The strategic-level effects of long-range strike weapons: A framework for analysis

ABSTRACT

Can long-range strike weapons (LRS) create strategic-level effects? Despite extensive debate about the impact of LRS on contemporary warfare, the question of how such weapons can create strategic-level effects has received limited attention. I identify four strategic functions LRS can fulfil to create strategic-level effects: (1) counter-population, (2) strategic interdiction, (3) counter-leadership, and (4) counterforce. By fulfilling these functions, LRS can undermine the will and/or capacity of the adversary to resist at the strategic level of warfare, independent of warfighting efforts located at the tactical and operational levels. I apply these arguments in an analysis of China’s conventional missile arsenal and doctrine. My analysis suggests that Chinese leaders believe that employing LRS for strategic functions constitutes a potentially effective way of subduing their enemies. The findings have implications for scholars’ and policymakers’ understanding of the role of LRS in international politics and contemporary warfare.

KEYWORDS:

• Long-range strike
• advanced conventional weapons
• strategy
• war
• China
• airpower

Introduction

Long-range strike weapons (LRS) are a category of conventional weapon systems that employ advanced technologies to deliver a conventional payload at stand-off range and with high precision.¹ The meaning of ‘stand-off range’ is context-dependent, relating to the geographical distance between adversaries, but generally denotes the ability of LRS to engage targets beyond the tactical level of warfare, at operational and strategic depth. This includes conventional cruise and ballistic missiles, precision-guided long-range rocket artillery, long-range drone systems, and conventionally armed hypersonic boost-glide vehicles. It can also include precision-guided conventional gravity and glide bombs if they can be brought to their targets using longer-range delivery platforms.

Despite acknowledging the significant impact of LRS on contemporary military thought and their ability to create effects beyond the tactical and operational levels of warfare, no efforts have been made to systematically portray the strategic-level effects of LRS in a single framework.² The literature tends to claim that LRS can create strategic-level effects because they can substitute for, or are even comparable to, nuclear weapons.³ However, this ignores the potentially important strategic-level effects of LRS in non-nuclear conflict dyads and below the nuclear threshold. Even where scholars engage the topic from outside the nuclear context, their findings provide limited insights. As such, existing analysis fails to convey the diversity of ways through which LRS can create strategic-level effects.

In this article I therefore ask, how can LRS create strategic-level effects? Answering this question promises important insights into the conduct of warfare in the twenty-first century which is characterised by the presence of increasingly lethal long-range precision fires capable of striking a broad range of targets at strategic depth. In addition, closer inquiry into the strategic-level effects of LRS provides a better understanding of the diffusion of non-nuclear strategic capabilities, including to small and medium powers, and their implications for strategic stability in and outside of nuclear contexts.

I present a theoretical framework that seeks to clarify the strategic nature of LRS and outline the different ways in which LRS can create strategic-level effects. I argue that the ability of LRS to create strategic-level effects is rooted in their ability to undermine the will and/or capacity of the adversary to resist at the strategic level of warfare. To create strategic-level effects, LRS can fulfil four distinct strategic functions: (1) counter-population, (2) strategic interdiction, (3) counter-leadership, and (4) counterforce. These functions differ primarily in terms of their underlying targeting philosophies and their theories of victory.

The framework takes into account the inherent tactical-strategic dual-capability of LRS as well as the potential latency of their strategic-level effects, two aspects that are not sufficiently considered in the existing literature. I argue that the ability of LRS to create strategic-level effects does not necessarily deny their utility at the tactical and operational levels of warfare. In addition, while LRS can be employed for strategic-level purposes, the effects may be less dramatic and irreversible, especially compared to nuclear weapons.⁴ Even where LRS are successfully employed in strategic functions, their initial effects may not be decisive or even significant.

