China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[Blackstone]

What do you guys think, would US spending $1 trillion over 30 years to build and modernize its nuclear stockpile compel China to not only continue its nuclear modernization programs, but also build lots more nuclear weapons?

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The United States will have to spend $18 billion a year for 15 years starting in 2021 to keep its nuclear weapons operational, Kris Osborne over at

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reports.

His assessment is based on the testimony of U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work in front of the House Armed Services Committee yesterday. The subject of the hearing was nuclear deterrence.

“We’ve developed a plan to transition our aging system. Carrying out this plan will be an expensive proposition. It is projected to cost DoD an average of $18 billion a year from 2021 through 2035,” Work noted.

The Pentagon is in the middle of initiating the modernization of its nuclear triad (land-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and long-range bombers).

Among other DoD programs to

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, the Navy is trying to work out a deal with Congress over its $80 billion Ohio Replacement Program (12 new ballistic missile submarines to

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in the 2030).

The Air Force is speeding up the development of its

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to enter service in 2025 in addition to initiating a new mobile land-based intercontinental ballistic missile program and upgrading

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(to be carried by the F-35 A).

Total cost of modernizing the United States’ nuclear triad over 30 years could be as high as 1 $ trillion, with $ 348 billion spend over the next ten years, according to a proposed modernization plan of the Obama White House.

The Arms Control Association reports that the United States currently has 1,597 deployed and 2,800 non-deployed strategic nuclear warheads, and 500 tactical nuclear warheads. Work, in his testimony, tried to convince lawmakers of the urgent need to begin modernization U.S. nuclear forces given the growing nuclear arsenals of countries opposed to American interests:

While we seek a world without nuclear weapons, we face the harsh reality that Russia and China are rapidly modernizing their already capable nuclear arsenals – and North Korea intends to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them against the United States. A strong nuclear deterrent force will remain critical to our national security.

However, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy of the Arms Control Association, Kingston Reif,

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of the Pentagon’s current plans:

Instead of moving forward with an overly ambitious and excessively expensive modernization plan that would recapitalize a US nuclear force that is, by the Pentagon’s and the president’s own analysis, far larger than US nuclear deterrence needs require, the White House, Pentagon and Energy Department should examine common-sense options for reshaping the arsenal in ways that would save billions and still provide more than adequate nuclear deterrence capabilities,” he said. “Such options exist.

As I reported earlier this week, a new study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies entitled

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argues that the current U.S. nuclear force posture is inadequate to address security challenges in this new more volatile nuclear threat environment and that, as a consequence the United States should consider to actively deploy tactical nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, the appendix of the study contains an analysis by two scholars that comes to a very different conclusion than that of the main report and (again) is worthwhile quoting in full:

Nuclear weapons do not achieve U.S. policy objectives, dominant conventional forces do. The U.S. interest lies in seeking to minimize the importance accorded to nuclear weapons by narrowing the roles they are perceived to play. U.S. doctrine, policy, forces, and diplomacy should all be configured to support this interest. The posture described in this paper achieves just that, in contrast to postures that imagine uses of nuclear weapons that have never actually been demonstrated. After 70 years of indulging fantasies of what nuclear weapons can do, it is high time to acknowledge that they do very little and adapt U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, and forces to those facts.

 

[Jeff Head]

This thread is not about US nuclear weapons stockpiles. So asking what the US should or should not do is off topic.

Now, if you are willing to phrase it in a way that simply posts what the US does and asks what China should do as a result of US modernization...which is what I really believe you want to get at...that will be fine.

But let's not get into what the US should or should not do in a discussion of Chinese Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms,

 

[AssassinsMace]

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A lot of articles about the hypersonic Cold War lately. Yes I know probably because of the recent Chinese tests but the reporting seems to be different. They don't really mention it. One I saw was reporting about how the Russians tested one back in February but failed. I read people's comments and clearly they don't read the news because a lot of claims China is lying. China hasn't advertised these tests. The only acknowledgement is after Bill Gertz is passed the information from his Pentagon sources. He's the one that first makes the information public on all the tests I believe.

 

[broadsword]

Bill Gertz loves the play up the capability of China's weapons while David Axe is the other way round, it seems.

 

[Engineer]

I think this article might be a bit optimistic about the success of the tests, at least the test on Aug. 7 is considered a failure by a lot of analysts:

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Boosters are discard once they served their propose. The boosters then come back down to the ground since they never reached orbit. That is the norm.

 

[JayBird]

Bill Gertz loves the play up the capability of China's weapons while David Axe is the other way round, it seems.

You are right. Bill Gertz is like the mouth piece for the military industrial complex, his article theme is always to make potential threats (especially from Russia and China) more scary and dangerous than real. And hinting America needs more advanced weapons and technology to counter/neutralize the threats.

David Axe's article is always a little disparaging like China is nothing more than a paper tiger. Any new weapons out of China is copy or pretty much worthless and second rated.

@ AssassinsMace: It's not that people don't read the news and really believe China is lying . They just don't want to make acknowledgement and give credits to China's advancement in these technologies. It's like you don't want to give respect and satisfaction to the perceived enemy who once was below or on par with you, but now are advancing ahead. It seems like the most anti-China commenters in military forums or article comment sections are ethnic Indians or philippinos rather than Americans.

