title: Opportunity (rover)

text: In late September 2006, "Opportunity" reached Victoria crater and explored along the rim in a clockwise direction. In June 2007 it returned to Duck Bay, its original arrival point at Victoria crater; in September 2007 it entered the crater to begin a detailed study. In August 2008, "Opportunity" left Victoria crater for Endeavour crater, which it reached on August 9, 2011.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Here at the rim of the Endeavour crater, the rover moved around a geographic feature named "Cape York". The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had detected phyllosilicates there, and the rover analyzed the rocks with its instruments to check this sighting on the ground. This structure was analyzed in depth until summer 2013. In May 2013 the rover was heading south to a hill named "Solander Point".


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: "Opportunity"s total odometry by June 10, 2018 (sol 5111), was , while the dust factor was 10.8. Since January 2013, the solar array dust factor (one of the determinants of solar power production) varied from a relatively dusty 0.467 on December 5, 2013 (sol 3507), to a relatively clean 0.964 on May 13, 2014 (sol 3662).


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: In December 2014, NASA reported that "Opportunity" was suffering from "amnesia" events in which the rover failed to write data, e.g. telemetry information, to non-volatile memory. The hardware failure was believed to be due to an age-related fault in one of the rover's seven memory banks. As a result, NASA had aimed to force the rover's software to ignore the failed memory bank; amnesia events continued to occur, however, which eventually resulted in vehicle resets. In light of this, on Sol 4027 (May 23, 2015), the rover was configured to operate in RAM-only mode, completely avoiding the use of non-volatile memory for storage.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: In early June 2018, a large planetary-scale dust storm developed, and within a few days the rover's solar panels were not generating enough power to maintain communications, with the last contact on June 10, 2018. NASA stated that they did not expect to resume communication until after the storm subsided, but the rover kept silent even after the storm ended in early October, suggesting either a catastrophic failure or a layer of dust covering its solar panels. The team remained hopeful that a windy period between November 2018 and January 2019 might clear the dust from its solar panels, as had happened before. Wind was detected nearby on January 8, and on January 26 the mission team announced a plan to begin broadcasting a new set of commands to the rover in case its radio receiver failed.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: On February 12, 2019, past and present members of the mission team gathered in JPL's Space Flight Operations Facility to watch final commands being transmitted to Opportunity via the 70 meter dish of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. Following 25 minutes of transmission of the final 4 sets of commands, communication attempts with the rover were handed off to Canberra, Australia.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: More than 835 recovery commands were transmitted since losing signal in June 2018 to the end of January 2019 with over 1000 recovery commands transmitted before February 13, 2019. NASA officials held a press conference on February 13 to declare an official end to the mission. NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said, "It is therefore that I am standing here with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude that I declare the "Opportunity" mission is complete." As NASA ended their attempts to contact the rover, the last data sent was the song "I'll Be Seeing You" performed by Billie Holiday. Assets that had been needed to support "Opportunity" were transitioned to support the Mars rovers "Curiosity" and "Perseverance".


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: The final communication from the rover came on June 10, 2018 (sol 5111) from Perseverance Valley, and indicated a solar array energy production of 22 Watt-hours for the sol, and the highest atmospheric opacity (tau) ever measured on Mars: 10.8.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: During the next two decades, NASA will continue to conduct missions with other spacecraft to address whether life ever arose on Mars. The search begins with determining whether the Martian environment was ever suitable for life. Life, as we understand it, requires water, so the history of water on Mars is critical to finding out if the Martian environment was ever conducive to life. Although the Mars Exploration Rovers did not have the ability to detect life directly, they offered very important information on the habitability of the environment in the planet's history.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: "Spirit" and "Opportunity" are twin rovers, each a six-wheeled, solar-powered robot standing high, wide, and long and weighing . Six wheels on a rocker-bogie system enable mobility. Each wheel has its own motor, the vehicle is steered at front and rear and was designed to operate safely at tilts of up to 30 degrees. Maximum speed is although average speed was about a sixth of this (). Both "Spirit" and "Opportunity" have pieces of the fallen World Trade Center's metal on them that were "turned into shields to protect cables on the drilling mechanisms".


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Solar arrays generate about 140 watts for up to fourteen hours per sol, while rechargeable lithium ion batteries stored energy for use at night. "Opportunity"s onboard computer uses a 20 MHz RAD6000 CPU with 128 MB of DRAM, 3 MB of EEPROM, and 256 MB of flash memory. The rover's operating temperature ranges from and radioisotope heaters provide a base level of heating, assisted by electrical heaters when necessary. A gold film and a layer of silica aerogel provides insulation.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Communications depend on an omnidirectional low-gain antenna communicating at a low data rate and a steerable high-gain antenna, both in direct contact with Earth. A low gain antenna is also used to relay data to spacecraft orbiting Mars.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: The cameras produce 1024-pixel by 1024-pixel images, the data is compressed with ICER, stored, and transmitted later.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: "Opportunity" was 'driven' by several operators throughout its mission, including JPL roboticist Vandi Verma who also cowrote the PLEXIL command language used in its software.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: The rover uses a combination of solar cells and a rechargeable chemical battery. This class of rover has two rechargeable lithium batteries, each composed of 8 cells with 8 amp-hour capacity. At the start of the mission the solar panels could provide up to around 900 watt-hours (Wh) to recharge the battery and power system in one Sol, but this could vary due to a variety of factors. In Eagle crater the cells were producing about 840 Wh, but by Sol 319 in December 2004, it had dropped to 730 Wh.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Like Earth, Mars has seasonal variations that reduce sunlight during winter. However, since the Martian year is longer than that of the Earth, the seasons fully rotate roughly once every 2 Earth years. By 2016, MER-B had endured seven Martian winters, during which times power levels drop which can mean the rover avoids doing activities that use a lot of power. During its first winter power levels dropped to under 300 Wh per day for two months, but some later winters were not as bad.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Another factor that can reduce received power is dust in the atmosphere, especially dust storms. Dust storms have occurred quite frequently when Mars is closest to the Sun. Global dust storms in 2007 reduced power levels for "Opportunity" and "Spirit" so much they could only run for a few minutes each day. Due to the 2018 dust storms on Mars, "Opportunity" entered hibernation mode on June 12, but it remained silent after the storm subsided in early October.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: "Opportunity"s launch was managed by NASA's Launch Services Program. This was the first launch of the Delta II Heavy. The launch period went from June 25 to July 15, 2003. The first launch attempt occurred on June 28, 2003, but the spacecraft launched nine days later on July 7, 2003, due to delays for range safety and winds, then later to replace items on the rocket (insulation and a battery). Each day had two instantaneous launch opportunities. On the day of launch, the launch was delayed to the second opportunity (11:18 p.m. EDT) in order to fix a valve.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: On January 25, 2004 (GMT) (January 24, 2004, PST) the airbag-protected landing craft settled onto the surface of Mars in the Eagle crater.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: In late December 2004, "Opportunity" reached the impact site of its heat shield, and took a panorama around Sol 325.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: "Opportunity" has provided substantial evidence in support of the mission's primary scientific goals: to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and regolith that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. In addition to investigating the water, "Opportunity" has also obtained astronomical observations and atmospheric data.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Honoring "Opportunity"'s great contribution to the exploration of Mars, an asteroid was named Opportunity: 39382 Opportunity. The name was proposed by Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld who, along with Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Tom Gehrels, discovered the asteroid on September 24, 1960. "Opportunity"s lander is "Challenger Memorial Station".


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: On July 28, 2014, it was announced that "Opportunity", having traversed over , had become the rover achieving the longest off-world distance, surpassing the previous record of on the Moon by Lunokhod 2.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: On March 24, 2015, NASA celebrated "Opportunity" having traveled the distance of a marathon race, , from the start of "Opportunity"s landing and traveling on Mars.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: On Sol 3894 (January 6, 2015), "Opportunity" reached the summit of "Cape Tribulation," which is above "Botany Bay" level and the highest point yet reached by the rover on western rim of Endeavour Crater according to NASA.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Opportunity was the first rover to hit the length of a marathon (26.2 miles), having taken 11 years and 2 months to clock the distance. The JPL technicians celebrated the occasion by running a race.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Opportunity held the record for longest distance traversed in a single sol by any rover until February 4, 2022, when Perseverance traversed in one sol.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: The rover could take pictures with its different cameras, but only the PanCam camera had the ability to photograph a scene with different color filters. The panorama views are usually built up from PanCam images. By February 3, 2018, "Opportunity" had returned 224,642 pictures.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: An example of a rover traverse map featuring a line showing path of the rover, and mission sols, which are Mars days counted from its landing and typical of Mars surface mission time reporting. Topographic lines and various feature names are also common.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: With word on February 12, 2019, that NASA was likely to conclude the "Opportunity" mission, many media outlets and commentators issued statements praising the mission's success and stating their goodbyes to the rover. One journalist, Jacob Margolis, tweeted his translation of the last data transmission sent by "Opportunity" on June 10, 2018, as "My battery is low and it's getting dark." The phrase struck a chord with the public, inspiring a period of mourning, artwork, and tributes to the memory of "Opportunity".