I illustrate the framework by looking at China’s LRS arsenal, which provides its leadership with a strategic-level attack option. I argue that China’s military strategy and missile doctrine indicate that Chinese decision-makers intend to employ their LRS arsenal in the strategic functions outlined in the framework. The Chinese case is also useful in illustrating how the employment of LRS for strategic-level effects impacts security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

Before proceeding two caveats are in order. First, my framework focuses on the strategic wartime functions of LRS. The deployment of LRS capable of creating strategic-level effects may yield important benefits outside of war, most notably for deterrence and compellence purposes.⁵ These implications are addressed towards the end of the article, but comprehensive analysis falls falls outside its scope.⁶ Additionally, even where LRS provide states with coercive benefits outside of war, their threat value critically relates to the wartime benefits these weapon systems may provide. Understanding the strategic wartime functions of LRS is therefore of primary importance and will facilitate future engagement with the weapons category in a variety of scenarios.

Second, the objective of the framework is not to settle any debates regarding the effectiveness and feasibility of strategic-level attacks employing LRS. Military requirements for such attacks are without doubt high, not only in terms of the weapon systems themselves, but also in terms of enabling capabilities, most notably intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).⁷ While the article discusses China’s missile arsenal and its ability to fulfil a range of strategic functions, comprehensive analysis of effectiveness, including outside the Chinese context, is beyond the scope of this article.

The article proceeds as follows. In section one, I examine the contemporary debate on LRS and their strategic-level effects. In section two, I present my theoretical framework which conceptualises LRS as strategic weapons and outlines four distinct strategic functions LRS can fulfil to create strategic-level effects. In section three, I demonstrate the utility of the framework by looking at China’s conventional missile arsenal and doctrine and outlining the strategic functions in which China intends to employ its LRS arsenal during a Taiwan contingency. I conclude by defining implications and recommendations for analysis and policy.

Existing debate on LRS and strategic-level effects

Several existing studies highlight the ability of LRS to create effects beyond the tactical and operational levels of warfare, but no effort has been made to systematically portray the strategic-level effects of LRS in a single framework. Most often, scholars discuss the strategic-level effects of LRS by reference to their implications for nuclear weapons policy and strategy.⁸ Tong Zhao and James Acton, for example, point out that China and Russia perceive the LRS arsenals of the United States and its allies, which might be capable of engaging strategic nuclear targets, such as missile silos, mobile missile launchers, and early-warning radars, as a serious threat to their guaranteed second-strike capability in a nuclear conflict.⁹ This is especially the case if LRS are considered in combination with other weapon systems, such as missile defence and low-yield nuclear weapons, whose combined effects challenge the assured retaliatory capability of a nuclear weapon state.¹⁰ The introduction of conventionally armed hypersonic boost-glide weapons, capable of reaching their designated targets much faster and decreasing warning times, could further compound strategic stability issues.¹¹ Joshua Pollack and Kim Minji as well as Ian Bowers and Henrik Hiim point to deterrence benefits associated with LRS capable of creating strategic-level effects, highlighting how South Korea relies on such weapons to deter a nuclear-armed neighbour.¹² Andrew Futter and Benjamin Zala as well as Fiona Cunningham discuss the substitutability of nuclear weapons for LRS. They find that the characteristics of LRS and their ability to create strategic-level effects may allow states to replace their nuclear capabilities, or at least lower their dependence on nuclear weapons, under certain circumstances.¹³

A smaller subset of literature engages the weapons category from a broader angle, not explicitly focused on nuclear policy implications. These authors focus on the ability of LRS to create strategic-level effects by striking military and non-military targets at strategic depth, with important implications for deterrence and escalation dynamics. For example, Łukasz Kulesa argues that the ability of smaller states to hold at risk homeland targets of larger and traditionally more powerful states provides the former with an important escalation management tool.¹⁴ David Blagden points out that the ability of LRS to engage strategic-level targets multiplies the number of independent decision-making centres capable of ordering strategic-level attacks in defensive alliances, which may improve an alliance’s deterrence posture.¹⁵ Charlie Salonius-Pasternak adds that the ability of small states to employ LRS for strategic-level effects is somewhat constrained by the lack of critical enablers, in particular ISR, as well as political considerations.¹⁶ This part of the contemporary literature mirrors an earlier debate, which discussed the strategic-level effects of LRS in the context of the ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA) and their abilities to hold at risk strategic-level targets. Authors like Andrew Krepinevich, Patrick Morgan, and Erik Dahl argued in the early 2000s that by employing LRS against high-value targets located at strategic depth, the adversary can be defeated prior to and without necessarily engaging and defeating its forces on the battlefield.¹⁷

