China's not so new nuclear
strategy By David Isenberg
WASHINGTON - A new study released by the
US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute
is the latest addition to the "China is a
worrisome threat" crowd.
The 51-page
monograph is a sort of literary review, the result
of exploiting sections of a doctrinal text, "A
Guide to the Study of Campaign Theory", published
for People's Liberation Army (PLA) higher military
schools by the Chinese National Defense
University.
The
monograph finds:
In the view of many in the PLA, the
military power of the United States, the
potential to use that power to coerce or
dominate China, and the ability to threaten
China's pursuit of its own interests [present] a
latent threat to China. Additionally, China's
own threats against democratic Taiwan, and the
fact that PLA leaders believe that the United
States is likely to come to Taiwan's assistance
in the event of Chinese aggression in the Taiwan
Strait, magnifies the threat that PLA officers
perceive from the United States. This perceived
threat drives the PLA to follow US military
developments more carefully than those of other
nations and to be prepared to counter American
forces.
The PLA is mixing nuclear and
conventional missile forces in its military
doctrine. Also, some in China are questioning
whether the doctrine of "no first use" of
nuclear weapons serves China's deterrent needs.
The monograph has been exciting
attention in US national-security circles because
it asserts that China's nuclear strategy could
bring about a nuclear war. Supposedly Beijing may
be trying to develop the capability to destroy
entire US aircraft-carrier battle groups in the
Pacific Ocean by targeting them with nuclear-armed
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The monograph was written by Larry
Wortzel, a retired US Army officer and former
official of the conservative Heritage Foundation
in Washington, DC, as well as commissioner on the
congressionally appointed US-China Economic and
Security Review Commission.
But a close
reading of the monograph suggests there is less
than meets the eye. Many of the developments that
Wortzel points to are, in fact, things the United
States long ago accomplished during the Cold War.
For example, Wortzel is alarmed by the
fact that China is experimenting with both
multiple re-entry vehicles (MIRV - a collection of
nuclear weapons carried on a single ICBM or a
submarine-launched ballistic missile) and
maneuverable re-entry vehicles (MARV - a type of
nuclear warhead capable of shifting targets in
flight) as well as other penetration aids or
countermeasures on its warheads as means to
respond to potential missile defense.
But
the US developed MIRVs in the 1960s when the
weapons laboratories had designed small
thermonuclear weapons, a necessary condition for
deploying multiple re-entry vehicles on the
relatively small Minuteman missile.
And
the United States also developed MARVs decades
ago, both for its Trident missiles, which had to
be able to evade Soviet anti-ballistic-missile
systems, and for the Pershing II missile that was
deployed to Europe in the 1980s.
Indeed,
if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,
the US should be feeling very pleased.
Another Chinese development that Wortzel
finds noteworthy is that Chinese military
officials have picked target sets that would would
disrupt the enemy's economy, reconstitution and
resupply capabilities. Specifically:
Enemy political centers.
Economic centers.
Major enemy military bases and depots.
Enemy command centers.
Enemy communications and transportation
networks.
Major troop concentrations.
This too
is classic counter-force nuclear targeting. The US
started putting together such lists in the 1950s,
when 5,500 Soviet targets were listed as potential
Strategic Air Command bomber strikes. Yet
another doctrinal development that Wortzel finds
noteworthy is the Chinese emphasis on "guaranteed
survivability and strike", meaning Chinese nuclear
forces must be able to ride out a nuclear attack
and emerge to conduct their own counterstrike.
This too is straight out of the old US Cold War
playback. This is what nuclear strategists called
second-strike capability: the assured ability of a
country to respond to a nuclear attack with
powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker.
To have such an ability (and to convince the
opponent of its viability) is considered vital in
nuclear deterrence.
Even a development
that is genuinely, at least potentially,
destabilizing, which Wortzel notes - the decision
by Beijing to put nuclear and conventional
warheads on the same classes of ballistic missiles
- also mirrors a recent US initiative. That is the
US Prompt Global Strike Capability, which seeks to
convert Trident II D-5 submarine-launched
ballistic missiles (SLBMs) to carry conventional
warheads to satisfy the desire of US Strategic
Command for a near-term strike option.
This initiative has been heavily
criticized by the arms control community because
is brings an inherent risk of triggering a nuclear
war. It seems likely, for example, that Russian
and Chinese early warning radars would be unable
to differentiate between US nuclear and
conventional SLBM and/or ICBM launches, as the
heat signatures of both would be the same. The
ambiguity, by causing doubt and uncertainty, and
possible delay in response, would also inevitably
strengthen the capacity for a successful US
nuclear first strike. Countries targeted by any
ICBM strike would need to treat any attack as a
nuclear one if they were to avoid being open to a
successful surprise US nuclear first strike.
Ironically, it is this sort of initiative
- which makes it more likely that China might
execute a preemptive nuclear counterattack if it
believes that an adversary is about to attack it -
that Wortzel worries about.
David
Isenberg is a senior research analyst at the
British American Security Information Council, a
member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign
Policy, a research fellow at the Independent
Institute, and an adviser to the Straus Military
Reform Project of the Center for Defense
Information, Washington. These views are his own.
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