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: When the quote became widely reported, some news reports mistakenly asserted that the rover sent that exact message in English, resulting in NASA being inundated with additional questions. Margolis wrote a clarifying article on February 16, making it clear he had taken statements from NASA officials who were interpreting the data sent by "Opportunity", both on the state of its low power and Mars's high atmospheric opacity, and rephrased them in a poetic manner, never to imply the rover had sent the specific words.


title: Opportunity (rover)

text: Amazon Studios announced in March 2021 that it was developing a documentary "Good Night Oppy" based on the rover and its prolonged mission. The documentary was directed by Ryan White, and included support from JPL and Industrial Light & Magic.


title: Champa

text: Champa (Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; ; or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd century AD until 1832, when it was annexed by the Vietnamese Empire under its emperor Minh Mạng. The kingdom was known variously as "Nagaracampa" (), "Champa" (ꨌꩌꨛꨩ) in modern Cham, and "Châmpa" () in the Khmer inscriptions, "Chiêm Thành" in Vietnamese and "Zhànchéng" (Mandarin: 占城) in Chinese records.


title: Champa

text: The Kingdoms of Champa and the Chams contribute profound and direct impacts to the history of Vietnam, Southeast Asia, as well as their present day. Early Champa, evolved from local seafaring Austronesian Chamic Sa Huỳnh culture off the coast of modern-day Vietnam. The emergence of Champa at the late 2nd century AD shows testimony of early Southeast Asian statecrafting and crucial stage of the making of Southeast Asia. The peoples of Champa had been established and maintained a vast system of lucrative trade networks across the region, connecting the Indian Ocean and Eastern Asia, until the 17th century. In Champa, historians also witness the first and oldest native Southeast Asian language literature being written down around 350 AD, predating first Khmer, Mon, Malay texts by centuries.


title: Champa

text: The Chams of modern Vietnam and Cambodia are the major remnants of this former kingdom. They speak Chamic languages, a subfamily of Malayo-Polynesian closely related to the Malayic and Bali–Sasak languages. Although Cham culture is usually intertwined with the broader culture of Champa, the kingdom had a multiethnic population, which consisted of Austronesian Chamic-speaking peoples that made up the majority of its demographics. The people who used to inhabit the region are the present-day Chamic-speaking Cham, Rade and Jarai peoples in South and Central Vietnam and Cambodia; the Acehnese from Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, along with elements of Austroasiatic Bahnaric and Katuic-speaking peoples in Central Vietnam.


title: Champa

text: Champa was preceded in the region by a kingdom called Lâm Ấp (Vietnamese), or Linyi (, Middle Chinese (ZS): *"liɪm ʔˠiɪp̚"), that was in existence since 192 AD; although the historical relationship between "Linyi" and "Champa" is not clear. "Champa" reached its apogee in the 9th and 10th centuries AD. Thereafter, it began a gradual decline under pressure from Đại Việt, the Vietnamese polity centered in the region of modern Hanoi. In 1832, the Vietnamese emperor Minh Mạng annexed the remaining Cham territories.


title: Champa

text: Hinduism, adopted through conflicts and conquest of territory from neighboring Funan in the 4th century AD, shaped the art and culture of the Cham Kingdom for centuries, as testified by the many Cham Hindu statues and red brick temples that dotted the landscape in Cham lands. Mỹ Sơn, a former religious center, and Hội An, one of Champa's main port cities, are now World Heritage Sites. Today, many Cham people adhere to Islam, a conversion which began in the 10th century, with the ruling dynasty having fully adopted the faith by the 17th century; they are called the Bani ("Ni tục", from Arabic: Bani). There are, however, the Bacam ("Bacham", Chiêm tục) who still retain and preserve their Hindu faith, rituals, and festivals. The "Bacam" is one of only two surviving non-Indic indigenous Hindu peoples in the world, with a culture dating back thousands of years. The other being the Balinese Hinduism of the Balinese of Indonesia.


title: Champa

text: The name "Champa" derived from the Sanskrit word (pronounced ), which refers to "Magnolia champaca", a species of flowering tree known for its fragrant flowers.


title: Champa

text: Recent academics however dispute the Indic origin explanation, which was conceived by Louis Finot, a colonial-era board director of the École française d'Extrême-Orient. In his 2005 "Champa revised," Michael Vickery challenges Finot's idea. He argues that the Cham people always refer themselves as "Čaṃ" rather than "Champa" (pa–abbreviation of "peśvara", "Campādeśa", "Campānagara"). Most indigenous Austronesian ethnic groups in Central Vietnam such as the Rade, Jarai, Chru, Roglai peoples call the Cham by similar lexemes which likely derived from "Čaṃ." Vietnamese historical accounts also have the Cham named as "Chiêm." Most importantly, the official designation of Champa in Chinese historical texts was "Zhànchéng " –meaning "the city of the Cham," "why not city of the Champa?," Vickery doubts.


title: Champa

text: The Cham have their written records in form of paper book, known as the "Sakkarai dak rai patao", was a 5227-pages collection of Cham veritable records, documenting a history range from early legendary kings of 11th–13th century, to the deposition of Po Thak The, the last king of Panduranga in 1832, reckoning in total 39 rulers of Panduranga from Adam, the tales of spread of Islam to Champa in 1000 AD, to Po Thak The. The annals were written in Akhar Thrah (traditional) Cham script with collection of Cham and Vietnamese seals imprinted by Vietnamese rulers. However, it had been dismissed for a long time by scholars until Po Dharma. Cham literature also have been greatly preserved in approximately more than 3,000 Cham manuscripts and printed books dating from the 16th to 20th centuries. The Southeast Asia Digital Library (SEADL) at Northern Illinois University currently contains an extensive collection of 977 digitized Cham manuscripts, totaling more than 57,800 pages of multigenre content.


title: Champa

text: Modern scholarship has been guided by two competing theories in the historiography of Champa. Scholars agree that historically Champa was divided into several regions or principalities spread out from south to north along the coast of modern Vietnam and united by a common language, culture, and heritage. It is acknowledged that the historical record is not equally rich for each of the regions in every historical period. For example, in the 10th century AD, the record is richest for "Indrapura"; in the 12th century AD, it is richest for Vijaya; following the 15th century AD, it is richest for "Panduranga". Some scholars have taken these shifts in the historical record to reflect the movement of the Cham capital from one location to another. According to such scholars, if the 10th-century record is richest for Indrapura, it is so because at that time Indrapura was the capital of Champa. Other scholars have disputed this contention, holding that Champa was never a united country, and arguing that the presence of a particularly rich historical record for a given region in a given period is no basis for claiming that the region functioned as the capital of a united Champa during that period.


title: Champa

text: Through the centuries, Cham culture and society were influenced by forces emanating from Cambodia, China, Java and India amongst others. Lâm Ấp, a predecessor state in the region, began its existence in AD 192 as a breakaway Chinese colony. An official successfully revolted against Chinese rule in central Vietnam, and Lâm Ấp was founded in AD 192. In the 4th century AD, wars with the neighbouring Kingdom of Funan in Cambodia and the acquisition of Funanese territory led to the infusion of Indian culture into Cham society. Sanskrit was adopted as a scholarly language, and Hinduism, especially Shaivism, became the state religion. Starting from the 10th century AD, the Arab maritime trade introduces Islamic cultural and religious influences to the region. Although Hinduism was the predominant religion among the Cham people until the 16th century, Islam began to attract large numbers of Chams, when some members of the Cham royalty converted to Islam in the 17th century. Champa came to serve as an important link in the spice trade, which stretched from the Persian Gulf to South China, and later in the Arab maritime routes in Mainland Southeast Asia as a supplier of aloe.


title: Champa

text: Despite the frequent wars between the Cham and the Khmer, the two nations also traded and their cultural influences moved in the same directions. Since royal families of the two countries intermarried frequently. Champa also had close trade and cultural relations with the powerful maritime empire of Srivijaya and later with the Majapahit of the Malay Archipelago, its easternmost trade relations being with the kingdoms of Butuan and Sulu in the Philippines.


title: Champa

text: Evidence gathered from linguistic studies around Aceh confirms that a very strong Chamic cultural influence existed in Indonesia; this is indicated by the use of the Chamic language Acehnese as the main language in the coastal regions of Aceh. Linguists believe the Acehnese language, a descendant of the Proto-Chamic language, separated from the Chamic tongue sometime in the 1st millennium AD. Some argue that Acehnese originated from Chamic dispersal after a Vietnamese invasion in 982 AD. Tsat, a northern Chamic language spoken by the Utsul on the Hainan Island, is speculated to be separated from Cham at the time when contact between Champa and Islam had grown considerably, but precise details remain inadequate. Under Chinese language influence over Hainan, Tsat has become fully monosyllabic, while some certain shifts to monosyllabicity can be observed in Eastern Cham (in contact with Vietnamese). Eastern Cham has developed a quasi-registral, incipiently tonal system. After the fall of Vijaya Champa in 1471, another group of Cham and Chamic might have moved west, forming Haroi, which has reversal Bahnaric linguistic influences. However, scholarly views on the precise nature of Aceh-Chamic relations vary.


title: Champa

text: According to Cham folk legends, Champa was founded by Lady Po Nagar–the divide mother goddess of the kingdom. She came from the moon and arrived in Central Vietnam and found the kingdom, but a typhoon drifted her away and left her stranded on the coast of China, where she married a Chinese prince, and returned to Champa. The Po Nagar temple built in Nha Trang during the 8th century, and rebuilt in the 11th century. Her portrayal image in the temple is said dating from 965 AD, is of a commanding personage seated cross-legged upon a throne. She is also worshiped by the Vietnamese, a tradition dates back to the 11th century during the Ly dynasty period.


title: Champa

text: The people of Champa descended from seafaring settlers who reached the Southeast Asian mainland from Borneo about the time of the Sa Huỳnh culture between 1000 BC and 200 AD, the predecessor of the Cham kingdom. The Cham language is part of the Austronesian family. According to one study, Cham is related most closely to modern Acehnese in northern Sumatra.


title: Champa

text: The Sa Huỳnh culture was an Austronesian seafaring culture that centered around present-day Central Vietnam coastal region. During its heyday, the culture distributed across the Central Vietnam coast and has commercial links across the South China sea to the other side in the Philippines archipelago and even with Taiwan (through Maritime Jade Road, Sa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere), which now most archaeologists and scholars have consentient determined and no longer hesitant in linking with the ancestors of the Austronesian Cham and Chamic-speaking peoples.


title: Champa

text: While Northern Vietnam Kinh people assimilated Han Chinese immigrants into their population, have a sinicized culture and carry the patrilineal Han Chinese O-M7 haplogroup, Cham people carry the patrilineal R-M17 haplogroup of South Asian Indian origin from South Asian merchants spreading Hinduism to Champa and marrying Cham females since Chams have no matrilineal South Asian mtDNA, and this fits with the matrilocal structure of Cham families. Analysis of Vietnamese Kinh people's genetics show that within the last 800 years there was mixture between a Malay-like southern Asian and a Chinese ancestral component that happens to fit the time period in which Kinh expanded south from their Red River Delta homeland in the "nam tiến" (lit. 'southward advance') process, which also matches the event 700 years ago when the Cham population suffered massive losses. With the exception of Cham who are Austronesian speaking and Mang who are Austroasiatic speaking, the southern Han Chinese and all other ethnic groups in Vietnam share ancestry.


title: Champa

text: To the Han Chinese, the country of Champa was known as 林邑 "Linyi" in Mandarin and "Lam Yap" in Cantonese and to the Vietnamese, "Lâm Ấp" (which is the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation of 林邑). It was founded in 192 AD.


title: Champa

text: Around the 4th century AD, Cham polities began to absorb much of Indic influences, probably through its neighbor, Funan. Hinduism was established as Champa began to create Sanskrit stone inscriptions and erect red brick Hindu temples. The first king acknowledged in the inscriptions is Bhadravarman, who reigned from 380 to 413 AD. At Mỹ Sơn, King Bhadravarman established a linga called Bhadresvara, whose name was a combination of the king's own name and that of the Hindu god of gods Shiva. The worship of the original god-king under the name Bhadresvara and other names continued through the centuries that followed.