Understanding the strategic-level effects of LRS

Much of the contemporary literature on LRS and their strategic-level effects is characterised by a nuclear-centric focus which is suboptimal for two reasons. First, by potentially overemphasising the importance of LRS and their strategic-level effects in nuclear conflict dyads, they may overlook important implications below the nuclear threshold. LRS have already spread far beyond the traditionally powerful nuclear weapon states and will likely continue to do so in the future, perhaps at an accelerating speed.¹⁸ In light of these proliferation trends, broadening the analytical scope to include analysis of LRS and their strategic-level effects in non-nuclear conflict dyads and below the nuclear threshold is especially important. Second, while increasing sophistication and lethality of LRS have arguably shrunk the gap between nuclear and conventional weapons in terms of weapons effects, stark differences between the two weapon types persist. As will be further outlined below, LRS are characterised by a tactical-strategic dual-capability that does not exist for nuclear weapons – or at least not to the same extent.¹⁹ Additionally, the strategic-level effects of LRS are, under most circumstances, more latent and, as such, less decisive than those associated with nuclear weapons.

While the second subset of literature provides broader insights into the strategic-level effects of LRS, including outside the nuclear context, it makes no effort to systematically outline how these weapon systems can create strategic-level effects. Instead, the ability to create strategic-level effects is implicitly equated with the ability to engage targets at strategic depth. Beyond the ability to strike ‘homeland targets’, however, it is unclear how LRS can generate effects at the strategic level of warfare.

Strategic weapons and effects

How can LRS create strategic-level effects? In this section, I present a theoretical framework intended to clarify the strategic nature of LRS. The framework provides a typology of four distinct strategic functions LRS can fulfil to create strategic-level effects.²⁰ These effects serve as the causal mechanisms that link the use of LRS to the generation of political and military outcomes by undermining the adversary’s will and/or capacity to resist at the strategic level of warfare.²¹ While the existing literature has pointed to some of these functions, it has tended to consider them in isolation or outside the context of LRS. A systematic assessment of the strategic functions of LRS in a single framework has thus far been absent.

The framework makes three primary contributions. First, it explicitly conceptualises the strategic nature of LRS, which is rooted in their ability to create strategic-level effects by undermining the will and/or capacity of the adversary to resist at the strategic level of warfare. Second, the framework outlines four distinct types of strategic functions LRS may fulfil to create strategic-level effects. These functions are relevant in nuclear and non-nuclear conflict dyads, above and below the nuclear threshold. Third, the framework provides a conceptually more accurate picture of LRS and their strategic-level effects by taking into account and emphasising the tactical-strategic dual-capability of LRS and the potential latency of their strategic-level effects, two aspects that are not sufficiently considered in the existing literature. Importantly, while the framework is potentially applicable to other types of advanced conventional weapons, such as space-denial and cyber weapons, this analysis focuses explicitly on the strategic functions of LRS.

Strategic warfare

Understanding the strategic nature of LRS and their strategic-level effects requires an understanding of strategic warfare. Modern military theory and doctrine often divide the conduct of war into three levels of warfare – tactical, operational, and strategic.²² The tactical level of warfare concerns the planning and execution of manoeuvres, engagements, and battles of small units within relatively short timeframes, often in pursuit of operational-level objectives.²³ The operational level of warfare relates to the design, organisation, and execution of campaigns.²⁴ In contrast to the tactical level, the broader disposition of forces, administrative functions, logistical capabilities, fire support – including fires in depth –, and command and control assume an elevated position at the operational level.²⁵ The strategic level constitutes the highest level of warfare and is concerned with defining national policy.²⁶ In addition, it is at this level that the state’s available resources, its sources of national power, are developed and allocated in support of national military policies, which are subsequently broken down and translated into operational and tactical-level military objectives.²⁷

