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China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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So China would probably have its own equivalent to RS-24 Yars as early as 2018 then. Beidou-guided MIRVs. That could possibly reduce the CEP to less than 100 meters, like the Trident D5. In fact, if you can reduce the CEP of an ICBM warhead (conventional, not nuclear) to less than 20 meters (guided by satellite navigation systems), then you could potentially have the Prompt Global Strike.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Prompt Global Strike was a silly idea when America suggested it, and it would be no more advisable for China to try it.
The kind of opponents such a capacity might be worthwhile to use against are also the kind of opponents who won't wait for your conventionally armed ICBMs to land before firing their own, nuclear-tipped ones back at you.
So you are left with using it to bully hopelessly outmatched foes and spending 10-20m per missiles for the privilege when you could be sending a cruise missiles or fighter jet to drop a LGB on the same target.
PGS is an arms manufacturer's wet dream looking for a mission to score a huge gravy train.
The kind of opponents such a capacity might be worthwhile to use against are also the kind of opponents who won't wait for your conventionally armed ICBMs to land before firing their own, nuclear-tipped ones back at you.
So you are left with using it to bully hopelessly outmatched foes and spending 10-20m per missiles for the privilege when you could be sending a cruise missiles or fighter jet to drop a LGB on the same target.
PGS is an arms manufacturer's wet dream looking for a mission to score a huge gravy train.
Well...the U.S. has the privilege of having jet fighters and cruise-missile armed destroyers patrolling every corner of the world supported by hundreds of military bases abroad, so PGS makes little sense for the U.S. However, for China (doesn't have any forward operational bases abroad), using conventional warhead-tipped ICBM against NON-nuclear adversaries could be a potential option for a quick counter-strike. For example, what if Boko Haram or ISIS slaughter some 50 overseas Chinese citizens, and there no 052Ds or H-6K bombers within range? For politicians, they always need to do something immediately under the pressure of domestic audiences. So from the perspective of gesture politics in protecting Chinese citizens abroad, I see a some potentials for China to develop PGS type ICBMs as an instrumental political tool, as ridiculously expensive as it sounds. Wasting a few expensive hypersonic conventional (glider) warheads several thousands of kilometers away is better than having the families of victims marching onto Tiananmen Square (or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to denounce CCP leaders' for being weak. Keep in mind that Clausewitz and Mao never delinked weapons from politics, so weapon systems are themselves also political tools in addition to simply being killing machines. Given the importance of CCP's domestic legitimacy being ties to showing strength toward those who dare to harm Chinese citizens, a PGS might not be so expensive in terms of political legitimacy.
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solarz
Brigadier
I would have to disagree with your assessments.
First, from a strategic point of view, sending an ICBM with no follow-up plans does absolutely nothing. On a best-case scenario, you take out maybe a hundred fighters, which they can easily replace. On a worst case scenario, you cause a lot of collateral damage can get a huge international backlash. Never even mind that China has a policy against this exact kind of action.
Second, The CPC is never going to go to war over public pressure. That's just not going to happen. If the families of those victims decide to march onto Tiananmen Square, it would be a lot easier to just round them up and put them in detention until they reconsider.
Finally, China already has mechanisms in place to deal with your scenario, and that is to increase cooperation with the country in question to root out and capture the perpetrators. Refer to the Mekong murders for a stellar example.
If, on the other hand, the perpetrators are state actors, then China's response would be to evacuate its citizens and retaliate through economic measures. Look at the recent Vietnam riots. Even though the Vietnamese government lauded the "patriotic" acts, they quickly agreed to compensation and clamped down on further "demonstrations". You can be pretty sure that they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but you will also never be aware of what exactly happened.
I like your argument. However, regarding your last two points, both Myanmar and Vietnam are right next to the Chinese border. Regarding Vietnam, several of my elder Chinese relatives told me that one of the reasons why China invaded Vietnam in 1979 was because of the political purges and severe discrimination toward ethnic Chinese in Norther Vietnam. In this sense, giving the proximity of the border, even the rag-tagged 1970s PLA was able to wreck some havoc in Northern Vietnam (who won is still up to debate, but the PLA did something as gesture, which had multiple political usages ranging from gaining American support to sending a defiant message to both Hanoi and Moscow). I guess if the Burmese Army keeps shelling Yunnan, the PLA could probably do the same.
