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In this testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Dr. Evan Montgomery discusses the implications of China's offensive missile force. He argues that in the face of an eroding conventional military advantage in the Western Pacific, the United States faces acute challenges to its forward defense posture. Fielding offensive missile forces might partially ameliorate this problem, enhancing deterrence and improving crisis stability.
Indeed, when it comes to negation of important missile defense investments, the above mirrors an interview I conducted back in 2014 with experts from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). When I asked them about the utility of US missiles defenses against hypersonic weapons they explained: “Defensive missiles have very limited time and a finite amount of energy available to position themselves to intercept an incoming offensive missile.
Robert Martinage, a former undersecretary of the Navy now with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says the weapon placement is not a game-changer in and of itself, but “it could be the canary in the coalmine, a harbinger of what’s to come.” If China expands its deployment of advanced defenses, Martinage said, it would have “significant operational implications” for the US and its allies.
John Stillion, a former RAND analyst and contributor to the 2008 war game and the 2011 paper, wrote a paper [10] for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C., think tank, proposing that the Pentagon’s next fighter should be the size of a bomber and carry 24 air-to-air missiles while also controlling drones hauling their own missiles...Stillion’s proposal were hints that the arsenal-plane concept was gaining legitimacy in military circles. But the first arsenal plane could be a fighter rather than a bomber.
In the U.S. military, at least, the “pivot” to Asia has begun. By 2020, the navy and the air force plan to base 60 percent of their forces in the Asia-Pacific region. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is investing a growing share of its shrinking resources in new long-range bombers and nuclear-powered submarines designed to operate in high-threat environments.
While proponents of different U.S. grand strategies might concur that China has the greatest potential to challenge America over the long run, they don’t see that challenge as a very serious one in the near term. Why?
