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Abstract
Will China's development of a new generation of nuclear weapons impact US-China security relations in important ways? One's answer depends on how one views the following: whether or not Chinese leaders believe that they are only now acquiring a secure second strike capability; the scope of coercive power that secure second strike capability provides to conventionally inferior actors; the meaning of China's ‘No First Use’ Doctrine; and the prospects for escalation control in future crises. Applying Cold War theories and tapping Chinese doctrinal writings this article concludes that China's nuclear modernization program might prove more consequential than is commonly believed.
Acknowledgements
For expert research assistance and commentary, the author would like to thank Oriana Mastro. For very helpful comments he would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Michael Chase, Owen Cote, Andrew Erickson, Taylor Fravel, Charles Glaser, James Goldgeier, Avery Goldstein, Justin Higgins, Robert Jervis, Alastair Iain Johnston, Elizabeth Kier, Jonathan Kirshner, Kier Lieber, Adam Liff, Sean Lynn-Jones, Rose McDermott, Jonathan Mercer, Cynthia Roberts, Thomas Schelling, Randall Schweller, Jack Snyder, Marc Trachtenberg, James Wirtz and especially James Davis, the inspirational organizer, and all the participants in the June 2010 conference in honor of Robert Jervis at Columbia University
Notes
1See Yao Yunzhu, ‘China's Perspective on Nuclear Deterrence’, Air and Space Power Journal (March 2010); Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the Twenty-First Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (Stanford UP 2000); also Taylor M. Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros, ‘China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure’, International Security 35/2 (Fall 2010), 48–87.
2Fravel and Medeiros, ‘China's Search’; Michael S. Chase, Andrew S. Erickson, and Christopher Yeaw, ‘Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization and its Implications for the United States’, Journal of Strategic Studies 32/1 (Feb. 2009), 67–114; and Brad Roberts, ‘Strategic Deterrence Beyond Taiwan’, in Roy Kamphausen, David Lai, and Andrew Scobell (eds), Beyond the Strait: PLA Missions Other than Taiwan (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Army War College Strategic Studies Institute 2009), ch. 6.
3For this logic, see Robert S. Ross, ‘Navigating the Taiwan Strait: Deterrence, Escalation Dominance, and U.S.-China Relations’, International Security 27/2 (Fall 2002), 48–85.
4Glenn Snyder, ‘The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror’, in Paul Seabury (ed), The Balance of Power (San Francisco, CA: Chandler Publishers 1965), 184–201; Henry Rowen and Albert Wohlstetter, ‘Varying Responses with Circumstances’, in Jonathan Holst and Uwe Nerlich (eds), Beyond Nuclear Deterrence: New Aims, New Arms (New York: Russak 1977), 225–38; Colin Gray ‘Strategic Stability Reconsidered’, Survival 109/4 (1980), 135–54. For a review of this literature, see Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1989), ch. 1.
5For different versions of MAD, all of which share this basic conceptual foundation, see Jervis, Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, ch. 3. Also see Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1967), 18–25.
6For such US calculations during the early 1960s, see Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 103; and Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (Stanford UP 1983), 294–306.
7Schelling, Arms and Influence, 98–9; Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1984), 137–40; idem, Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 21–2, and 81–5.
8Ross, ‘Navigating the Taiwan Strait’, 60.
9Yu Xijun (ed), Di Er Pao Bing Zhanyi Xue [The Science of Second Artillery Campaigns, heareafter SSAC] (Beijing: PLA Press 2004). This fascinating doctrinal volume has become available from Chinese language booksellers outside of the PRC and is also available at libraries at George Washington University, Harvard University, and Oxford University, and the US Naval War College. To my knowledge, it was first cited publicly in 2009 in Roberts ‘Strategic Deterrence Beyond Taiwan’, and Chase, Erickson, and Yeaw, ‘Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization and its Implications for the United States’.
10China's National Defense in 2006, People's Republic of China, PRC Information Office of the State Council 2006.
11China's National Defense in 2008, People's Republic of China, PRC Information Office of the State Council 2008.
12See Dominic Descisciolo, ‘China's Space Development and Nuclear Strategy’, in Lyle J. Goldstein and Andrew S. Erickson (eds), China's Nuclear Force Modernization (Newport, RI: Center for Naval War Studies 2005), 49–64 at 52.
13Christopher McConnaughy, ‘China's Undersea Nuclear Deterrent: Will the US Military be Ready?’ in Goldstein and Erickson (eds), China's Nuclear Force Modernization, 23–48, at 29.
14Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2010, 34.
15Nye quoted in Goldstein with Erickson, China's Nuclear Force Modernization, 3.