One issues I am thinking is the employees of Chinese oil and construction companies in North Africa and the Middle East. It will take weeks for carriers, LHAs, 052Ds and cruise-missile armed SSNs to travel to these regions. The H-6K is out of range. If the hypothetical massacre is still ongoing, you want to stop the killing as soon as possible and deter further murderous attempts, or else your citizens will ask why the "corrupt, lazy CCP leaders" didn't do much to save their citizens. Diplomacy does not work for ISIS or Al-Qaeda (or possibly states determined to violently eliminate Chinese from their borders), especially these groups have already vowed to take revenge against Chinese citizens for issues related to Xinjiang. Therefore, if I were a Chinese leader who want to do something as a gesture to "punish" a massacre against Chinese citizens abroad, the only thing I could think of is conventional warhead-tipped ICBMs with an extremely low CEP. Beidou might be able to achieve that. Keep in mind that the word "humiliation" is still a sensitive word in Chinese politics given the "Century of Humiliation," a historical analogy that has become the key social construction of modern Chinese identity. If Chinese citizens are massacred by groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, while the PLA does not have the means to fight back, then is it easy for Chinese citizens to make simply historical analogies to the incapable Qing and Republican governments, even the hypothetical scenario I mentioned here is completely different from the great power conflicts of late 19th Century. Adding to this historical analogy is the new socially constructed identity that China has now finally "stood up" and become a great power, and ordinary Chinese want their new-found prestige to be respected. As a result of the social construction of victim mentality along with past 200 years of "weakness", if the PLA cannot fight back and "win", the CCP could risk losing its legitimacy, as China will be perceived by domestic audience to be "humiliated" by foreign powers (be it ISIS or Imperial Japan) again. In this sense, even causing tons collateral damage and draw backlash from the West are better than being "humiliated" and seen as weak and not being able to retaliate effectively.
I apologize for the OT details and pessimism.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
That's pretty much what I said from the start, PGS is a fancy gimmick looking for a mission.
The more you try to 'prove' its worth, the more especific and improbable the scenario gets.
In the scenario of a terrorist attack like has been suggest, the best and only plausible solution is to deploy conventional forces.
It doesn't matter if it takes time for assets to arrive, you will need that much time if not more to gather intel and properly assess the situation anyways.
Launching an immediate strike with limited to no co-obrative intel and evidence is the worst kind of populist knee-jerk reaction a leader could make.
PGS like weapons systems would also be singularly ill suited for hitting something as small, mobile and hard to positively identify as terrorist squads. To suggest it could be used to stop an ongoing attack is pure nonsense.
As the American experience in Iraq vividly demonstrates, its boots on the ground that root out and kill terrorists. Even with all the drone strikes, air strikes and cruise missile strikes the US could muster, IS is still making strong gains. How many missiles and bombs has the US expended against IS already? How much would that cost if all of them were 10-20m a pop ICBMs?!
To use PGS against terrorists is like shooting at cockroaches with an RPG.
PGS is only good as an alpha strike weapon designed to deliver a crippling attack against ultra-high value national C&C centres, missile silos, naval bases and the like.
Unless you are planning in launching a Pearl Harbour style sneak attack, its cost benefit ratio would be comically poor.
For the cost of developing and fielding a PGS like system, China would be far better off spending that money building more LHDs, carriers and overseas naval bases as a far more effective and reliable means to both deter and prevent the kinds of attacks suggested.
If there was a major, targeted and ongoing attack against Chinese civilians in Africa by terrorists, Beijing would send a naval task force, and press the host country's military to immediately intervene. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, China would negotiate a deal with local or neighbouring governments to allow the PLAAF to airlift PLA special forces and equipment into the area and use local government bases to launch search and rescure operations to get as many civilians to safety as quickly as possible.
