New Cuban Missile Crisis: American Missiles in Philippines Will Force China to Expand Intercontinental Range Arsenal
Asia-Pacific , Missile and Space
Following its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in August 2019, which had for the previous 31 years prohibited deployments of ground based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres, the United States states was for years widely expected to deploy missiles from these previously prohibited classes in the Western Pacific. This materialised on April 11 with the U.S. Army’s landmark deployment of the Typhon Mid-Range Capability (MRC) system to participate in joint exercises with local forces in the Philippines. While capable of providing air defence and targeting enemy warships using the 370 kilometre range SM-6 missile, the most notable aspect of the MRC is its deployment of the Tomahawk land attack cruise missile which retains a 1,600 kilometre range. Deployed to the northern Philippines this range is sufficient to cover most of China’s East Coast, striking targets as far as Nanjing, Shanghai and Wuhan. Other cruise missile classes being developed for U.S. Navy destroyers and attack submarines are expected to later be integrated onto the MRC system, including a longer ranged hypersonic missile class, while the possibility of bringing much longer ranged variants of the Tomahawk back into the service has also been raised.
A number of Western and regional sources have widely equated American forward deployments of the MRC in East Asia to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) deployment of missile systems with similar ranges within China. U.S. Army Major Christopher Milhal, for one, justified the MRC’s deployment by highlighting the following: “The conventional arm of the PLARF [PLA Rocket Force] is the largest ground-based missile force in the world, with over 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles and with enough anti-ship missiles to attack every U.S. surface combatant vessel in the South China Sea with enough firepower to overcome each ship’s missile defence.” Research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore Collin Koh similarly observed: “This in some way ‘equalises’ the prior situation where [Chinese] missiles have threatened U.S. forces along the First Island Chain, and even further eastward along the Second Island Chain centring on Guam.”
Equating the deployment of the MRC with China’s own missile deployments has consistently overlooked the central fact that the American system places population centres, military and civilian decision making centres, strategic nuclear forces and other highly sensitive targets on the Chinese mainland within reach. Equivalent Chinese systems such as the DF-21 ballistic missile, although raising significant concerns in the West for their potential to limit U.S. power projection operations in East Asia, pose no threat to targets in the American homeland and are thus a far more limited threat to U.S. security. The significance of the forward deployment of the MRC lies in the fact that it essentially allows American medium range cruise missiles to be launched against targets that would otherwise require intercontinental range missiles to reach, closing the vast barrier of the Pacific Ocean that separates the two countries’ arsenals. Deployment of PLA missiles within China in no way achieve the same.
The United States has a long history of leveraging its vast network of bases across East Asia to seek to gain an advantaged position in potential missile exchanges with China, a notable example of which was the deployment of the TPY-2 X-band surveillance radar in Japan from 2006, and subsequently to South Korea from 2016 as part of the THAAD system. With a reported 3,000 kilometre range and a 120-degree field of view, the latter radar deployment in particular provided an invaluable ability to peer into Chinese territory and cue American missile defences as to any potential launch. Lacking any military presence remotely in the vicinity of the U.S. mainland, the PLA had no comparable means of monitoring American launches.
While there is little equivalence between Chinese medium and intermediate range missiles being deployed within China, and equivalent systems being deployed surrounding China by the United States, a proportional response by Beijing would be to increase its capability to launch precision strikes against targets on the American mainland. In contrast to the United States, however, which is estimated to maintain close to 800 military bases globally, the PLA’s lack of any significant overseas permanent presence means there are few options for deployment of ground based systems equivalent to the MRC within range of the continental U.S. While the Soviet Union previously attempted to achieve this with intermediate range missile deployments in Cuba, the very different geopolitical landscape today means this remains highly unlikely at least short of a tremendous escalation to 1960s-level tensions. While ground based missile systems are by far the most cost effective, having very low production and operational costs while being able to remain permanently forward deployed, a wide range of other more costly options are available to the PLA.
At the heart of any expansion of Chinese capabilities to launch precision strikes against the American mainland will be the H-20 strategic bomber program, which is scheduled to provide the country’s air force with its first intercontinental range strike capability by the early 2030s. The tremendous strides made by Chinese combat aviation industry bringing it to near parity with the United States, most conspicuously demonstrated by advances in the J-20 fifth generation fighter program, indicates that the H-20 is likely to be a fully peer level competitor to the American B-21 bomber that first flew in November 2023. While stealth bombers are prized for their ability to overfly defended territory and drop heavy gravity bombs on fortified targets, they can also serve as cruise missile carriers which significantly reduces risks to the aircraft. The difficulties of intercepting such strikes, even when launched by ageing non-stealthy Russian bombers, have been highlighted repeatedly by U.S. military officials responsible for the country’s air defence. Increased investment in the H-20 and in a range of cruise missiles for it would accordingly provide an effective and proportional response to the MRC’s deployment on China’s doorstep, with a large fleet potentially being able to maintain a near-continuous presence within missile range of the American mainland.