 

[Equation]

Here's a better view according to this new fiction novel. Take it with a grain of salt. I haven't read the book yet.

Strategists Peter Singer and August Cole’s new novel offers a glimpse into startling real-life U.S. military vulnerabilities.

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  Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, The ...
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  Every technology featured in the fictional book, from rail guns to brain-based memory manipulation, is at the prototype stage of development in real life. “
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  ” features almost 21 different manifestations of drone technology alone, as well as nearly 400 endnotes, meticulously researched by its authors Peter W. Singer, strategist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and August Cole, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council.
  
  So what does the technology of today teach about the wars of the future? Defense One put the question to Singer. Below is an edited version of that exchange.
  
  Defense One: War with China doesn’t seem to be something that many in Washington consider a strong probability right now unless you’re having dinner with notorious China hawk
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  . Yet, it’s the very basis of your book. Is it something that you consider likely?
  
  Peter Singer: The Chinese regime newspaper recently
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  ‘War is inevitable,’ if the U.S. doesn’t change its policies in the Pacific. You can find any range of similar quotes in the Chinese press saying, ‘We need the plan for the Third World War.’
  
  This is not just the military. A poll was taken in China and they found that 74 percent of Chinese think their military would win in a war against the United States. Those are some scary data points. Now, I don’t think that war is inevitable. That’s a strong term. But it’s very clear that there’ve been shifts in geopolitical trends. The 20th century was shaped in large part by great power competition. I think that there are trends in the 21st century that show that great power rivalry is back and will continue to be a shaping force, all the more so with China’s rise.
  
  They both have this assumption that it would be a short, sharp, war. We think they’re both wrong.
  PETER SINGER, STRATEGIST AND SENIOR FELLOW AT THE NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
  Defense One: Why isn’t this view more common view in Washington?
  
  Singer: Fear of antagonizing China, having some kind of economic repercussion. Navy officers have been fired for talking about it. But it’s not that the United States doesn’t plan for it. It’s not that we aren’t engaged in an arms race with China.
  
  When you cross both the U.S. and the Chinese plans, they both have this assumption that it would be a short, sharp war. We think they’re both wrong. We think that kind of attitude makes war more likely, perhaps by allowing some crisis to spiral out of control. It wouldn’t be easy for either side.
  
  Editor’s note: Last November Capt. James Fanell, the director of intelligence and information operations at U.S. Pacific Fleet
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  from his position and reassigned within the fleet after making public comments that China was preparing for a ”short, sharp war” with Japan.
  
  Defense One: The book spans a wide variety of settings. From sea to space, there are battles everywhere. Cyberspace becomes the area where the U.S. heroes experience the most trouble and vulnerability. Why?
  
  Singer: The term ‘cyber war’ has been used to describe all sorts of things that are not war. Stealing movie scripts from a studio and publishing embarrassing gossipy emails is not cyber war, despite the fact that that term was used by prominent Senators and the like.
  
  We asked, ‘What would cyber warfare look like? What would happen when the gloves are off, and it’s not minimal capabilities, but it’s real players?’ Also, we’ve seen the rise of everything from private military companies to activist groups, like Anonymous. The military doesn’t weave them into planning and assumes these outside players will affect the things that don’t matter, so to speak. That’s not going to be the case. I wanted to play with that.
  
  Defense One: You went out and actually talked to people in the field that would occupy some of these positions or jobs in the book, people that I think most novelists wouldn’t reach out to and most readers wouldn’t necessarily have access to. How did those interactions shape the writing?
  
  Singer: Sometimes you might, in journalism terms, have an interview. Other times, its meetings that you’re having with the person, and long, extended conversations that you’re just kind of drawing nuggets from, and then other times you’re attending something for another purpose, and you’re drawing something from it. You’re at a U.S.-China senior leader bilateral and you pick a up a nugget: ‘That Chinese general keeps making a specific historic reference,’ or ‘That Silicon Valley billionaire, look at what he drinks and how he walks,’ or whatever.
  
  Defense One: One of the fairly persistent themes in the book is that every technology that the military invents or creates can be used against it, which is everything from surveillance malware to drones that fly in formation. Really, every weapon that the United States endeavors to foist upon its enemy somehow either backfires or winds up having more cost than value. To the extent that that examines a real threat, how does the United States fix that?
  
  Singer: There are two big assumptions that guide a lot of discussions about U.S. military technology. One is that the U.S.technology edge is somehow permanent, when in fact if you look at everything from stealth jet fighters to hypersonics to robotics to drones, China is not just developing gear that looks like the twin, but is also pushing forward in cutting edge fields. China has performed more hypersonic vehicle tests that we have. And who has the world’s fastest supercomputer?
  
  If there are parallels to the last Cold War, this is where it’s different. The Soviet Union was a military competitor. As the Cold War advanced, it wasn’t really an economic or science and technology peer. Its downfall was driven by the fact that it didn’t have global trade and it didn’t have any openness to ideas.
  
