China's military is building conventional precision-guided missiles in an effort to become Asia's "hegemon" and force the U.S. military to operate thousands of miles from China's coasts, according to a study made public this week.
China's growing arsenal of highly accurate, land-based ballistic missiles is the most conspicuous element of Beijing's anti-access, area-denial weapons, writes former Pentagon official Barry D. Watts in a report produced by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
China's unique DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, which can hit aircraft carriers 1,200 miles out at sea, is the weapon "causing the greatest concern to the U.S. Navy," he states in the report, "The Evolution of Precision Strike."
However, Mr. Watts says, the new missile faces challenges in coordinating its strike capabilities at long distances against maneuvering ships.
It would take a DF-21D about 10 minutes to reach a nuclear-powered carrier. Moving at 30 knots, the warship could cover five miles during the flight, requiring the precision-guided missile's maneuverable warhead to cover 79 square miles during the attack.
"The [Chinese military's] over-the-horizon radars could detect and track a carrier strike group well out in the western Pacific, but the long wavelengths of those radars would not provide the accuracy needed for target updates against a fast-moving naval combatant," he states.
The Chinese would need reconnaissance satellites to guide the missile. China currently is deploying navigation satellites.
China's goal is to force U.S. air and naval forces to operate up to 1,500 miles from China, complicating U.S. efforts to knock out Chinese facilities in a conflict, including those located in thousands of miles of underground tunnels.
Mr. Watts offers several steps to meet the challenge. They include:
Developing high-energy lasers to knock out missiles;
Using sea mines to divert Chinese military efforts to minesweeping operations;
Adopting alternative satellite systems to reduce reliance on large and vulnerable satellites.
Fielding new low-yield, highly accurate nuclear warheads for use against underground facilities.
Mr. Watts states that the U.S. military "has shown little inclination" to develop new operational and organization steps to deal with the threat.
"Instead, the military services have largely taken evolving American capabilities for reconnaissance strike and layered them onto existing operational concepts and organizations," he says.