16Kier Lieber and Daryl Press go much further and assert that the smaller US arsenal provides the United States itself a credible first strike against China, see Kier A. Lieber and Daryl Press, ‘The Nukes We Need: Preserving the American Deterrent’, Foreign Affairs 88/11 (Nov./Dec. 2009), 39–51.
17On the basic concept of Mutually Assured Destruction and varying arguments about the condition's significance for international security, see Jervis, Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution and Snyder, ‘The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror’.
18Kingston Reif, ‘Nuclear Weapons: The Modernization Myth’. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Online, 2009, <www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/nuclear-weapons-the-modernization-myth>.
19For an analysis of improving US first strike options, see Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ‘The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of US Primacy’, International Security 30/4 (Spring 2006), 7–44; and idem, ‘The Nukes We Need.’ For Chinese concerns about the development of US first strike options and missile defenses, see Yao, ‘China's Perspectives.’
20According to publicly available analyses, the missiles of the second artillery have traditionally been kept neither fueled (the liquid is corrosive after 24 hours; the liquid propellant is kept in tanks nearby) nor mated with nuclear warheads. These sources assert that the process of loading the fuel and installing warheads can take as many as four hours. See Bates Gill, James Mulvenon and Mark Stokes, ‘The Chinese Second Artillery Corps: Transition to Credible Deterrence’, in James Mulvenon and Andrew N.D. Yang (eds) The People's Liberation Army as an Organization: Reference Volume v1.0. (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2001), 510–86. For Chinese official sources acknowledging the delay associated with liquid fueling; see ‘China develops first solid-fuel launch vehicle,’ Xinhua News Agency, 24 Sept. 2003.
21Paul H.B. Godwin, ‘Potential Chinese Reponses to US Ballistic Missile Defense’ (2002), <www.stimson.org/china/pdf/CMDWP3.pdf>, 63.
22National Intelligence Council, Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015, (2001), 8.
23Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2010, 7; Federation of American Scientists, ‘DF-31,’ <www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/icbm/df-31.htm>.
24Gill, Mulvenon and Stokes, ‘The Chinese Second Artillery Corps’, 556.
25Fravel and Medeiros, ‘China's Search for Assured Retaliation’, 79.
26China currently has approximately 200 warheads, the US has 10,000; by 2015 after the US has completed reductions, China may have 220 warheads and the US 5,000. Furthermore, China has traditionally had only 20 ICBMs that can reach the US, none on alert; the US has more than 830 missiles that can reach China, most ready to launch within minutes. See Hans M. Kristensen, Robert S. Norris, and Matthew G. McKinzie, ‘Chinese Nuclear Forces and US Nuclear War Planning’, (Federation of American Scientists/Natural Resources Defense Council, November 2006), <www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/Book2006.pdf>, 2.
27Along these lines, a RAND study on Chinese nuclear modernization ‘China's minimal deterrent was primarily psychological, though the potency of this aspect of the deterrent should not be underestimated.’ See Gill, Mulvenon, and Stokes ‘The Chinese Second Artillery Corps’, 556.
28Devin T. Hagerty, ‘Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: the 1990 Indo-Pakistani Crisis’, International Security 20/3 (Winter 1995–96), 70–114; and Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, 58–61.
29According to publicly available analyses China has approximately 20 liquid-fueled limited range CSS-3 ICBMs which are primarily directed at targets in Russia and Asia; between 15 and 20 liquid-fueled CSS-2 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs); and possesses about 50 CSS-5 road mobile, solid-fueled MRBMs, which are relevant for regional deterrence missions.30 Department of Defense, ‘Annual Report to Congress’, 2008, 24.
30CSIS, IDA, RAND Corporation,’ CFISS Conference on US-China Strategic Nuclear Dynamics' (2006), <www.comw.org/cmp/fulltext/0606uschinaconf.pdf>.
31Discussions with Chinese experts in Beijing and Shanghai, May 2011.
32Brad Roberts, ‘China-US Nuclear Relations: What Relationship Best Serves US Interests?’ Institute for Defense Analysis 2001, Institute for Defense Analyses, <www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dtra/china_us_nuc.pdf>; Chase and Erickson ‘An Undersea Deterrent,’ 2; Ross, ‘Navigating the Strait,’; and Lieber and Press, ‘The End of MAD.’
33Chase, Erickson, and Yeaw, ‘Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization’, 74.
34SSAC, 299, and 303.
35Chase, Erickson, and Yeaw, ‘Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization’, 94.
36Roberts, ‘Strategic Deterrence Beyond Taiwan’, 181–2.
37Admiral Liu Huaqing in a nonattributed quote in US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Intelligence. Worldwide Submarine Challenges, 1997, 1.