title: Champa

text: Being famously known as skillful sailors and navigators, as early as the 5th century AD, the Cham might have reached India by themselves. King Gangaraja (r. 413–?) of Champa was perhaps the only known Southeast Asian ruler who traveled all the way to India shortly after his abdication. He personally went on pilgrimage in the Ganges River, Northeast India. His itinerary was confirmed by both indigenous Cham sources and Chinese chronicles. George Coedès notes that during the 2nd and 3rd century, an influx of Indian traders, priests, and scholars travelled along the early East Asia–South Asian subcontinent maritime route, could have visited and made communications with local Chamic communities along the coast of Central Vietnam. They played some roles in disseminating Indian culture and Buddhism. But that was not sustained and decisive as active "Indianized native societies," he argues, or Southeast Asian kingdoms that had already been "Indianized" like Funan, were the key factors of the process. On the other hand, Paul Mus suggests the reason for the peacefully acceptance of Hinduism by the Cham elite were likely relating to the tropical monsoon climate background shared by areas like the Bay of Bengal, coastal mainland Southeast Asia all the way from Myanmar to Vietnam. Monsoon societies tended to practice animism, most importantly, the creed of earth spirit. To the early Southeast Asian peoples, Hinduism was somewhat similar to their original beliefs. This resulted in conversions to Hinduism and Buddhism peacefully in Champa with little sort of resistance.


title: Champa

text: Rudravarman I of Champa (r. 529–572), a descendant of Gangaraja through maternal line, became king of Champa in 529 AD. During his reign, the temple complex of Bhadresvara was destroyed by a great fire in 535/536. He was succeeded by his son Sambhuvarman (r. 572–629). He reconstructed the temple of Bhadravarman and renamed it Shambhu-bhadreshvara. In 605, the Sui Empire launched an invasion of Lam Ap in 605, overrunning Sambhuvarman's resistance, and sacked the Cham capital at Tra Kieu. He died in 629 and was succeeded by his son, Kandarpadharma, who died in 630–31. Kandarpadharma was succeeded by his son, Prabhasadharma, who died in 645.


title: Champa

text: Several granite tablets and inscriptions from My Son, Tra Kieu, Hue, Khanh Hoa dated 653–687 report a Cham king named Jaya Prakāśadharma who ascended the throne of Champa as Vikrantavarman I (r. 653–686). Prakāśadharma had thoroughly knowledge of Sanskrit learning, Sanskrit literature, and Indian cosmology. He authorized many constructions of religious sanctuaries at My Son and several building projects throughout the kingdom, laying down foundations of Champa art and architectural styles. He also sent many embassies regularly to the Tang Empire and neighboring Khmer. The Chinese reckoned Champa during the 7th century as the chief tributary state of the South, on a par with the Korean kingdoms of Koguryŏ in the Northeast and Baekje in the East — "though the latter was rivaled by Japan."


title: Champa

text: Between the 7th to 10th centuries AD, the Cham polities rose to become a naval power; as Cham ports attracted local and foreign traders, Cham fleets also controlled the trade in spices and silk in the South China Sea, between China, the Indonesian archipelago and India. They supplemented their income from the trade routes not only by exporting ivory and aloe, but also by engaging in piracy and raiding. However, the rising influence of Champa caught the attention of a neighbouring thalassocracy that considered Champa as a rival, the Javanese (Javaka, probably refers to Srivijaya ruler of Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Java). In 767, the Tonkin coast was raided by a Javanese fleet (Daba) and Kunlun pirates, Champa was subsequently assaulted by Javanese or Kunlun vessels in 774 and 787. In 774 an assault was launched on Po-Nagar in Nha Trang where the pirates demolished temples, while in 787 an assault was launched on Virapura, near Phan Rang. The Javanese invaders continued to occupy southern Champa coastline until being driven off by Indravarman I (r. 787–801) in 799.


title: Champa

text: In 875, a new Buddhist dynasty founded by Indravarman II (r. ? – 893) moved the capital or the major center of Champa to the north again. Indravarman II established the city of Indrapura, near My Son and ancient Simhapura. Mahayana Buddhism eclipsed Hinduism, becoming the state religion. Art historians often attribute the period between 875 to 982 as the Golden Age of Champa art and Champa culture (distinguish with modern Cham culture). Unfortunately, a Vietnamese invasion in 982 led by king Le Hoan of Dai Viet, and following Lưu Kế Tông (r. 986–989), a fanatical Vietnamese usurper who took the throne of Champa in 983, had brought mass destruction in Northern Champa. Indrapura was still one amongst major centers of Champa until being surpassed by Vijaya in the 12th century.


title: Champa

text: Afterwards, during the 1000s, Rajah Kiling, the Hindu king of the Philippine kingdom of the Rajahnate of Butuan instigated a commercial rivalry with the Champa Civilization by requesting for diplomatic equality in court protocol towards his Rajahnate, from the Chinese Empire, which was later denied by the Chinese Imperial court, mainly because of favoritism over the Champa civilization. However, the future Rajah of Butuan, Sri Bata Shaja later succeeded in attaining diplomatic equality with Champa by sending the flamboyant ambassador Likanhsieh. Likanhsieh shocked the Emperor Zhenzong by presenting a memorial engraved on a gold tablet, some white dragon ("Bailong" 白龍) camphor, Moluccan cloves, and a South Sea slave at the eve of an important ceremonial state sacrifice.


title: Champa

text: Cham merchants then immigrated to what is the now the Sultanate of Sulu which was still Hindu at that time and known as Lupah Sug, which is also in the Philippines. The Cham migrants were called Orang Dampuan. The Champa civilization and the port-kingdom of Sulu engaged in commerce with each other which resulted in merchant Chams settling in Sulu from the 10th-13th centuries. The Orang Dampuan were slaughtered by envious native Sulu Buranuns due to the wealth of the Orang Dampuan. The Buranun were then subjected to retaliatory slaughter by the Orang Dampuan. Harmonious commerce between Sulu and the Orang Dampuan was later restored. The Yakans were descendants of the Taguima-based Orang Dampuan who came to Sulu from Champa.


title: Champa

text: The twelfth century in Champa is defined by constant social upheavals and warfare, with Khmer invasions were frequent. The Khmer Empire conquered Northern Champa in 1145, but were quickly repulsed by king Jaya Harivarman I (r. 1148–1167). Another Angkorian invasion of Champa led by Suryavarman II in summer 1150 also was quickly stalled, and Suryavarman died en route. Champa then plummeted into an eleven-year civil war between Jaya Harivarman and his oppositions, which resulted in Champa reunified under Jaya Harivarman by 1161. After having restored the kingdom and its prosperity, in June 1177 Jaya Indravarman IV (r. 1167–1192) launched a surprise naval assault on Angkor, capital of Cambodia, plundering it, slaying the Khmer king, leading to Cham occupation of Cambodia for the next four years. Jayavarman VII of Angkor launched several counterattack campaigns in the 1190s (1190, 1192, 1194–1195, 1198–1203), conquering Champa and made it a dependency of the Khmer Empire for 30 years.


title: Champa

text: Champa was subjected for Mongol Yuan invasion in 1283–1285. Before the invasion, Qubilai Khan ordered the establishment of a mobile secretariat ("xingsheng") in Champa for the purpose of dominating the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean trade networks. It demonstrated the strategic importance of Champa as a naval juggernaut of medieval maritime Eurasia. The Yuan campaign led by General Sogetu against the Cham began in February 1283 with their initial capture of Vijaya forcing the Cham king Indravarman V (r. 1258–1287) and Prince Harijit to wage a guerrilla resistance against the Yuan for two years, together with Dai Viet, eventually repelled the Mongols back to China by June 1285. After the Yuan wars ended decisively in 1288, Dai Viet king Trần Nhân Tông spent his retirement years in Northern Champa, and arranged marriage between his daughter, Princess Huyền Trân, with Prince Harijit–now reigning Jaya Simhavarman III (r. 1288–1307) in 1306 for exchanging of peace and territory. From 1307 to 1401, not even a single surviving indigenous source exists in Champa, and almost of its 14th-century history have to rely on Chinese and Vietnamese sources. Engraving Sanskrit inscription, the prestige language of religious and political elites in Champa, stopped in 1253. No more granduer temple and construction project was built after 1300. These marked the beginning of Champa's decline.


title: Champa

text: From 1367 to 1390, according to Chinese and Vietnamese sources, Che Bong Nga, who ruled as king of Champa from 1360 to 1390, had restored Champa. He launched six invasions of Dai Viet during the deadly Champa–Đại Việt War (1367–1390), sacking its capital in 1371, 1377, 1378, and 1383, having nearly undermined the Dai Viet to its inevitable collapse. Che Bong Nga was only stopped in 1390 on a naval battle in which the Vietnamese deployed firearms for the first time, and miraculously killed the king of Champa, ending the devastating war.


title: Champa

text: After Che Bong Nga, Champa seemingly rebounced to its status quo under a new dynasty of Jaya Simhavarman VI (r. 1390–1400). His successor Indravarman VI (r. 1400–1441) reigned in the next 41 years, expanding Champa's territory to the Mekong Delta amidst decline of the Angkorian Empire. One of Indravarman's nephews, Prince Śrīndra-Viṣṇukīrti Virabhadravarman, became king of Champa in 1441. By the mid 15th century, Champa might have been suffering a steady dooming decline. No inscription survived after 1456. The Vietnamese under strong king Le Thanh Tong launched an invasion of Champa in early 1471, decimating the capital of Vijaya and most of northern Champa. For early historians like Georges Maspero, "the 1471 conquest had concluded the end of the Champa Kingdom." Maspero, like other early orientalist scholars, by his logics, arbitrated the history of Champa only become "worthy" subject for their study when it adapted and maintained "superior" Indian civilization.


title: Champa

text: In the Cham–Vietnamese War (AD 1471), Champa suffered serious defeats at the hands of the Vietnamese, in which 120,000 people were either captured or killed. 50 members of the Cham royal family and some 20–30,000 were taken prisoners and deported, including the king of Champa Tra Toan, who died along his way to the north in captivity. Contemporary reports from China record a Cham envoy telling to the Chinese court: "Annam destroyed our country" with addition notes of massive burning and looting, in which 40 to 60,000 people were slaughtered. The kingdom was reduced to a small enclave near Nha Trang and Phan Rang with many Chams fleeing to Cambodia.


