Basically hiding SSBN's is quite impossible and
even sometimes strategically harmful since the existence and main capabilities of the sub must be known to the main adversaries for achieving a certain deterrence effect. :coffee:
Mobile ICBM's can be hidden effectively (
a 10000 ts sub and a 50 ts truck is indeed a difference!) but the intention of the covert deployment of a massive force of DF-31A/41
(perhaps up to 200 launchers are obviously within PLA's short to mid-term budgetary reach...) is potentially ambiguous.
Probably PLA strategists are intending to obfuscate Second Artillery capabilites to a high degree since this would complicate adversary targeting and every kind of risk calculating (
e.g. :´if China has ´only 150´mobile ICBM's we could take them out in a wave of first strikes with a very high confidence but
´if China has 200´ missiles there will be a non negligible probability that a certain number of launchers would survive and their missiles break through BMD causing massive destruction on our soil.
Of course this are only arbitrary numbers but PLA must achieve to top that kind of ´threshold´ (US and Russia may have different ones!) in order to attain a really credible deterrent.)
Nevertheless the US and/or Russia could misinterpret a covert deployment of mobile ICBM's as a threatening action and act accordingly (media campaign against ´China threat´, counter deployment of strategic weapons (
US moves already quietly in this direction!) and even preemptive strikes (though highly unlikely)).
However China's nuclear forces will be even after the current modernization many times smaller than the arsenals of Russia and the US and consequently both of them will not have to fear much from Second Artillery so China should not expect a major strategic destabilization putting her ´peaceful rise´ at risk. :coffee:
(...though living with a new nuclear number three would be disturbing enough for some neo-con's in Washington.
)