38Wang and Ye cited in Michael S. Chase and Andrew S. Erickson, ‘An Undersea Deterrent?’, Proceedings 135/6 (2009), <www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/story.asp?STORY_ID=1907>.
39CSIS, IDA, RAND Corporation Conference on US-China Strategic Nuclear Dynamics 2006.
40Yao, ‘China's Perspective’, 2.
41Lieber and Press, ‘The End of MAD?’; and Lieber and Press, ‘The Nukes We Need’.
42For US obsession with secure nuclear forces and secure command and control for those forces, see Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, and Stephen Polk, ‘China's Nuclear Command and Control,’ in Goldstein and Erickson, China's Nuclear Force Modernization, 7–22, at 8.
43Snyder, ‘The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror’; Rowen and Wohlstetter, ‘Varying Responses with Circumstances’ ; Gray, ‘Strategic Stability Reconsidered’. For a review of this literature, see Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, ch. 1.
44Schelling, Arms and Influence, 98–9; Jervis, The Illogic, 137–40; Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 21–2, and 81–5.
45Jervis argued stridently against those advocating massive conventional arms racing in Europe and especially so against those who prescribed a push for US superiority at all levels of nuclear violence. Jervis, The Illogic.
46Jervis, The Illogic, ch. 6.
47Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 168–73. For the original theoretical work, see Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, ‘Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,’ Econometrica 47/2 (March 1979), 263–91. For interesting applications of the theory to international relations, see Rose McDermott, Risk Taking in International Relations: Prospect Theory in Post-War American Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press 1998), various chapters in Barbara Farnham (ed.), Avoiding Losses/Taking Risks: Prospect Theory and International Conflict (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press 1994); and James W. Davis, Threats and Promises: The Pursuit of International Influence (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP 2000), 32–5.
48Schelling, Arms and Influence, ch. 2 on the distinction between deterrence and compellence.
49Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 29–35; on this point, see also Davis, Threats and Promises.
50Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 81.
51For a US government insider's view of the crisis, see Robert Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of US-China Relations, 1989–2000 (Washington, DC: Brooking Institution 2003); for a fine scholarly account, see Robert S. Ross, ‘The 1995–96 Taiwan Straits Confrontation: Coercion, Credibility, and Use of Force’, International Security 25/2 (Fall 2000), 87–123.
52Defense Writers Group, ‘Vice Admiral David J. Dorsett Deputy CNO for Information Dominance, Transcript of Q&A,’ 5 Jan. 2011, <www.airforce-magazine.com/DWG/Documents/2011/January%202011/010511dorsett.pdf>.
53Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, 2009 and 2010. For more on China's ASBM capability, see Mark Stokes ‘China's Evolving Conventional Strike Capability’, 2009, <http://project2049.net/documents/chinese_anti_ship_ballistic_missile_asbm.pdf>; Andrew S. Erickson ‘Ballistic Trajectory – China Develops New Anti-Ship Missile,’ Jane's Intelligence Review, 2010, <www.janes.com/news/security/jir/jir100106_1_n.shtml>; and Andrew S. Erickson and David D. Yang, ‘Using the Land to Control the Sea? Chinese Analysts Consider the Antiship Ballistic Missile’, Naval War College Review 62/4 (2009), 53–86.
54During the Cold War Barry R. Posen argued that significant conventional attacks on Soviet assets in Eastern and Northern Europe could degrade key Soviet nuclear retaliatory capabilities in ways that could trigger nuclear escalation. Barry R. Posen, Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1991). If Posen's analysis is correct, his analysis should apply even more clearly to attacks on the Chinese homeland in a future US–China conflict.
55The Xianever conducted an extended patrol and her JL-1 SLBMs had only a range of 1,770 kilometers. China started development of the Type 094 Jin-class SSBN in the 1980s. According to the Office of Naval Intelligence, China may build five Type 094 SSBNs, each will be outfitted with 12 developmental JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). These SLBMs have an estimated range of at least 7,200 kilometers and are equipped with penetration aids and will allow China to reach three-fourths of the United States from just northeast of the Kuril Islands. ONI released information that as of late 2006, the Type 094 was already conducting sea trials, and would most likely reach Initial Operating Capacity (IOC) by 2008. See GlobalSecurity. Org, ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction: Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Type 094 Jin-class Ballistic Missile Submarine’, 2009, <www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/china/type_94.htm>; and Chase and Erickson, ‘An Undersea Deterrent,’ 2.
56See Robert Jervis, ‘Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma’, World Politics 30 (1976), 167–214, at 207.