title: Champa

text: Champa was reduced to the principalities of Panduranga and Kauthara at the beginning of the 16th century. Kauthara was annexed by the Vietnamese in 1653. From 1799 to 1832, Panduranga lost its hereditary monarchy status, with kings selected and appointed by the Vietnamese court in Huế.


title: Champa

text: The last remaining principality of Champa, Panduranga, survived until August 1832, when Minh Mang of Vietnam began his purge against rival Le Van Duyet's faction, and accused the Cham leaders for supporting Duyet. Minh Mang ordered the last Cham king and the vice-king to be arrested in Hue, while incorporating the last remnants of Champa into what are Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provinces. Two widespread Cham revolts against the court of Minh Mang's oppression arose in 1833–1835, the latter led by khatib Ja Thak Wa–a Cham Bani cleric–which was more successful and even briefly reestablished a Cham state in short period of time, before being crushed by Minh Mang's forces.


title: Champa

text: The unfortunate defeat of the people of Panduranga in their struggle against Vietnamese oppression also sealed their fate and remnant of Champa. A large chunk of the Cham in Panduranga were subjected to forced assimilation by the Vietnamese, while many Cham, including indigenous highland peoples, were indiscriminate killed by the Vietnamese in massacres, particularly from 1832 to 1836, during the Sumat and Ja Thak Wa uprisings. Bani mosques were raze the ground. Temples were set on fire. Cham villages and their aquatic livelihoods were annihilated. By that time, the Cham totally lost their ancestors' seafaring and shipbuilding traditions.


title: Champa

text: Minh Mang's son and successor Thiệu Trị however reverted most of his father's strict policies against Catholic Christians and ethnic minority. Under Thiệu Trị and Tu Duc, the Cham were reallowed to practice their religions with little prohibition.


title: Champa

text: Only a small fraction, or about 40,000 Cham people in the old Panduranga were remaining in 1885 when the French completed their acquisition of Vietnam. The French colonial administration prohibited Kinh discrimination and prejudice against Cham and indigenous highland peoples, put an end to Vietnamese cultural genocide of the Cham.


title: Champa

text: The King of Champa is the title ruler of Champa. Champa rulers often use two Hinduist style titles: "raja-di-raja" ( "raja of rajas" or "king of kings": written here in Devanagari since the Cham used their own Cham script) or "pu po tana raya" ("lord of all territories"). They would be addressed by style "ganreh patrai" (his Majesty). Officially, the king was the patron of art and construction. Majestic temples and shrines were built dedicating in honor of the king of kings, his ancestors, and their beloved gods (usually Śiva). Some charismatic Cham kings declared themselves "Protector of Champa" in celebrating royal ceremony and coronation ("abhiseka") which involves supernatural and spiritual rituals to demonstrate the king's authority.


title: Champa

text: The regnal name of the Champa rulers originated from the Hindu tradition, often consisting of titles and aliases. Titles (prefix) like: Jaya ( "victory"), Maha ( "great"), Sri ( "glory"). Aliases (stem) like: Bhadravarman, Vikrantavarman, Rudravarman, Simhavarman, Indravarman, Paramesvaravarman, Harivarman... Among them, the suffix -varman belongs to the Kshatriya class and is only for those leaders of the Champa Alliance.


title: Champa

text: The 13th century Chinese gazetteer account "Zhu Fan Zhi" (c. 1225) describes the Cham king 'wears a headdress of gold and adorns his body with strings of jewels' and either rides on an elephant or being lifted on a 'cloth hammock by four men' when he goes outside the palace. When the king attends the court audience, he is encircled by 'thirty female attendants who carry swords and shields or betel nuts'. Court officials would make reports to the king, then make one prostration before leaving.


title: Champa

text: During the reign of the king Prakasadharma (r. 653–686 AD), when Champa was briefly ruled by a strong monarch, the territories of the kingdom stretch from present-day Quảng Bình to Khánh Hòa. An internal division called viṣaya (district) was first introduced. There were at least two viṣaya: Caum and Midit. Each of them has a handful number of local "koṣṭhāgāras" –known as 'source of stable income to upkeep the worship of three gods.


title: Champa

text: During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, northern Champa was consisted by several known districts (viṣaya, zhou 洲): Amaravati (Quảng Ngãi), Ulik (Thừa Thiên–Huế), Vvyar (Quảng Trị), Jriy (southern Quảng Bình), and Traik (northern Quảng Bình). Other junctions like Panduranga remained quietly autonomous.


title: Champa

text: The classical narrative of 'the Champa Kingdom' brought by earlier generations of scholarship, Georges Maspero and George Coedes, created the illusion of a unified Champa. Recent revisionist historians in the 1980s, for example Po Dharma and Trần Quốc Vượng, refuted the concept of single Champa. Chinese historical texts, Cham inscriptions, and especially the Cham annals, the "Sakkarai dak rai patao", both confirm the existence of multi-Campa scenarios. Po Dharma argues that Champa was not a single kingdom or centralized in the manner of Đại Việt but likely a confederation of kingdom(s) and individual city-states for most of its history. For several periods from the 700s to 1471, there was the king of kings or the overlord based out of the most significant powerful cities like Indrapura and Vijaya, who wielded more power, influence, and sense of unity over the other Cham kings and princes, and perhaps those minor local kings and princes (Yuvarāja – not necessary mean crown prince) or regional military commander/warlords (senāpati) were from local that had no connection with the dominant ruling dynasty or could be a member of that royal lineage within the perimeter of the mandala. Mandala is the term coined by O. W. Wolters describing the distribution of state power among small states within large kingdoms in premodern Southeast Asia.


title: Champa

text: Two notable examples of this multi-centric nature of Champa were the principalities of Kauthara and Pāṇḍuraṅga. When Northern Champa and Vijaya fell to the Vietnamese in 1471, Kauthara and Pāṇḍuraṅga persisted existing untouched. Kauthara fell to the Vietnamese 200 years later in 1653, while Panduranga was annexed in 1832. Pāṇḍuraṅga had its full list of kings ruled from the 13th century until 1832, which both Vietnamese and European sources had verified. So Pāṇḍuraṅga remained autonomous and could conduct its foreign affairs without permission from the court of the king of kings.


title: Champa

text: According to the "Huanghua Sidaji" (皇華四達記, 800 AD?), which then was complied into the "Old Book of Tang", a Tang prime minister named Jia Dan detailing his itineraries to Champa, begin with his arrival in a northern Cham state called Huánwáng (環王國), probably is located in modern-day Quảng Trị that had invaded the Tang southernmost province of Annan in 803. The center of Champa by the late 8th and early 9th centuries was in the south, in Gǔdá Guó 古笪國 (Kauthara), Bēntuólàng 奔陀浪洲 (Pāṇḍuraṅga). Chinese texts from 758 to 809 referred whole Champa as Huánwáng, but it must be a convenient way for the Chinese to assume the name of a state that had deployed diplomacy and war with them to be the toponym for all territories of the Cham confederation. The Chinese barely defeated the Cham and recovered lost regions in 809. Harivarman I (r. 803–?) left a document in Po Nagar Temple (Nha Trang) dating from 817, explaining his campaign in northern Champa to expel the Chinese (""Cinas"" in the inscription, today "lauv" in modern Cham language) when they menaced to the northern territories.


title: Champa

text: The Cham traditionally used large numbers of soldiers ("baol") for their infantry and elephant corps. A typical Cham elite warrior ("haluwbilau"/"haluw bilang", meaning "military officer") wore various types of armor such as rattan armor, leather armor, scale lamellar, chainmail, and buff coats. According to an article published by "National Geographic" in 2014, Champa's navy was considered unrivaled. Their navy consisted of mostly large war boats powered by oars that could carry many marines to engage the Khmer and Vietnamese ships in close-quarters combat. However, after the gunpowder age, Chinese firearms - including rockets and handguns were imported and employed by most Southeast Asian rulers in Dai Viet, Lan Na, and Luchuan. But Champa and Ayutthaya failed to adopt this technology and suffered the consequences. In 1390, the powerful Cham ruler Po Binasuor died in a naval battle. The Vietnamese records (written in Chữ Hán) attribute his death to the weapon called the Huochong, long understood as referring to cannon but more probably a handgun. These new weapons technology helped shift the balance of power between the two kingdoms.


title: Champa

text: Between the 2nd and the 15th centuries AD, Champa's territorial extent at times included the modern provinces of Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên Huế, Da Nang, Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi, Bình Định, Phú Yên, Khánh Hòa, Ninh Thuận, and Bình Thuận, and most of the Central Highlands might have been lightly governed or influenced by coastal Cham. Through Cham territory included the mountainous zones west of the coastal plain and (at times) extended into present-day Laos, for the most part, the Cham remained a seafaring people dedicated to trading and maintained few settlements of any size away from the coast. Scholarships also hold consensus that Champa, like Dai Viet, was always polyethnic and ethnic flexible, not just the Cham people alone, but also encompassed several different ethnic groups such as Jarai, Rhadé, and Bahnar/Bahnaric-speaking and Katuic-speaking peoples. It is clear that the Katuic-speaking and Bahnaric-speaking peoples of the Central Highlands in Vietnam and Central Laos had been engaged a long direct and complex contact with Chamic-speaking peoples, resulting in Chamic mutual lexical similarities of the two Austroasiatic ethnolinguistic groups, although it highly likely that most of these borrowings came to Katuics and Bahnarics via the Highland Chamics. Others argue that Cham rule once might have stretched as far west as the Mekong River in the present-day Lao province of Campassak. However, boundaries between premodern Southeast Asian states in most of the cases were remote hinterlands, extreme mountains and limestones covered by thick jungles with few inland trade routes, and can not be accurately determined.


title: Champa

text: Within the four principalities were two main clans: the "Dừa" (means "coconut" in Vietnamese) and the "Cau" (means "areca catechu" in Vietnamese). The Dừa lived in Amravati and Vijaya, while the Cau lived in Kauthara and Panduranga. The two clans differed in their customs and habits and conflicting interests led to many clashes and even war. But they usually managed to settle disagreements through intermarriage.


title: Champa

text: Champa was a religiously tolerant kingdom, with many different faiths coexisted peacefully or have merged with indigenous Cham beliefs. Religiously and culturally, the Chams were grouped into two major religio-cultural groups; the Balamon Chams (also called Cham Ahiér) that adhere to an indigenized form of Islam and Hinduism, and Bani Chams that adhere to an indigenized form of Islam. These two groups mostly live in separate villages. Intermarriage was prohibited in former times, and remains rare even nowadays. Both groups are matrilineal and conform to matrilocal residence practice. Both Cham groups' common ancestor worship is known as "kut", characterized in the form of worshiping cemetery steles of dead ancestors. The Cham view the living world matters as just as transient one for a short-term existence, and eternity is the other world where ancestors, dead relatives and deities live.


