Going ballistic

In the midst of this President's emphasis on Russian relations, the Afghan war, and now perhaps Arab-Israeli talks as his foreign policy keystones, it is perhaps too easy to forget the one country that might present a "peer competitor" to the US, China. Though China is far from replacing the US as hegemon, China's combination of rising wealth and military modernization are not cause for alarm, but certainly demand consideration. The US has been doing a relatively poor job of maintaining its status as hegemon. It has mired itself in debt, two wars and on top of that, its military procurement system has encouraged budgetary bloat and all too many weapons systems that neither meet the needs of present wars nor seem to have much use for the future.

It is important to note that the term "asymmetry" has more application in warfare than the counterinsurgency and guerrilla wars that occupy our current thinking on defense. The goal of any belligerent is to create an asymmetry over the enemy, whether it is the Taliban creating asymmetry through the use of IEDs in Helmand or the US creating asymmetry through overwhelming air dominance in its own combat operations. This understanding of asymmetry informs the People's Liberation Army as it seeks to develop "assassin's mace" capabilities, technologies and tactics that would allow it to defeat a qualitatively superior force. These technologies range from electronic countermeasures that addle our air strikes to ballistic missiles appropriated for conventional strikes against US airbases and carrier groups.

Keep in mind that while the US is experiencing "relative decline," it still maintains overwhelming air and naval dominance across the globe. China's "assassin's mace" technologies, while we ignore them at our own peril, are not cure-alls. Chinese electronic jamming, for example, may not be able to defeat current generations of American missile guidance systems. Chinese weapons systems, when measured against their US equivalents, are still a generation or more behind. Nevertheless, this dominance, particularly in the naval and air capabilities the US would first bring to bear against China in any conceivable war scenario, has spurred development in ballistic missile technologies. These could be a potential "game changer" in a US-China war.

Why? No other country currently employs ballistic missiles against mobile naval target, nor do many other countries have the ballistic missile capabilities to challenge the United States. Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) are much faster than cruise missiles, making them harder to intercept. They can be launched from land, unlike many anti-ship missiles, so US air-sea dominance will have less capability to counteract them. Other conventionally-armed ballistic missiles could be targeted against US airbases at Kadena, Okinawa, South Korea and Guam to achieve theatre-wide air dominance in an operation against Taiwan.

Notably, the PLA artillery command and the PLA Navy do not agree on the utility of these missiles. So let's not single out US procurement for having inter-service politics (the PLAN opposes ASBMs in part to preserve the importance of the navy) guide procurement. Another thing to keep in mind is the importance of things like US tanker capabilities, basing rights, and electronics (among many other factors) to the complexity of warfare at land and sea. It's not hypocritical to be worried about Chinese capabilities but think our resources are not best spent on the F-22 and other defense industry pet projects.