feeling its oats. China is acting out of strategic necessity, something even more dangerous because it feels it is doing something because it must, not simply because it can. The ruling Chinese Communist Party has made the calculation that the strategic benefits — having a safe location for its nuclear missile submarines — outweighs the negative attention the country is receiving worldwide.

What does that mean? It means that Beijing is not going to back down. Chinese nuclear weapons, which are the ultimate guarantor of Communist Party rule, are involved, and anything crucial to the survival of the regime is non-negotiable. Barring a new nuclear strategy — perhaps one that rules out submarines and relies on land-based missiles hidden in tunnels — controlling the sea is a must. Beijing has access to other stretches of the Pacific, but they can be easily accessed by traditional rivals including Taiwan and Japan. The South China Sea, for example, is adjacent to a number of relatively poor, weak states.

At the same time, the United States and its regional allies are lining up to contest China’s sea grab. At stake for the allies is having an expansive China on their doorstep and the loss of freedom of navigation in an essential waterway. From Washington’s point of view, losing control of the South China Sea would be a blow to its credibility as a superpower. Better to push back against Beijing now, while the country is comparatively weak and before China’s neighbors become resigned to the new reality.

Would it be better to informally cede control of the South China Sea to China, much the way the U.S. has de facto control over the Gulf of Mexico? Unfortunately, no. American control of the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t come at the expense of other nations, while China is running roughshod over its neighbors. Also, while China may be acting out of necessity now, American weakness could embolden China to make strictly elective territorial grabs in the future. There is no easy way to placate China.

Facing off in the South China Sea are two sides, both doing what they think they must. It’s a dangerous combination, with no room for negotiation or backing down. Expect to hear much more about this faraway stretch of ocean for years to come.

China Nuclear Horn Terrorizes The Seas (Daniel 7)

China’s Nuclear Subs Are Ready to Terrorize the Sea

Daily Beast

Beijing will soon be able to launch nuclear missiles from the sea. And that’s going to make it harder to deter any future Chinese aggression.

 

China’s about to join an exclusive club for nuclear powers. After decades of development, 2016 could be the year the Chinese navy finally sends its ballistic-missile submarines—“SSBN” is the Pentagon’s designation—to sea for the first time for operational patrols with live, nuclear-tipped rockets.

If indeed the Jin-class subs head to sea this year, China will achieve a level of nuclear strike capability that, at present, just two countries—the United States and Russia—can match or exceed.

“China will probably conduct its first SSBN nuclear deterrence patrol sometime in 2016,” the Pentagon warned in the latest edition of its annual report on the Chinese military, published in mid-May (PDF). Once the Jins set sail, Beijing will command a nuclear “triad” composed of ground-, air-, and sea-launched nuclear weapons.

That’s a big deal, according to the dominant theory of nuclear warfare. “The theory is that a diverse array of delivery systems creates survivability by complicating a first strike,” Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear geopolitics with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told The Daily Beast.

In other words, if a country possesses all three kinds of nukes, it’s harder for an enemy to wipe them all out in a surprise attack. And if you can’t destroy your enemy’s entire atomic arsenal, he can nuke you back—so you’d better not attack at all.

The word for that is “deterrence.” And China could be on the verge of gaining a deterrence capability that most countries simply can’t afford. China reportedly possesses several hundred atomic warheads, but no one outside of the Chinese Communist Party leadership and, perhaps, top foreign intelligence agencies, knows the exact number.

Regardless, that’s far fewer than the roughly 7,000 warheads that the U.S. and Russia each possess but more than any of the world’s other nuclear powers, with the possible exception of France. And compared to Beijing only Moscow and Washington boast a wider range of launchers for their nukes.

The Chinese military’s rocket branch maintains around a hundred long-range rockets in land-based silos. The Chinese air force’s H-6 bombers first dropped atomic bombs back in the 1970s—and modern versions of the bombers can fire cruise missiles that are compatible with nuclear warheads. When the Jins are finally war-ready, they will complete Beijing’s land-air-sea atomic triad.

To be fair, the Chinese vessels are, in a sense, playing catch-up. The Soviet Union and the United States deployed the first nuclear ballistic-missile submarines at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s—and France and the United Kingdom soon followed suit. Today the U.S. Navy’s 14 Ohio-class missile subs take turns quietly sailing deep in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, ready to fire their 24 nuclear-tipped rockets on a moment’s notice.