title: Champa

text: Another northern group inhabiting around Bình Định and Phú Yên provinces is the Cham Hroi (Haroi), who practice Chamic animism. Under the previous Republic of Vietnam, they were considered a distinct ethnic group. Since 1979, they have been reclassified by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam government as a subgroup of the Cham.


title: Champa

text: The term "Balamon" derived from "Brahman" or "Brahmin", one of Hindu caste of religious elite. Balamon Chams adhere to the old religion of their ancestor, an indigenized form of Hinduism that thrived since the ancient era of Kingdom of Champa in the 5th century AD. While today the Bacam (Bacham) are the only surviving Hindus in Vietnam, the region once hosted some of the most exquisite and vibrant Hindu cultures in the world. The entire region of Southeast Asia, in fact, was home to numerous sophisticated Hindu kingdoms. From Angkor in neighbouring Cambodia, to Java and Bali in Indonesia. The Cham Sunni in the Mekong Delta often refer the Balamon as "Kafir" (Derived from Arabic "Kāfir" for infidels).


title: Champa

text: Before the conquest of Champa by the Đại Việt ruler Le Thánh Tông in 1471, the dominant religion of the Cham upper class ("Thar patao bamao maâh") was Hinduism, and the culture was heavily influenced by that of India. The commoners generally accepted Hindu influence, but they embedded it with much as possible indigenous Cham beliefs to become parts of the Ahier religion today. The Hinduism of Champa was overwhelmingly Shaiva and it was liberally combined with elements of local religious cults such as the worship of the Earth goddess Lady Po Nagar. The main symbols of Cham Shaivism were the lingam, the mukhalinga, the "jaṭāliṅgam", the segmented "liṅgam", and the "kośa".


title: Champa

text: The predominance of Hinduism in Cham religion was interrupted for a time in the 9th and 10th centuries AD, when a dynasty at Indrapura (modern Đồng Dương, Quảng Nam Province, Vietnam) adopted Mahayana Buddhism as its faith. King Indravarman II (r. 854–893) built a giant Buddhist monastery, meditation halls, and temples for Champa's monks (Sangha), and celebrated the veneration of the Buddhist deity Lokeśvara under the name Laksmindra Lokeśvara Svabhayada in 875. Mahayana in Champa was blended with observable elements of Tantric Buddhism, manifesting in many traces. For example, Indravarman's successor Jaya Simhavarman I (r. 897–904) according to his verbatim in 902, Vajrapāṇi is the Bodhisattva capable of leading humans into the "path of the Vajra." The Buddhist art of Đồng Dương has received special acclaim for its originality.


title: Champa

text: Buddhist art of Champa also shared the same unique aesthetics, paralleling with Dvāravatī (Mon) art, highlighting in the similarities of both cultures in their iconographic form of the Buddha-Stūpa-Triad, where the Buddha seats in padmāsana (lotus) flanked by on either side by a depiction of a stūpa. Other shared features are makara lintel, fishtail-shaped sampot illustrating, Gaja-Lakṣmī, pendant-legged Buddhas. The sources of Mon–Cham cultural interaction may be the inland routes between the Muang Fa Daed site on Khorat region, near a lost kingdom called Wèndān by the Chinese (probably the site of Kantarawichai in Kantharawichai, Maha Sarakham), Southern Laos, via Savannakhet, then to Central Vietnam coast through Lao Bảo and Mụ Giạ Passes.


title: Champa

text: Beginning in the 10th century AD, Hinduism again became the predominant religion of Champa. Some of the sites that have yielded important works of religious art and architecture from this period are, aside from Mỹ Sơn, Khương Mỹ, Trà Kiệu, Chanh Lo, and Tháp Mắm.


title: Champa

text: From the 13th to 15th centuries, Mahayana among the Cham was practiced in form of syncretic Saivite–Buddhism or the fusion of the worship of Śiva (seen as the protector) and Buddha (seen as the savior). Buddhism prevailed secondary. With the decline of royal power of the ruling Simhavarmanid dynasty in the 15th century and the fall of their capital Vijaya in 1471, all Mahayana or Vajrayana traces of Champa disappeared, enabling space for the rising Islamic faith.


title: Champa

text: Bani Chams or Bani Awal are Cham Muslims in Central Vietnam that converted to a version of localized Shi'a Islam mixed with Hindu-Chamic customs, as the faith started making headway among the population after the 10th century AD. The term "Bani" derived from Arabic term "bani" (بني) which means "people". The popular account mainly from oversea Cham communities assures that the Cham had been converted by either ʿAlī and his son Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīyya. Al-Dimashqi claimed a story that the Alīds after being expelled, a small group of them took refugee in Champa; these Muslim immigrants therefore spread Shi'a among the Cham, which perhaps eventually led to the synthesis of the Bani Awal religion. In their devotions, the Cham Bani refer to Adam and Eve, the archangel Gabriel, Abraham, the prophet Muhammad, ʿAlī, Fāṭima, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn. They have religious organization dominated by a class of dignitaries who always wear white tunics, the pious color of Islam, Quranic books with Cham commentaries, and simple mosques. However their Imams bear Cham-Sanskrit titles "gru" and "acar". By the 17th century, the royal families of Champa had converted to Bani Islam. The Ahiér is particularly more than strange as they adhere to a hypersyncretic Islam-Balamon-Cham religion. Ahier, meaning later, implies that the Cham Ahier were people who converted to Islam in the sixteenth-seventh centuries, after the Bani Awal. Ahier and Bani Awal communities have blended Shi'a Islam, Balamon, with their own customs to the point that sectarian distinction is no longer makes sense. For example, Allah is usually written as "Po Uvalvah", and prophet Muhammad, which the Cham Bani refer as "Po Rasulak" was morphed into one of many important Cham deities. Most Cham are now evenly split between being followers of Islam and Hinduism, with the majority of Central Vietnam Cham being Ahier and Bani, while the majority of Cambodian Chams and Mekong Delta Chams are Sunni Muslim (also called Cham Baruw, meaning "new Cham"), though significant minorities of Mahayana Buddhists continue to exist.


title: Champa

text: Historical documents regarded that 18th-century Cham and Malay Sunni settlements in the Mekong Delta established by the Nguyen lords earlier than Vietnamese settlements in order to establish Viet-controlled settlements for frontier defense. The embodiment of more fundamentalist Sunni faiths in the Mekong Delta and Cambodia gave the Cham communities here socio-cultural inclinations toward the wider Malay/Islamic world compared with the fair-isolated Cham Bani in Central Vietnam. Islam also instigated certain ethno-religious values to the Mekong Delta Cham, which help them preserving and retaining their distinct ethnic identity in a dynamic transnational environment.


title: Champa

text: Indonesian 15th century records indicate the influence of Princess Daravati, of Cham origin, converted to Islam, and influenced her husband, Kertawijaya, Majapahit's seventh ruler to convert the Majapahit royal family to Islam. The Islamic tomb of "Putri Champa" (Princess of Champa) can be found in Trowulan, East Java, the site of the Majapahit imperial capital. In the 15th to 17th century, Islamic Champa had maintained a cordial relationship with the Aceh Sultanate through dynastic marriage. This sultanate was located on the northern tip of Sumatra and was an active promoter of the Islamic faith in the Indonesian archipelago.


title: Champa

text: The lunisolar Cham Sawaki calendar is amalgamation of Islamic calendar and traditional Cham calendar, which was based on the Indian Śaka era. A normal year in Sawaki consists of 354 days with 12 months; the average length of each month is either 29 or 30 days. The calendar has a 12-year cycle of zodiac called "Nâthak." It sets three leap years for every eight years, compared to 11 leap years for every 30 years of the orthodox Islamic calendar.


title: Champa

text: Unlike many contemporaneous mainland Southeast Asian kingdoms, Champa's economy was not a heavily agrarian one. Fourteenth-century Franciscan traveler Odoric of Pordenone who had visited the nation in 1324-25 describes the diet of medieval Champa commoners mainly composed of rice and fish/seafood products. As a seafaring people, the Cham were highly itinerant and established a network of trade including not only the major ports at Hội An, Thị Nại but also extending into the mountainous hinterland. Maritime trade was facilitated by a network of wells that provided fresh water to Cham and foreign ships along the coast of Champa and the islands of Cù Lao Chàm and Lý Sơn. While Kenneth R. Hall suggests that Champa was not able to rely on taxes on trade for stable revenue, but instead financed their rule by raiding neighboring countries and seabustering merchant ships, Hardy argues that the country's prosperity was above all based on commerce.


title: Champa

text: The vast majority of Champa's export products, mostly medieval commodities, came from the mountainous hinterland, sourced from as far as Attapeu in southern Laos. They included gold and silver, slaves, animal and animal products, and precious woods. Cham pottery, characterized by distinct olive-green and brown glazes, were primary produced by the kilns of Gò Sành, just in the suburbs of Vijaya. Cham ceramic production peaked around the 14th to 16th century, and have been reported to be discovered in present-day Egypt, the UAE, Malaysia, and the Philippines.


title: Champa

text: By far the most important export product was eaglewood. It was the only product mentioned in Marco Polo's brief account and similarly impressed the Arab trader Sulayman several centuries earlier. Most of it was probably taken from the Aquilaria crassna tree, just as most of the eaglewood in Vietnam today. The largest amount of eaglewood products extracted from the highland of Champa occurred in 1155, when Cham envoy reportedly shipped 55,020 catties (around 33 tons) of incense "of Wuli" to the Song court as trade tribute.


title: Champa

text: During the medieval age, the Champa Kingdom benefited greatly from the luxurious maritime trade routes through the South China Sea and overland trade networks connecting Angkor and Bagan to Champa. Urbanization in Champa took place progressively from the first to eighth centuries AD, from the late Sahuynhian to the early Champa period. Champa concentrated its wealth in highly urbanized port-cities, some of them located in self-governing regions. The earliest of those was Simhapura, emerged as a riverine port-city and Cham political center around 400 AD. Prominent examples include Amarendrapura (the modern city of Huế); Visnupura (Nhan Bieu, Quảng Trị) and Vrddha Ratnapura (Ðại Hữu, Quảng Bình) in the north; Indrapura and Amavarati (Quang Nam); Vijaya (Qui Nhon) in the central region; and Nha Trang, Virapura (near Phan Rang), and Panduranga in the south. These cosmopolitan cities were loaded with surplus amount of trading goods and exotic products, overcrowded by merchants not just from other Cham states, but also Chinese, Khmer, Malay, Viet, Arab, and Indian traders and travelers.