  China is becoming an economic competitor in a way that the Soviet Union wasn’t, a political model competitor, and China has an openness to technology that’s frankly insatiable. That appetite has created huge problems. It’s literally stealing technology.
  
  In fact, many U.S.military systems run the risk of being Pontiac Aztecs.
  PETER SINGER, STRATEGIST AND SENIOR FELLOW AT THE NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
  The second assumption is that new technologies will somehow be perfect. In fact, many U.S. military systems run the risk of being Pontiac Aztecs. The Pontiac Aztec tried to be all things to all people, sports car up front, minivan in the middle, SUV in the back. Instead it was over-engineered, over-promised and overpriced. I could describe many a current defense program that suffers from that same problem, where the technology turns out to not be all that good either for small wars or, as we explore, for big wars. Then, on top of that, the Pentagon’s own weapons tester did an examination of every single major defense program last year and found every single one of them had cybersecurity flaws.
  
  Those flaws express themselves, going back to the first assumption, in terms of technologies that were supposed to give us a generational edge on a future battle field. We’ve already lost that investment.
  
  Those are the risks, not just right now, but more importantly, 10, 15 years from now. Again, there’s this unwillingness to move that dial forward, where you see people saying — even the secretary of defense — ‘Oh, they can’t match us right now.’
  
  You’re like, ‘Right now is already in the past. Look forward.’
  

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[taxiya]

You are right. Bill Gertz is like the mouth piece for the military industrial complex, his article theme is always to make potential threats (especially from Russia and China) more scary and dangerous than real. And hinting America needs more advanced weapons and technology to counter/neutralize the threats.

David Axe's article is always a little disparaging like China is nothing more than a paper tiger. Any new weapons out of China is copy or pretty much worthless and second rated.

@ AssassinsMace: It's not that people don't read the news and really believe China is lying . They just don't want to make acknowledgement and give credits to China's advancement in these technologies. It's like you don't want to give respect and satisfaction to the perceived enemy who once was below or on par with you, but now are advancing ahead. It seems like the most anti-China commenters in military forums or article comment sections are ethnic Indians or philippinos rather than Americans.

Bill and David are the Good and Bad cops or Red and White faces of the propaganda department of military industrial complex.

 

[Jeff Head]

Guys, every modern, industrialize nation with any type of decent military has a "military/industrial complex."

Let's try not get into the political. ideological divide here.

Such a dialog would be in violation of SD Rules. (Read SD Rules) We are not about that, so best to just leave that out of it. If it continues...posts will be edited or deleted, members will be warned...and ultimately suspended.

Let's stick to the actual deployments, specs, forces levels, news, pictures, videos, etc. Discussing those at length without the political/ideological trappings that lead to disagreements, arguments, and flame bait is what SD is about.

Thanks.

DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MODERATION

 

[Hendrik_2000]

I feel like I am vindicated after countless battle with the skeptic. Thanks Escobar I quote your post. Once in a while you find nugget in this forum

To all the skeptic that always say this "But can they find it? ,the ocean is immense space It just like finding needle in haystack"

Well for once the Indian did some simulation and their conclusion is that China has in place the surveillance system to identify, track and locate any CBG in Pacific.

I believe the system will get better as the year progress , now that divine eagle is in testing phase and 2nd generation ASBM is in testing phase too

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Simulation Results

In order to provide a more nuanced understanding of the coverage pattern and the gaps in the coverage of the current Yaogan constellation of satellites a simulation of the coverage pattern for
identifying, locating and tracking a ship approaching the Chinese mainland from the Pacific Ocean was carried out. Using typical sensor geometries extrapolated from current civilian satellites and the two line orbital elements available in the public domain

The capabilities of the current Yaogan constellation for identifying, locating and tracking of an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean were evaluated

A brief summary of these preliminary simulation results are provided below.
• The orbital planes of three operational ELINT satellite clusters Yaogan 9 or Yaogan 20, Yaogan 16 or Yaogan 25 and Yaogan 17) are well spaced out and typically make 18 contacts with the moving target in a day.

• The ELINT satellite pass durations vary, with the maximum pass duration being about 23 minutes.

• The maximum period of non coverage by an ELINT cluster for a typical target is about 90 minutes.

•These results indicate that the three ELINT clusters ensure persistent detection, coarse location and coarse trackingof the Aircraft Carrier over the high seas.

The current ELINT clusters therefore provide China with a strong and robust ocean surveillance capability over all ocean regions of the world including the Pacific.

•The SAR and Optical Imaging satellites provide about 24 satellite passes during which the target can be imaged. When these imaging opportunities are successful the target can be located with an accuracy of about 100 metres.

20
•The current Yaogan constellation provides about 16 targeting opportunities for a ballistic missile launch during which the uncertainty in the location of the carrier is less than 10 Km.

These preliminary results suggest that China has in place a space-
based surveillance system that can identify, locate and track an Aircraft Carrier in the Pacific Ocean.

.
Conclusions
It appears from the above analysis that the Chinese have in place a robust space based system that performs the location and tracking functions for the ASBM system.