Russia, France, and the U.K. still operate SSBNs, and India is developing one of its own. The Chinese navy began tinkering with missile subs in 1981. The experimental Xia-class vessel and its JL-1 rocket were technological failures and never sailed on an operational mission.

Since 2007, the Chinese navy has completed four of the follow-on Jin-class subs and is reportedly planning on building four more. More than 400 feet long, a Jin can carry as many as a dozen JL-2 rockets, each with a range of 4,500 miles. A Jin sailing in the central Pacific Ocean could strike targets anywhere in the United States.

If the Jins finally deploy this year, a whopping 35 years will have passed since China first tried to develop a functional SSBN. But developing a missile sub is hard.

Expensive, too. China has not disclosed the cost of the Jins, but consider that the U.S. Navy plans to spend $97 billion replacing its 14 Ohios with a dozen new submarines. Missile subs are big and complex—and their rockets are, too. Training reliable crews and designing an effective command-and-control system are equally difficult to do. Chinese subs have been plagued with quality-control problems.

“While it is clear that the [Chinese navy] is making strides towards correcting these issues, the capabilities of China’s nuclear-powered submarine fleet remain in a process of maturity,” the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, explains on its website.

To Beijing, achieving a nuclear triad is apparently worth the labor and expense. But Lewis cautions against reading the development of the Chinese atomic triad as the result of some sort of clear, top-down policy.

Officials in the U.S. and Russia take for granted the wisdom of a nuclear triad. But in fact, the triads in both of those countries developed as a result of rivalries within their respective militaries. During the early Cold War, the U.S. Navy lobbied lawmakers and the president for missile submarines in part to wrest from the U.S. Air Force some of the funding and prestige that came with being America’s main nuclear strike force.

The same internal conflict could be behind the Jins’ development. And whether China’s missile subs set sail for the first time this year could depend as much on politics as on technology and training. “There are a lot of rivalries and intrigues playing out that might result in a triad—or not,” Lewis said.

China Nuclear Horn Threatens Babylon (Daniel 7)

Chinese missiles dubbed ‘Guam Killer’ pose growing threat to U.S. island: report

Chinese President Xi Jinping is displayed on a screen as Type 99A2 Chinese battle tanks take part in a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender during World War II held in front of Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015.

(Ng Han Guan, AP)

Thomas Gibbons-NeffThe Washington Post

 

While China has long had the ability to strike Guam with long-range nuclear missiles, the Chinese military is expending an increasing amount of resources to hit the key U.S. island with more conventional weapons in the event of a conflict, according to a government report released Tuesday.
The report, first reported on by the Washington Free Beacon and published by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, focuses on the threat posed by the recent introduction of new Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles and China’s ongoing efforts to refine technology that would allow their weapons to accurately hit U.S. assets on Guam and other surrounding islands.
Of particular concern, according to the report, is the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile. With a supposed range of 2,500 miles, the missile has been dubbed the “Guam Killer” or “Guam Express,” because of its ability to hit the U.S. island after being launched from mainland China.

“Combined with improved air- and sea-launched cruise missiles and modernizing support systems, the DF-26 would allow China to bring a greater diversity and quality of assets to bear against Guam in a contingency than ever before,” the report says.

The DF-26 is China’s first conventional ballistic missile capable of reaching Guam, and its modular design allows it to hold various types of warheads, including nuclear payloads. After its debut in a military parade in September, the missile “has likely been deployed as an operational weapon,” though in small numbers, according to the report.

Guam currently hosts upwards of 5,000 U.S. personnel, multiple military facilities, and four nuclear-powered submarines. Additionally, there is a contingent of rotating multi-role jet fighters and bombers, as well as the presence of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile battery that can detect and intercept ballistic missiles such as the DF-26.

While the report assesses an attack on Guam as low, the continued introduction and deployment of new weapons that can threaten U.S. interests in the region is part of a broader Chinese strategy designed to resist U.S. responses to its territorial claims.