title: Champa

text: The "Zhu Fan Zhi" describes the port cities of Champa, 'on the arrival of a trading ship in this country, officials are sent on board with a book made of folded slips of black leather.' After an inventory has been taken, the cargo may be landed. 20% of the goods carried on is claimed as tax, and the rest may be traded privately. If they discovered that 'any items were hidden away during the customs check, the whole cargo will be confiscated.'


title: Champa

text: When French scholars arrived in the mid-19th century, they were impressed with Cham ruins, Cham urbanism, and medieval networks throughout the former kingdom. The middle-age densely populated areas of Tra Kieu and My Son were well connected by paved stone roads, bridges, urban ruins that were 16 feet high, rampart and stone citadel in a rectangle shape of 984 feet by 1640 feet, which hosted temples, fortified palaces, and resident structures, and were supplied by canals, irrigation projects, underground aqueducts and wells.


title: Champa

text: From the 4th to 15th century, these cities were relatively wealthy. Foreign traders and travelers from across medieval Eurasia were well-aware of Champa's richness and eyewitnessed the crowded, prosperous Cham port-cities. Abu'l-Faradj described the city of Indrapura "this temple is ancient that all the Buddhas found there enter into conversation with the faithful and reply to all the requests made to them." Columbus during his fourth voyage in 1502 along the coast of Central America, in accordance with contemporary knowledge that confused Central America with eastern Asia, thought that he had reached the kingdom of "Ciampa" visited by Marco Polo in 1290. Peter Martyr d'Anghiera recorded in "De Orbe Novo Decades" that on his fourth voyage in 1502, Columbus: "found a vast territory called Quiriquetana [ Quiriguá] in the language of the inhabitants, but he called it Ciamba (Champa)". Portuguese travelers in the early 16th century, such as Fernão Mendes Pinto, reported vestiges of these cities "a town of above ten thousand households" which "encircled by a strong wall of brick, towers, and bulwarks." Because of this, Champa was the target of multiple warring powers surrounding: the Chinese in 4th century-605 AD; the Javanese in 774 and 787, the Vietnamese in 982, 1044, 1069, 1073, 1446, and 1471; the Khmer in 945–950, 1074, 1126–1128, 1139–1150, 1190–1220; and the Mongol Yuan in 1283–85, many cities were ransacked by invaders and rebuilt or repaired overtime. They also had to face constant threats from hazards per annum such as flood, tropical cyclones, fire. Some Cham port-cities later ended up captured by Vietnamese in the mid-15th century, which later resulted in the rise of Nguyen domain depending on these port-cities, whom benefited international trades, and was well-balanced enough to fend off several northern Trinh invasions in the 17th century.


title: Champa

text: Women enjoy far greater freedom and important role in Cham history and society compared to neighboring and Islamic cultures generally. Prior 1975, Cham communities in Central Vietnam, Bani Muslim and Ahier, still upheld the practice of matrilineality in family relationship. Bani priests symbolize women while Ahier priests represent for male. Yoshimoto suggests the Bani Awal-Ahier binary indicates the notion of symbolic dualism between male and female, husband and wife. Women take major roles in every aspects of Cham society. Neither a gender hierarchy and restriction exists. Religious attendance at thang magik (Bani mosque) during the Ramawan month are mostly accomplished by women from every household.


title: Champa

text: The 4th century Vo Canh inscription denotes the existence of matrilineage of early Cham rulers. Another prominent example of Cham matrilinealism in royal succession was King Rudravarman I of the Gangaraja dynasty. Rudravarman was the son of Manorathavarman's niece.


title: Champa

text: Female gods constitute the majority of divinities in Cham historical legends. The most sacred Goddess of the Cham people is Lady Po Nagar, a mythical princess who was said to be the founder of Champa. "Po Dava," the Cham God of Virginity, is the symbol of learning and literature. She is worshipped at the Po Nagar Hamu Tanran temple in Panduranga.


title: Champa

text: According to the legend of Po Klong Garai, Princess "Po Sah Inö" was the mother of Po Klong Garai. She was born of sea foam scrubbings. When she grew up, she drank water from a spring, and magically got pregnant. In one day, her scabby son encountered a dragon who then healed him and predicted that he should become king. The boy, Po Klong Garai, then acquired supernatural powers. The chief of royal astronomy ought to ask Po Klong Garai to marry his daughter. Po Klong Garai then became king, destroying the Cambodian invaders, bringing peace and prosperity to the Kingdom of Champa. To commemorate the legendary hero, in 1242 the future King Jaya Simhavarman III (r. 1288-1307) offered the construction of the Po Klong Garai Temple at Phan Rang.


title: Champa

text: Some of the network of wells that was used to provide fresh water to Cham and foreign ships still remains. Cham wells are recognisable by their square shape. They are still in use and provide fresh water even during times of drought.


title: Champa

text: The largest collection of Cham sculpture may be found in the Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture (formerly known as "Musée Henri Parmentier") in the coastal city of Da Nang. The museum was established in 1915 by French scholars, and is regarded as one of the most beautiful in Southeast Asia. Other museums with collections of Cham art include the following:


title: Champa

text: Cham culture was absorbed by the Vietnamese, who in turn were strongly influenced by it. In 1044, after raiding Champa, Vietnamese king Lý Thái Tông took some 5,000 prisoners, and brought back to Dai Viet a number of court dancers familiar with Indian-style dances, settling to them in a palace specifically built for them. Both Lý Thái Tông and his son Lý Thánh Tông had a great appreciation for Cham music, and in 1060 Lý Thái Tông ordered his court musicians to study the Cham drum rhythms along with Cham songs he himself had translated into Vietnamese. According to some Vietnamese scholars, the Vietnamese cult of Princess Liễu Hạnh might have been influenced by Cham deity Yang Pu Inu Nagara (Lady Po Nagar).


title: Champa

text: Even the Vietnamese "Quan họ" music and "Lục bát" (six-eight) poetry could have been influenced by Cham poetry and folk music.


title: Champa

text: Cham art also spread far across the Red River Delta, where many Vietnamese Buddhist temples hosted Cham-style statues of dragons, lions, "nāgá," "makara", kinnari, Brahma and Hamsa dated back to the 11th–13th century (however, since these creatures also existed in China, it was more likely Chinese influence and not Champa). Thousand of bricks inscribed with Cham script indicate that a multitude of Vietnamese temples and holy sites were built by Cham engineers. A Buddhist stone stupa of Dạm tempe in Bắc Ninh Province, built by Vietnamese king Lý Nhân Tông in 1086, is a representation of a lingam and its yoni (a Hindu-Cham symbol of fertility and the power of creation).


title: Champa

text: In 1693, after lord Nguyen Phuc Chu's take over of Panduranga, the Cham were forced to wear regulated Vietnamese attire, at least the members of the ruling Mâh Taha dynasty, Cham king Po Saktiraydapatih, and Cham court officials.


title: Champa

text: According to French researcher and ethnologist Denys Lombard, "Champa is not only the name of a former kingdom but it is also of a vast network that extended all over the main Southeast Asian centers". For nearly 1,500 years, the Cham and their diaspora communities had developed and maintained a vast and complex overland and maritime system of networks, not just around modern-day Vietnam, but also extended throughout Mainland and Maritime Southeast Asia. These networks, served not only for trade, but also for connecting peoples, transporting culture, ideas, and religious identities across the region, enduring endless historical possibilities and mutual relationships, significantly helping most of Southeast Asia to transform into their present-day.


title: Champa

text: Cham culture influenced nearby communities and tamed most of present-day Vietnam and surrounding areas. Despite being formed from one of the least coherent places on Earth, Champa was a formidable seafaring kingdom that outlasted most empires. The Cham today, one of the few microcosms in Southeast Asia that still maintain strong links with neighboring countries in the region while still retaining their distinct ethnic identity.


title: Champa

text: Modern Vietnamese perceptions of Champa and its legacy are varying. Today, the Cham are seen as one minority group within the unnoticeable multi-ethnic Vietnam, and their legacy is just only incorporated into the Vietnamese national heritage.


title: Nuclear triad

text: A nuclear triad is a three-pronged military force structure that consists of land-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines, and strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs and missiles. Specifically, these components are land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers. The purpose of having this three-branched nuclear capability is to significantly reduce the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack. This, in turn, ensures a credible threat of a second strike, and thus increases a nation's nuclear deterrence.


title: Nuclear triad

text: While traditional nuclear strategy holds that a nuclear triad provides the best level of deterrence from attack, in reality, most nuclear powers do not have the military budget to sustain a full triad. While only the United States and Russia have maintained strong nuclear triads for most of the nuclear age, there are other countries that have triad powers. These countries include China, India, and France. Both the United States and Russia have had the strongest, and longest-living triads. These triads include the following components:


title: Nuclear triad

text: The triad gives countries a way to deliver a nuclear attack by land, sea or air. For the United States, the idea to have these three options was for the purpose of retaliation. If two of the three legs of the triad were destroyed, the third could still have a retaliatory strike. Also, having these three legs protects against the issue of new technology, like an enemy missile-defense system. It also gives the commander-in-chief the flexibility to use different types of weapons for the appropriate strike while also maintaining a reserve of nuclear weapons safe from a counter-force strike.


title: Nuclear triad

text: Tactical nuclear weapons, also known as non-strategic nuclear weapons, are used in air, land and sea warfare. Their primary use in a non-strategic war-fighting role is to destroy military forces in the battle area. But, depending on the target in today's nuclear age, they are not counted toward triad status because of the possibility that many of these systems could be used as strategic weapons. During the Cold War, it was easy to point out which nuclear weapons were tactical. Each type of weapon had different capabilities that were better suited for different missions. Air-to-air missiles, rockets, surface-to-air missiles, small air-to-ground rockets, bombs, and precision munitions have been developed and deployed with nuclear warheads. Ground forces have included tactical nuclear artillery shells, surface-to-surface rockets, land mines, medium and small man-packable nuclear engineering demolition charges, and even man-carried or vehicle-mounted recoilless rifles. Naval forces have carried weapons that include nuclear-armed naval rockets, depth charges, torpedoes, and naval gunnery shells.