57Many indicators suggest that China has backward command and control arrangements with a nuclear arsenal that resembles emerging nuclear powers more than those of the United States or Soviet Union. See Department of Defense. ‘Report to Congress’, 2008. On submarine systems see ibid., ‘Report to Congress’, 2010, 34.
58There is speculation that given the primitive nature of China's nuclear command and control, some operational units will have been predelegated launch authority under certain conditions. See Polk, China's Nuclear Command and Control’, 14–15. For the view that submarine-based nuclear forces will be under tight central command, see John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, Imagined Enemies: China Prepares for Uncertain War (Stanford UP 2006), 120.
59See Paul Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1985); Bruce G. Blair, Strategic Command and Control: Re-Defining the Nuclear Threat (Washington DC: Brookings 1985).
60Marc Kaufman and Dafna Linzer, ‘China Criticized for Anti-Satellite Missile Test,’ Washington Post, 19 Jan. 2007.
61For the Defense Department's official video coverage of ‘Burnt Frost’, see <www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDqNjnUNUl8>.
62On maritime disputes in general, see Taylor Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes (Princeton UP 2008), ch. 6. On Taiwan, see Alan Romberg, Rein in at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy Toward Taiwan and US-PRC Relations (Washington DC: Henry L. Stimson Center 2003); Richard Bush, Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the Taiwan Strait (Washington DC: Brookings Institution 2005); and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (ed.), Dangerous Strait: The US–Taiwan–China Crisis (New York: Columbia UP 2005).
63See testimony of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel, Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 19 July 2009, <http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2009/MarcielTestimony090715p.pdf>.
64Remarks and Q&A at the Japan National Press Club, 2 Feb. 2004 cited by Emma Chanlett-Avery and Weston S. Konishi, The Changing US–Japan Alliance: Implications for US Interests (Congressional Research Service 2009), 16.
65See Briefing by Secretary Clinton, Japanese Foreign Minister Maehara, Honolulu, Hawaii, 27 Oct. 2010, in the 28 Oct. 2010, release by the Office of the Spokesperson, US Department of State, <www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2010/October/20101028123524su0.6718823.html>.
66For a brief review of this issue, see Thomas J. Christensen, ‘The Advantages of an Assertive China: Responding to Beijing's Abrasive Diplomacy’, Foreign Affairs 90/2 (March/April 2011), 54–67.
67SSAC, 282.
68Evan Medeiros, ‘Minding the Gap: Assessing the Trajectory of the PLA's Second Artillery’, in Roy Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell (eds), Right Sizing the People's Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China's Military (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College 2007), 156.
69See SSAC, 298–9 for detailed coverage of the reasons behind China's NFU doctrine. The quotation is from p. 299.
70See SSAC, 133. This sentence is repeated verbatim on p. 275.
71SSAC, 279.
72SSAC, 202
73SSAC, 272.
74SSAC, 273.
75SSAC, 273.
76SSAC, 274.
77SSAC, 294. The parenthetical inclusion of nuclear power stations in the list is probably meant to mean ‘to include’ nuclear power stations because one does not get the sense that the authors expect to view conventional strikes on nuclear weapons facilities with conventional weapons as anything short of a first-strike attempt.
78Gregory Kulacki cited in Rachel Oswald, ‘US-China Nuclear Talks Stymied by Distrust and Miscommunication’, Atlantic Monthly, 31 Oct. 2011, <www.theatlantic. com/international/archive/2011/10/us-china-nuclear-talks-stymied-by-distrust-and-mis communication/247589/>.
79Zhao Xijun, ed., She Zhan–Daodan Weishe Zonghengtan [Intimidation Warfare: A Comprehensive Discussion on Missile Deterrence] (Beijing: National Defense UP 2003), 92.
80Ibid., 34.
81Chase Erickson, and Yeaw, 70, and 95–6, the quotation is on p. 70 and is from Senior Colonel Wang Zhongchun, ‘Nuclear Challenges and China's Choices’, China Security 5 (Winter 2007), 52–65, at 60.
82SSAC, 310–11.
83Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘China's New “Old Thinking”: The Concept of Limited Deterrence', International Security 20/3 (Winter 1995–96), 5–42, 23
84Chase, Erickson, and Yeaw, ‘Chinese Strategic and Theater Missile Forces’, 97.
85Rong Yu and Peng Guangqian, ‘Nuclear No-First-Use Revisited’, China Security 13 (2009), 81–90.
86Fravel and Medeiros, ‘China's Search’, 83.
87I am grateful to Alastair Iain Johnston for raising this excellent point.
88Roberts, ‘Strategic Deterrence Beyond Taiwan’, 200.
89Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1999).
90Oswald, ‘US-China Nuclear Talks Stymied by Distrust and Miscommunication’.