Wednesday, August 19, 2015

China Challenging All Foundations of US Military Power


for The

Since the end of the World War II, U.S. military superiority has relied on three major foundations, Trey Obering, the former director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), told an audience at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. These were superior strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities (ISR); the ability to project power globally; and an overwhelming dominant technological advantage across a spectrum of conflict.

But China, Obering said, was now challenging all three of these major foundations of American power.

“I believe that China is challenging the United States, specifically targeting our strategic ISR, our power projection capabilities, and our technological advantages with their missile programs,” he said.

Obering, who had a military career spanning 35 years before becoming executive vice-president at Booz Allen Hamilton, addressed China’s threat to each of these three foundations in turn.

On the first, China has already demonstrated its capability to destroy low, earth-orbiting satellites with its anti-satellite missile test in 2007, a test that was repeated earlier this year. But, he said, Beijing is already developing a capability to reach even higher orbits which would allow it to target “nearly all of our [American] space assets.”

More worryingly, Obering said that while the United States relies heavily on space-based capabilities, the United States “has not chosen to view space in the same way” that it views air, land, and sea when it comes to protecting critical lines of communication.

Turning to the second foundation – global power projection – Obering said China was challenging U.S. carrier battle groups, a key capability for deterrence and, if needed, striking an enemy on its soil. For instance, Beijing has developed a medium-range anti-ship missile, the DF-21, which is “clearly and specifically targeted” at U.S. carrier battle groups.

“This missile is a formidable threat which represents very advanced technology,” he warned.

Moving on to the third foundation – technological superiority – he said that in his view, China was clearly not content with its current advancements but was moving to surpass the United States technologically.

“Looking to the future, is China satisfied with the developments they have achieved, or are they moving towards trumping U.S. technological capabilities? I believe the latter is the case.”

As an example, he noted that earlier this year, China confirmed that it had successfully tested its Wu-14 hypersonic vehicle – which can travel at ten times the speed of sound – on four occasions, with the latest in June this year.

“With characteristics of both very high speed and maneuverability, this would be a formidable challenge to any air and missile defense system,” Obering said.

To counter this threat from China, Obering said the United States should pursue three thrusts to strengthen the foundations of its military power.

First, Obering said Washington should take a dramatically revised approach as to how it develops and fields missile defense capabilities. That means not just focusing on individual systems like Patriot, THAAD and Aegis, but thinking more in terms of “integrated architectures.”

Achieving this integrated approach, he said, would require several steps. At the most basic level, it would mean integrating existing capabilities to better leverage sensors, communications, and command and control. But it would also require integrating missile defense capabilities with offensive capabilities – which means new concepts, tactics, techniques, procedures, training as well as greater collaboration and partnerships with allies to leverage their strengths as well.

“This approach can begin to close some of the gaps and help reduce costs to focus our declining budgets on future investments,” he said.

Second, the United States should re-energize its science and technology programs and its state of the art research at the Missile Defense Agency as well as its national labs. Just as the current ballistic missile defense capabilities the U.S. fields today are the product of two decades of investments from when then President Ronald Reagan started the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, Obering suggested that Washington needs to invest smartly and significantly today for the capabilities of tomorrow.

“We must revitalize that investment,” he said.

This could be accomplished in several ways. He suggested that mature programs well under production should be transferred to a lead service for operations and sustainment to free up funding. Washington should also dramatically expand investment in next generation capabilities like advanced kill vehicles, directed energy weapons and space-based capabilities.

Third and lastly, Obering said Washington must treat space for what it is: a domain where the United States must be prepared to fight and win.

“As I said, the battle space is growing into space. Failure to understand this reality could hurt us,” he said.

That means both developing new and better capabilities to defeat space threats as well as using all U.S. national capabilities and investigate what the country can bring to bear via technical and even commercial means.

“By integrating a spaced-based layer with our existing considerable terrestrial systems, we can begin to address this growing threat environment,” he said.

Asked whether China may simply be trying to defend its own interests rather than challenging American power, Obering said he preferred to focus squarely on Chinese capabilities – which are quantifiable and take longer to develop – rather than intent which is much more difficult to assess and can change a lot quicker.

“China can be very aggressive today and be our ally tomorrow. The intent changes [but] capability is what you have to watch, he said. “[You should] not solely rely on a nation’s good intent, because you have to have the ability ultimately to protect your national security,” he added. By

 

3 comments:

  1. China Tests New Missile Capable of Hitting Entire United States
    Beijing’s ICBM arsenal appears to be rapidly expanding.
    On August 6, China has tested its newest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with two guided simulated nuclear warheads, according to information obtained by The Washington Free Beacon.
    The August 6 flight test was the fourth time a DF-41 (CSS-X-20) long-range missile has been tested in the last three years and allegedly confirmed that the ICBM is capable of carrying multiple warheads.
    China’s first test of the DF-41’s multiple warhead (aka multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs) capability allegedly took place in December 2014, according to The Washington Free Beacon. Previous tests occurred in July 2012 and December 2013 at the Wuzhai Missile and Space Testing facility located some 250 miles southwest of Beijing. The location of the August 2015 test site, however, remains unknown.
    “China’s MIRV technology is based on illegally exported U.S. satellite technology transferred during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Lockheed Martin was fined $13 million in 2000 as part of the illicit exports that China diverted to its MIRV warhead program,” the Free Beacon reported back in December 2014.

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  2. Development of the missile reportedly started in 1986 but was abandoned in the early 2000s. According to unconfirmed media reports, the program (Project 41H) was only relaunched in 2009. Nevertheless, most details about the DF-41 program and the missile’s true capabilities remain cloaked in mystery.
    “Few details on deployment plans technical characteristics are currently available. Once fully operational, the DF-41 is expected to be the PLA’s most sophisticated ICBM to date,” Mark Stokes, a former Pentagon analyst, told the Free Beacon.
    U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that the DF-41 can carry up to ten 150-300 kiloton yield thermonuclear warheads per missile and that it is capable of targeting the entire continental United States. It is solid fueled, road mobile and has an estimated range of between 12,000 and 15,000 km (6,835 miles and 7,456 miles). The most recent U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report notes that the missile could be already deployed this year, however, a 2018-2020 time frame appears much more likely, according to independent experts.
    Rick Fisher, an analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, concurs with the above report stating that the DF-41 is “nearing operational status.”

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  3. “The mobile and solid-fueled DF-41 will be the second MIRV-equipped ICBM to enter PLA Second Artillery Corps service after the currently deployed, liquid-fueled and silo-launched DF-5B. The bottom line is that China potentially is beginning a new phase in which its nuclear warhead numbers will be increasing rapidly,” Fisher said in an interview with the Free Beacon.
    According to the Missile Threat website, the DF-41 “represents the peak of PRC technology” and “will likely become the core of the PRC’s nuclear strike force.” In addition the website notes that the “DF-41 appears similar to the Russian R-12 (SS-27) and it is possible R-12 technology was purchased or stolen.”
    As I reported in June (See: “Will This Chinese Weapon Be Able to Sink an Aircraft Carrier?”), a Popular Science article discusses the possibility of WU-14 hypersonic glider vehicles (HGVs) being installed on the DF-41. This, the authors note, would provide Beijing for the first time with a precision strike capability to hit any target in the world within an hour. By Franz-Stefan Gady

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