title: Nuclear triad

text: India's nuclear weapons policy is that of "no first use" and "minimum credible deterrence," which means that the country will not use nuclear weapons unless they are attacked first, but the country does have the capability to induce the second strike. Before 2016, India already possessed land-based ballistic missiles and aircraft that are nuclear-capable. India's land-based arsenal includes the Prithvi-1 with a range of 150 to 600 kilometers, the Agni-1 with a range of 700 kilometers, the Agni-2 with a range of 2,000 kilometers, Agni-P with a range of 1,000 to 2,000 kilometres, Agni-3 with a range of 3,000, the Agni-4 with a range of 3,500 kilometers, and the Agni-5 with a range of 5,000 kilometers. These are all intermediate-range ballistic missiles, but the Agni-5 is an intercontinental range ballistic missile. An intermediate-range ballistic missile has a range of 3,000 to 5,000 kilometers and intercontinental missiles are missiles with the ability to travel farther than 5,500 kilometers. In addition, the 5,000–8000 km range Agni-V ICBM was also successfully tested beginning April 2012 and was expected to enter service by 2016.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The country currently has four types of bombers that are capable of carrying nuclear bombs. Land and air strike capabilities are under the control of Strategic Forces Command which is a part of Nuclear Command Authority. Their inventory of aircraft includes the Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Mirage 2000H, SEPECAT Jaguar and Rafale, which was purchased from France.


title: Nuclear triad

text: India completed its nuclear triad with the commissioning of in August 2016, which was India's first submarine built indigenously. INS "Arihant" is a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine armed with 12 K-15 missiles with a range of 750 km, which will later be upgraded K-4 missiles with an extended range of 3500 km. In November 2017, it tested the BrahMos missile from the Sukhoi-30 MKI platform. The INS "Arihant" was the first SSBN to be completed under India's program. The is currently under construction and close to completion. This would be the second SSBN of the three underway to be finished. 2 more improved and bigger Arihant class submarines are under construction, and that will be followed by three 13000 tonnes S5-class submarine planned. After the INS "Arihant" was completed, India now contained air-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines and strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs and missiles. This allows the country to join the nuclear triad.


title: Nuclear triad

text: Unlike the United States and Russia, where strategic nuclear forces are enumerated by treaty limits and subject to verification, China—a nuclear power since 1964—is not subject to these requirements. Instead, China currently has a triad structure smaller than those of Russia and the United States. China's nuclear force is closer in number and capability to those of France or the United Kingdom, making it much smaller than the American or Russian triads. The Chinese nuclear force consists mainly of land-based missiles, including ICBMs, IRBMs, tactical ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. Unlike the US and Russia, China stores large numbers of its missiles in massive tunnel complexes; U.S. Representative Michael Turner, referring to 2009 Chinese media reports, said "This network of tunnels could be in excess of 5,000 kilometers (3,110 miles) and is used to transport nuclear weapons and forces. The Chinese Army Newsletter calls this system of tunnels the Underground Great Wall of China. China's nuclear warheads are believed to be stored in a central storage facility and not with the launchers.


title: Nuclear triad

text: China currently has one Type 092 submarine which is currently active with JL-1 Submarine Launch Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) according to the Office of Naval Intelligence. In addition, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has deployed four newer Type 094 submarines and plans to deploy up to eight of these Jin-class SSBN by the end of 2020. The newer Type 094 fleet uses the newer JL-2 SLBM. The Chinese fleet carried out a series of successful JL-2 launches in 2009, 2012 and 2015. The United States expected the 094 SSBN to carry out its first deterrent patrol in 2015 with the JL-2 missiles active.


title: Nuclear triad

text: Although there is an aged, upgraded bomber force consisting of Xian H-6s with an uncertain nuclear delivery role. The PLAAF has a limited capability fleet of H-6 bombers modified for aerial refueling as well as forthcoming Russian Ilyushin Il-78 aerial refueling tankers. China has also introduced a newer and modernized H-6 variant, the H-6K that has enhanced capabilities such as launching long ranged cruise missile the CJ-10. In addition to the H-6 bomber, there are numerous tactical fighter and fighter-bombers such as the J-16, J-10, JH-7A and Su-30 that are all capable of carrying nuclear weapons.


title: Nuclear triad

text: It is estimated that China maintains an arsenal of about 250 nuclear warheads and that it has produced about 610 nuclear warheads since becoming a nuclear power in 1964. China is phasing out old liquid-fused ballistic missiles and arming several new solid-fueled missiles. In the same estimate, it is believed that China has a small inventory of air-delivered nuclear bombs. As well as production is more than likely underway of new warheads for missiles to arm the Jin-class submarines. The U.S. intelligence community expects that China will increase their total number of warheads and long-range ballistic missiles from about 50 to exceed 100 in the next 15 years, this calculation has been sliding since 2001. Since the end of the Cold War, China is suspected to have doubled their nuclear arsenal, while the other nuclear powers under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons have cut their forces in half. A Pentagon report raises the possibility of China moving towards a more vigorous nuclear doctrine that will allow first use of nuclear weapons in times of war. While it is not expected that China will give up the current "no first use" policy in the near future, the Pentagon report raises concerns that "this issue has been and will continue to be debated in China. It remains to be seen, how the introduction of more capable and survivable nuclear systems in greater numbers will shape the terms of this debate or affect Beijing's thinking about nuclear options in the future."


title: Nuclear triad

text: Also a nuclear power, Russia inherited the arsenal of all of the former Soviet states; this consists of silo-based as well as rail and road mobile ICBMs, sea-based SLBMs, strategic bombers, strategic aerial refueling aircraft, and long-range tactical aircraft capable of carrying gravity bombs, standoff missiles, and cruise missiles. The Russian Strategic Rocket Forces have ICBMs capable of delivering nuclear warheads: silo-based R-36M2 (SS-18), silo-based UR-100N (SS-19), mobile RT-2PM "Topol" (SS-25), silo-based RT-2UTTH "Topol M" (SS-27), mobile RT-2UTTH "Topol M" (SS-27), mobile RS-24 "Yars" (SS-29) "(Future replacement for R-36 and UR-100N missiles)". Russian strategic nuclear submarine forces are equipped with the following SLBMs:


title: Nuclear triad

text: The Russian Long Range Aviation operates supersonic Tupolev Tu-22M, and Tupolev Tu-160 bombers and the long range turboprop powered Tupolev Tu-95. They are all mostly armed with strategic stand off missiles or cruise missiles such as the KH-15 and the KH-55/Kh-102. These bombers and nuclear capable strike aircraft such as the Sukhoi Su-24 are supported by Ilyushin Il-78 aerial refuelling aircraft.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The Soviet Union developed their first nuclear bombs only a few years after the United States. The USSR entered the nuclear age in 1949 with their imitation of the American Fat Man plutonium implosion design. Although the Soviet Union was behind the U.S in the years following World War II in terms of nuclear development, they soon closed the gap. By 1953, the U.S successfully tested the world's first hydrogen bomb, Ivy Mike with a yield of about 10 MT. It was only two years later on 12 August 1955 that the Soviet Union successfully tested their own hydrogen bomb, the RDS-6 (known as Joe-4 in America). In addition, the development of stealth and fighter bombers by the USSR were heavily modeled on the American counterparts, the B-52 and B-47.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The development of the ICBM (Inter-continental Ballistic Missile) was led by the Soviet Union. The first-ever mid-range ballistic missile, R-5M, was created by the Soviet Union and accepted for military purposes on 21 July 1956. This missile had a range of 700 miles with a yield of 1 MT. From its acceptance in 1956 until 1968 there were 48 launchers with R-5M ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads deployed by the Soviet Union.


title: Nuclear triad

text: After the creation of ICBMs and improvements on distance and accuracy had been achieved, the modernization of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was undertaken. The first "shrapnel" MRVs (Multiple reentry vehicles) were successfully tested by 1970 with the R-36 (or SS-9) ICBM, and their deployment followed the next year. This meant that a single missile would now contain multiple nuclear warheads. Further development using the R-36 heavy ICBM type created the R-36M (SS-18). MRV's evolved into MIRVs, which did not function as dispersal devices, but rather allowed independent targets for the multiple nuclear warheads. MIRV as well as single warhead R-36 ICBMS were deployed by the Soviet Union in 1975. The next generation of the Soviet ICBM was the R-36M UTTH, which increased the accuracy of the warhead and allowed for innovations that allowed the missiles to carry up to 8 warheads. The final improved generated the R-36M2 Voevoda, which allowed even more accurate attacks and increased the number of warheads to 10. Some "light" ICBMs developed by the Soviet Union included the UR-100N (SS-19) and the MR-UR-100 (SS-17), with lower launch weights and fewer warhead capabilities. MRVs, unlike MIRVs which allowed for independent targeting, had a downside known as the "fratricide effect", which refers to the inability to distance multiple warheads from each other, allowing the chance for the initial explosion to destroy the other warheads.


title: Nuclear triad

text: By 1975, there were around 1600 ICBM launchers deployed by the Soviet Union. Not only did this number exceed American estimates, but the addition of MRVs and MIRVs further amplified the destructive capabilities of Soviet ICBMs. These launchers also utilized the increases in accuracy and range from the SS-17, SS-18, SS-19 ICBM silo-based types. One final advent to the Soviet Union's development of ICBMs was the mobile-launcher SS-20 type.


title: Nuclear triad

text: MIRVs were not mentioned in the SALT I treaty (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) between the US and USSR in 1972, and consequently were insignificantly limited in the SALT II treaty of 1979. As a result, the increase in ICBM launchers and nuclear warheads continued by both countries. It is thought that the Soviet Union attained an advantage regarding ICBMs by the late 1970s.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The Soviet Union also led the way in the development of the third part of the nuclear triad, SLBM's. They launched the first SLBM, with an R-11FM ballistic missile in 1956, and in 1957 introduced submarines with two R-11FM's in 1957. However, these early submarines had to be surfaced in order to launch their missiles. It is in this aspect that the US became the leader when they deployed the first SSBN, , in 1959 with Polaris A-1 missiles able to be launched underwater. However, the first successful underwater launch of a ballistic missile was in July 1960. It was not until 1963 that the Soviet Union was able to match the US in this regard, with an R-21 missile. There was also a considerable gap between the United States employment of MRVs and MIRVs on SLBMs to that of the Soviets, which the US had achieved as early as 1964. In 1974, the USSR deployed SS-N-6, the first Soviet SSBN with shrapnel MRV nuclear warheads. Three years later, the Soviet Navy deployed their first SLBM with MIRV warheads, the SS-N-18 missile


title: Nuclear triad

text: These technologies comprise a majority of the nuclear advances made by the Soviet Union from the 1950s–1970s. As the 1980s came about, the new technology of cruise-missiles significantly altered deterrence strategies in both the US and Soviet Union. At this point, the nuclear triad maintained its importance in ensuring a second-strike capability, although this significance has waned dramatically since the end of the Cold War.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The origins of the United States' nuclear triad can be traced back to the 1960s. Its main motivation for developing the program was that the Navy, Army, and Air Force all wanted to play a role in the operation of the country's nuclear arsenal. The United States also desired the nuclear triad because it would give them a variety of platforms to deliver a deadly strike to the Soviet Union. Forcing the Soviet Union to put focus on potential attacks from the land, air, and sea would give the United States a significant advantage in terms of deterrence. Specifically, the nuclear triad was viewed as a way to complicate Soviet first strike and attack planning as well as ensure the survivability of U.S. assets.