Once the naval task force arrives, the PLA will start launching retaliatory operations to capture or kill those responsible.
That also gives the forward deployed special forces enough time to locate the terrorists to call in air strikes and/or naval cruise missiles.
At no point is anyone going to say, 'gee, I really wish we had a PGS like capacity so we could launch an ICBM at those terrorists'. What people would wish for in such a scenario are foreign bases, LHDs and carriers, which interestingly enough, is exactly what Beijing is focusing its resources on acquiring.
The more you try to 'prove' its worth, the more especific and improbable the scenario gets.
In the scenario of a terrorist attack like has been suggest, the best and only plausible solution is to deploy conventional forces.
It doesn't matter if it takes time for assets to arrive, you will need that much time if not more to gather intel and properly assess the situation anyways.
Launching an immediate strike with limited to no co-obrative intel and evidence is the worst kind of populist knee-jerk reaction a leader could make.
PGS like weapons systems would also be singularly ill suited for hitting something as small, mobile and hard to positively identify as terrorist squads. To suggest it could be used to stop an ongoing attack is pure nonsense.
As the American experience in Iraq vividly demonstrates, its boots on the ground that root out and kill terrorists. Even with all the drone strikes, air strikes and cruise missile strikes the US could muster, IS is still making strong gains. How many missiles and bombs has the US expended against IS already? How much would that cost if all of them were 10-20m a pop ICBMs?!
To use PGS against terrorists is like shooting at cockroaches with an RPG.
PGS is only good as an alpha strike weapon designed to deliver a crippling attack against ultra-high value national C&C centres, missile silos, naval bases and the like.
Unless you are planning in launching a Pearl Harbour style sneak attack, its cost benefit ratio would be comically poor.
For the cost of developing and fielding a PGS like system, China would be far better off spending that money building more LHDs, carriers and overseas naval bases as a far more effective and reliable means to both deter and prevent the kinds of attacks suggested.
If there was a major, targeted and ongoing attack against Chinese civilians in Africa by terrorists, Beijing would send a naval task force, and press the host country's military to immediately intervene. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, China would negotiate a deal with local or neighbouring governments to allow the PLAAF to airlift PLA special forces and equipment into the area and use local government bases to launch search and rescure operations to get as many civilians to safety as quickly as possible.
Once the naval task force arrives, the PLA will start launching retaliatory operations to capture or kill those responsible.
That also gives the forward deployed special forces enough time to locate the terrorists to call in air strikes and/or naval cruise missiles.
At no point is anyone going to say, 'gee, I really wish we had a PGS like capacity so we could launch an ICBM at those terrorists'. What people would wish for in such a scenario are foreign bases, LHDs and carriers, which interestingly enough, is exactly what Beijing is focusing its resources on acquiring.
I agree with most of you assessment. However, other than Pakistan (I even put a question mark on this) or Djibouti, I don't see any countries willing to share bases with the PLA, or allow PLA troops to conduct COIN operations in their territories. Sorry, but I don't see how China could be an "empire by invitation" like the U.S., in words of historian John Gaddis. Or another option is to launch cruise missiles from SSNs?
plawolf
Lieutenant General
China doesn't need nor want a military base in everyone's backyard like the US.
If there was a major terrorist attack with significant loss of life amongst Chinese expats, few countries would be able to reasonably deny Chinese demands to see justice done.
China has always preferred to work within international frameworks and laws when it comes to dealing with situations where Chinese nationals are killed or indangered on foreign soil.
Beyond co-ordinating the rescue operation, it is hard to see Chinese troops operating on foreign soil without explicitly approval by the host government.
The governments of the kinds of countries where such an attack could realistically occur would pretty much all jump at the chance to get a major foreign power to come in and exterminate their insurgents for them. The loss of Chinese civilian life would hamstring any serious domestic opposition in the countries involved.
The only likely scenarios where a host government might try to deny China justice for such an attack would be where the government may have had a hand in the killings, in which case, if China can prove its case, it would be extremely hard for even the most rabid China basher to argue against China declaring war over such an act.
In which case, PGS becomes even more of a white elephant.
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