Nowhere is this resistance more apparent than in the South China Sea, where China has continually funneled military resources, including surface to air and anti-ship missiles, onto a slew of man-made islands in an effort to secure its self-proclaimed territorial waters. Numerous islands in the area have been claimed by multiple countries, including China, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The United States, in support of its regional allies, has contested Chinese claims by playing a game of brinkmanship in the form of what the Pentagon calls “Freedom of Navigation Operations.” On Tuesday, the USS William P. Lawrence, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 miles of a Chinese claimed island, prompting an immediate Chinese response in the form of three warships and a detachment of fighter aircraft that responded to the area. It was the third such operation since October.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the U.S. destroyer entered the area without China’s permission and “threatened China’s sovereignty.”

U.S. officials said the operation was well within the bounds of international law and demonstrated that the United States will not be deterred by China’s claims.

China’s Nuclear Arsenal Grows (Daniel 7:7)

 

China ‘tests terrifyingly powerful Dongfeng-41 nuclear missile’ which could destroy London in HALF AN HOUR

• 13:30, 21 Apr 2016
• Updated 19:12, 21 Apr 2016
• By Jasper Hamill

Doomsday weapon has the longest range of any ballistic missile in the world and carries up to 10 super destructive warheads

China has allegedly tested a weapon of mass destruction capable of hitting London and other major European or American cities in just 30 minutes.

The People’s Republic reportedly fired a nuke called the Dongfeng-41, which has the longest range of any missile in the world.

It can carry up to 10 warheads over a distance of roughly 7,450 miles in just half an hour before hitting several targets at once.

This would mean Beijing could destroy the whole of London – which is slightly more than 5,000 miles from the Chinese capital – or wipe out any city in the West.

Pentagon sources told the Washington Beacon that the nuke had been detected by American satellites.
The development is likely to make American military chiefs extremely nervous.

Apocalypse now: A nuclear bomb explosion over Mururoa Atoll, French Polynesia

Previous reports have indicated the Dongfeng-41 could be operational at some point during 2016.
Mark Stokes, an expert on the Chinese military and ex-Pentagon analyst, said: “China and Russia are increasingly coordinating their military forces against the United States and that China’s program of enabling North Korea and Iran to become nuclear missile powers is nearing completion.”

A number of states near China are now armed with weapons of mass destruction.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un now has nuclear weapons – and could soon be able to target America and Japan.

Kim, 33, was recently pictured standing next to what was thought to be a miniaturised weapon.
Miniaturisation is achieved when the nuclear warhead weighs less than 2,200 lb and the diameter of the bomb measures 35 inches or less.

In state media, Kim was quoted as saying: “We must always be ready to fire our nuclear warheads at any time.”

Now, a South Korean government report has confirmed the miniaturised 660lb nuclear warhead is at his disposal.

The National Assembly Research Service said the warheads could be mounted on missiles.

It is feared North Korea now had between eight and 20 miniaturised warheads.

The claims came as the US senate was warned it is only a matter of time before Kim had long-range missiles capable of hitting America and Japan.

General Vincent Brooks told the Armed Services Committee that Kim was determined to build rockets which could target the US.

He said: “Over time, I believe we’re going to see them acquire these capabilities if they’re not stopped.”

 

Reuters

Senator John McCain, who chairs the committee, asked how concerned he was about the “immaturity and unpredictability of the rotund ruler in Pyongyang”.

General Brooks replied: “I’m very concerned about the direction he’s going, and it’s evident that he’s not yet deterred from his pursuit.”

The US has 28,500 troops in South Korea. They have kept a military presence there since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The two Koreas technically remain at war, as the conflict ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty.

China supported the North in the Korean War but has become increasingly exasperated by the antics of Kim, who came to power after the death of his father Kim Jong-il in 2011.

Pyongyang last week conducted a test of what appeared to be a medium-range missile, but the rocket suffered a catastrophic failure on launch.

Washington and Seoul may deploy the Theater High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), to protect against ballistic missiles from the North.

South Korea pointed out that it took the US seven years to miniaturise a nuclear warhead in the 1960’s while the Soviet Union took six and China only two years.

North Korea is thought to be planning another nuclear test in the run-up to its Party Congress on May 7. Some experts believe Kim’s missiles have a longer range than previously assessed.

The test this month revealed the KN-08 first stage uses Musudan rather than No Dong engines, along with a more capable fuel.

That means the KN-08 would be able to reach throughout the US, including New York City and Washington, rather than only the Pacific Northwest.