title: Nuclear triad

text: Throughout the 1960s, the United States steadily commissioned increasing numbers of delivery vehicles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. In 1967, the greatest number of deployment ready delivery vehicles of the decade was recorded at 2,268. In 1970, a significant change brought about a dramatic increase in the nuclear arsenal. The 1970s saw a large increase in delivery vehicles and warheads because of the introduction of the multiple independent reentry vehicle or MIRV, which allowed for the deployment of ICBMs and SLBMs that could carry multiple warheads. Up until 1990 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the Soviet Union, the number of delivery vehicles possessed by the United States hovered between 1,875 and 2,200.


title: Nuclear triad

text: ICBMs were viewed by the United States as the means to attack hardened targets within the Soviet Union such as underground bunkers. Stored in underground silos, these long range missiles were accurate and could be fired quickly. During the Cold War, the United States maintained multiple different types of ICBMs. This portion of the triad consisted of Minuteman II missiles (single warhead), Minuteman III missiles (three-warhead), and Peacekeeper missiles (ten-warhead). The ICBM count for the United States in 1990 included 2,450 warheads in 1,000 ICBMs.


title: Nuclear triad

text: In terms of submarine launched missiles, the United States utilized various classes of submarines as the delivery vehicles. Missile submarines played an especially important role in terms of strategic deterrence. These submarines were extremely hard to locate and could be positioned right off of enemy coastlines. In terms of the nuclear triad, this leg was meant to be the most survivable. The United States commissioned various classes of submarines throughout the Cold War as new improvements were made to each class. The first submarines to carry nuclear weapons were a collection of five boats equipped with the SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missile, which were employed in the Pacific as part of the regular strategic deterrent from 1959 to 1964. The Regulus boats were essentially a stop-gap until sufficient ballistic missile submarines became available. Referred to as the "41 for Freedom," the , , , , and es were all commissioned between 1959 and 1967. These classes of submarines carried Polaris A-1/A-2/A-3, Poseidon C-3 and Trident C-4 missiles. Along with the "41 for Freedom" classes, the United States also commissioned the s before the Cold War's end. "Ohio"-class submarines carried Trident C-4 and Trident D-5 missiles. In 1990, the United States was in possession of around 600 SLBMs and 5,216 warheads.


title: Nuclear triad

text: Rounding out the United States' nuclear triad during the Cold War were its long-range bombers. The leg of the nuclear triad was the most versatile since bombers could be moved quickly and recalled if necessary to avoid unnecessary strikes. The U.S. bomber force during the Cold War consisted of B-52H and B-52G Stratofortresses, B-1 Lancers, and the newly commissioned B-2 Spirits. By 1990, the United States possessed 94 B-52H bombers, 96 B-1 bombers, and 2 B-2 bombers, along with a total of almost 5,000 available weapons.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The pinnacle of the 1990s in terms of global nuclear policy was the START Treaty in 1991 and the START II Treaty in 1993. These treaties called for the reduction of nuclear warheads and delivery systems within both the Soviet Union and the United States. Specifically, the U.S. was limited to 6,000 total warheads, 4,900 warheads on ballistic missiles, and 1,600 delivery vehicles. Consequentially, the United States began reducing both its warhead and delivery vehicle counts during this time. By the time they had completed the implementation of the START Treaty in 2001, the total warhead count was 6,196 and the total delivery system count was 1,064. These values continued to shrink, and by 2009 the United States reduced its warhead and delivery vehicles counts to 2,200 and 850 respectively.


title: Nuclear triad

text: Following the Cold War, the United States continued upgrading its various types of ICBMs. Minuteman II variants were all but eliminated and continued efforts were put toward Minuteman III and Peacekeeper variants. In 2001, the United States possessed 500 Minuteman III missiles (three warheads each) and 50 Peacekeeper missiles (ten warheads each).


title: Nuclear triad

text: Within its nuclear submarine fleet, the United States eliminated the usage of the "41 for Freedom" classes of ballistic missiles submarines in favor of the more versatile . During the 1990s, the United States reached a total of 18 submarines within this class. In 2001, these 18 submarines were all deployable and could carry 24 Trident II missiles each (6 to 8 warheads on each missile).


title: Nuclear triad

text: The United States kept up to date with its strategic bomber leg of the triad following the Cold War as well. B-52G variants were phased out in favor of B-52H classes. In 2001, 94 B-52H bombers, each capable of carrying 20 cruise missiles, were active along with 21 B-2 bombers each capable of carrying 16 bombs. B-1 Lancer bombers were phased out of the triad and reoriented for different missions in an effort to honor the delivery systems limitations set by the START Treaties.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The Obama Administration made clear in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that the United States will retain a nuclear triad for the foreseeable future. Each leg was still viewed as necessary because of how they strengthened each other's weaknesses and gave the United States plenty of options for a nuclear strike should one or multiple legs go down. Following the New START Treaty set into place in 2010, the United States continued reducing its numbers of warheads and delivery systems with a focus on modernizing and updating its most effective platforms. The United States has released a plan to complete its downsizing efforts in 2018, reducing its 2010 numbers of 880 delivery vehicles and 2,152 warheads to 800 delivery vehicles and 1,550 warheads. In their release of the 2017 NPR, the Trump Administration made clear that the United States supports global nuclear weapons elimination. President Donald Trump also stated his intent to keep the US safe, as well as allies and partners. Until a time where nuclear weapons are no longer needed, the Trump Administration has also stated its intent to maintain a "modern, flexible, and resilient" nuclear armada. Since the height of the Cold War, the US's nuclear armada has been reduced by over 85 percent. The Trump Administration acknowledges it faces a "more diverse and advanced nuclear-threat environment than ever before."


title: Nuclear triad

text: It is estimated that the US currently has around 475 B-61 and B-83 bombs. The B61-7 is carried by the B-2, whereas the B61-3, 4, and 10 are lighter and can be carried by the F-16, F-35, and other light aircraft. These smaller bombs also yield smaller payloads due to their decreased size. The B61-11 is a more hardened bomb that can be used to destroy hardened targets such as bunkers, however it is unlikely that it can penetrate steel or concrete. The B83 is currently the largest bomb in the US arsenal. The US plans to retire it by the year 2025 after the new B61 LEP is completed.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The United States continues to operate its Minuteman III ICBMs (three warheads each) from underground hardened silos under the command of U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command. The Peacekeeper variants were eliminated to allow for the United States to honor the reduction requirements set forth by the New START Treaty. By February 2015, the United States Air Force had deactivated all missiles of this type and filled the silos containing them with gravel. The U.S. Minuteman III ICBMs are spread between three Air Force bases which are Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota with each of these bases in possession of 150 missiles. Multiple programs have been put into place and are currently in place to work on up-keeping and modernizing the United States ICBM force including the Propulsion Replacement Program, Guidance Replacement Program, Propulsion System Rocket Engine Program, Safety Enhanced Reentry Vehicle (SERV), Solid Rocket Motor Warm Line Program, Rapid Execution and Combat Targeting (REACT) Service Life Extension Program, and Fuse Replacement Programs. The Air Force plans to keep the Minuteman III program viable and updated through 2030 and is in the process of developing a potential replacement in the form of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) through various companies such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The ballistic missile submarine leg of the United States' nuclear triad is still robust. Currently, the SSBN fleet consists of 14 "Ohio"-class submarines each capable of carrying 24 Trident II missiles. These ballistic missile submarines are based out of Kings Bay, Georgia, and Bangor, Washington. The New START Treaty has led the United States to reduce the number of missiles carried on each submarine from 24 to 20 and these reductions have been reached in 2018. In the early 2000s, the United States possessed 18 "Ohio"-class submarines. Following START Treaty protocol, the United States enacted various programs to reach the treaty's requirements. The Backfit Program was utilized to eliminate the submarines that still carried Trident I missiles leaving the United States with "Ohio"-class submarines that only carried Trident II missiles. This reduction led to the conversion of four SSBNs to SSGNs. SSGNs are guided missile submarines which carry conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles. Currently, the United States plans to begin retiring the "Ohio"-class submarines in 2027. That being said, a replacement for the "Ohio" class, the Columbia-class submarine, is currently being developed with the first submarine scheduled to enter service in 2031.


title: Nuclear triad

text: The strategic bomber program for the United States still remains viable as well. B-2 and B-52H bombers still make up the entirety of the long range bomber force designed to deliver a nuclear payload. The Rockwell B-1 Lancer is also used for long range bombing missions. However, in 1997, it was modified to carry only conventional payloads. The B-1 Lancer is no longer used to deliver nuclear payloads. Currently, 76 B-52H bombers are maintained at bases in Barksdale, Louisiana, and Minot, North Dakota. Along with these, 20 B-2 bombers are in service at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. The United States Air Force is in the process of integrating a new long range bomber, the B-21 Raider, into service. This aircraft is scheduled to begin service in 2025. The B-21 will contribute to even greater capabilities for the US nuclear armada. It will allow for a larger and more diverse payload that includes current and future weapons. It will allow for increased range compared to the B-1, 2, and 52. The range capabilities of the B-21 are currently classified and are not expected to be released. The B-21 will also cost significantly less than the B-2 bomber. In 1997, the average cost of a B-2 was $737 million. The projected average cost for the B-21 Raider is $550 million per plane.


title: Nuclear triad

text: Long-Range Standoff, or LRSO, Weapons are another active option available to the US. Air-Launched cruise missiles (ALCM) and Advanced Cruise Missiles (ACM) are the missiles currently maintained by the Air Force. Both are carried via the B-52 bomber. The ACM's most current design makes it have higher stealth capabilities than the ALCM. In 2006, the US had 1,142 ALCMs and 394 ACMs. Since then, the number of ALC missiles has been reduced to 528. By 2030, the Air Force plans to phase out the ALCM and replace them with the long range standoff (LRSO) cruise missile.