Complementing the Air Force’s expected expansion of intercontinental range cruise missile delivery capabilities, the PLA Navy’s surface fleet has over the past decade developed power projection capabilities far exceeding those of any other than that of the U.S. Navy itself. Its most capable destroyers are not only increasingly considered the world’s most formidable, but deploy increasingly sophisticated generations of cruise and ballistic missiles, allowing them to engage targets on the American mainland from far out into the Ocean. The tremendous rate of expansion of the destroyer fleet, and the fleet of resupply vessels enabling extended far sea operations, mean that options for establishing greater presence near the American coast will only increase, with MRC deployments providing a strong incentive to do so.
Although the international standing of the Chinese submarine fleet is currently less impressive than that of the surface navy, wide ranging reports indicate that the upcoming Type 095 nuclear powered attack submarines will bring game changing improvements. These include integration revolutionary technologies not seen on its U.S. or Russian counterparts including new magnetic drive technologies, Rim Driven Propellers, and advanced forms of artificial intelligence. Combined with its electronic noise-cancellation technology, shaftless drive and new single hull design, the ships are expected to be much quieter than foreign competitors and leapfrog U.S. and Russian designs. Operating in the Eastern Pacific, these ships would further significantly increase options for long range precision strikes on key targets across the American mainland. Greater investment in the attack submarine fleet and more intense operations and shows of force near the U.S. mainland would provide a means of responding proportionally to American missile deployments in East Asia.
While heavily focused on East Asia, and not frequently deploying within reach of North America, rising geopolitical tensions have resulted in some limited demonstrations of the PLA Navy’s ability to threaten the American mainland. A notable example was a joint exercise with the Russian Navy near Alaska in August 2023, which placed key American bases across the territory within the range two Type 052D destroyers’ cruise missile strikes. Although U.S. Navy has deployed far larger fleets of cruise missile armed destroyers within range of China since the Cold War years, the expansion of this capability to include missiles deployed from much cheaper ground based launchers provides further incentive for China to seek to equalise the missile balance.
With the PLA lacking positions to forward deploy its missiles equivalent to American bases in the Philippines, its bombers, destroyers and submarines provide means of facilitating cruise missile launches from much closer to their targets on the other side of the Pacific. A further notable option would be the development of an intercontinental range precision guided tactical missile capable of striking American targets from bases in China itself. Although such a missile class is not known to exist anywhere in the world, it is currently under development in the United States under the Conventional Prompt Strike program. While much more costly than deploying medium or intermediate range ballistic missiles to strike the same targets from forward positions, and although engaging from intercontinental ranges poses greater risks of escalation, development of a comparable capability by the PLA nevertheless remains a significant possibility.
Ultimately the deployment of the MRC demonstrates that China remains at something of a disadvantage, with America’s network of strategic partners in East Asia meaning its missiles need to travel significantly less far to reach a government building in Changsha or a submarine base on Hainan, while China requires intercontinental range assets to similarly threaten targets on the American mainland. Nevertheless, the odds against the PLA are far less unfavourable than they may first appear. China in 2020 overtook the United States as the world’s largest spender on arms acquisitions, with American assessments consistently highlighting that the Chinese defence sector could produce comparable assets to the U.S. at small fractions of the cost. It is thus far from unthinkable that a Chinese intercontinental range ballistic missile able to launch tactical precision strikes on targets from Washington DC to California could be fielded and operate for a comparable cost to an American medium or intermediate range missile built deliver comparable firepower over a fraction of the distance from forward positions in the Philippines.
American missile deployments in the Pacific are expected to expand considerably in future, which will continue to strengthen the stimulus for China to expand its own capability to similarly hold targets on the U.S. mainland within cruise missile range - whether using stealth aircraft, destroyers, submarines, or even a heretofore unseen intercontinental range ground-based system. Much as American medium range missile deployments in Italy and Turkey aimed at the USSR in 1961 were key to stimulating the decision to achieve a similar capability through missile deployments in Cuba, so too does the deployment of the MRC have significant potential to mark a major turning point in the Pacific towards an arms race. This is likely to see both sides accelerate efforts to expand their missile defences, improve their capabilities to take out enemy missiles before launch, and increase their options for launching strikes on their adversary’s mainland.
Article contributed by A. B. Abrams, expert on East Asian geopolitics and security and author of China and America’s Tech War from AI to 5G: The Struggle to Shape the Future of World Order, and Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order.
China had already blanketed the entire South East Asia with its Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles.
ReplyDeleteThe American missiles are just a reaction.
Labelling this another Cubam Missile Crisis is just a one-sided story.
U know one-sided story?
DeleteThen how come the secret installation of ballistic missiles at Turkey by the Yank was NEVER mentioned as the initiated cause of the Cuban missile crisis?
Those Yank never learnt, still indulging in their long past military might.
ReplyDeleteThe current China ain't Nikita Khrushchev's Soviet Union!