By undermining the sources of national power directly, states may critically weaken the will and/or capacity of the adversary to resist at the strategic level of warfare. And if a state can be defeated at the strategic level, victory at the tactical and operational levels is virtually guaranteed or may no longer be necessary. In contrast, history shows that tactical or operational-level success do not guarantee victory at the strategic level.²⁸ As such, engaging and defeating the adversary at the strategic level of warfare constitutes an attractive option. In fact, it has become especially appealing in the modern era of warfare, where soldiers and equipment are subject to heavy attrition.²⁹

Strategic weapons

Strategic weapons are the critical enablers of strategic warfare. On a fundamental level, strategic weapons are those weapon systems capable of engaging the sources of enemy power directly. As a result, strategic weapons allow their possessor states to bypass the tactical and operational levels of warfare, where individual units and formations meet and manoeuvre, to achieve what scholars have referred to as ‘independent effect’.³⁰ In other words, strategic weapons may allow states to achieve victory prior to and without necessarily engaging and defeating the majority of the adversary’s armed forces in attritional warfare on the battlefield.³¹

It is difficult to provide an exhaustive list of potential targets capturing the state’s spectrum of national power sources. John Warden’s ‘Five Rings Model’ provides a widely acknowledged target set. The model conceptualises the state as a ‘strategic entity’, constituted by a series of concentric rings, each representing a strategic centre of gravity to be exploited. From most to least important, these include the state’s leadership, its ‘organic essentials’ – represented in particular by electricity and oil –, infrastructure, population, and the state’s fielded forces.³² The model is not without critics of course and what represents a strategic target remains somewhat contested.³³

The key characteristic, rendering certain weapon systems strategic in nature is their ability to engage and destroy strategic-level targets to create strategic-level effects. When delineating strategic from non-strategic weapon systems, innate technical characteristics, including the weapon system’s range, payload, or yield, for example, are therefore of secondary importance. As Colin Gray notes, ‘A vehicle does not become strategic because it is intercontinental in range rather than merely intraregional or even intracontinental. A weapon, a capability, a project, is strategic only in its consequences’.³⁴

This does not mean that material factors are entirely irrelevant when discussing the potential strategic-level effects of a weapon system. On the contrary, they may be important determinants of the ability of a weapon system to reach and destroy strategic targets. However, broader contextual variables such as geography and target vulnerability may intervene in crucial ways. For example, the comparatively compressed nature of European geography means that even weapon systems with a more limited range may reach targets located at strategic depth. In more spacious geographical contexts, such as the Asia-Pacific, the same weapon systems may not be able to reach strategic-level targets.

Thinking primarily about the effects of strategic weapons draws attention to the inherent tactical-strategic dual-capability of strategic weapons. In other words, the ability of a weapon system to create independent, strategic effects does not necessarily deny its utility at the lower levels of warfare. During World War Two, for example, Allied strategic bombers were diverted to close air support roles during the D-Day landing operation.³⁵ Nowadays, LRS, while theoretically capable of engaging strategic-level targets in several contexts, may similarly be used to strike frontline targets with important tactical or operational value.³⁶ Whether the weapon system is employed in tactical, operational, or strategic functions therefore depends primarily on the operational needs and priorities of the state deploying them. That state must also consider the potential opportunity costs related to strategic-level employments, given the inability to employ the same weapon system for lower-level purposes.³⁷

Strategic functions

Focusing on the effects of strategic weapons draws attention to the different types of strategic functions – i.e., the tasks and purposes – strategic weapon systems can fulfil. I identify four strategic functions LRS may fulfil: (1) counter-population, (2) strategic interdiction, (3) counter-leadership, and (4) counterforce. In fulfilling these functions, LRS can create strategic-level effects by undermining the will and/or capacity of the adversary to resist at the strategic level of warfare.

The strategic functions identified in this framework differ across four dimensions. First, each function underlies a differing targeting philosophy (see Figure 1). Depending on which strategic function is pursued, different types of strategic targets are engaged. Second, the functions differ in terms of their underlying theory of victory. In other words, differing theories of how the weapon effect translates into political objectives relate to each strategic function. This is closely related to the third dimension which tracks the function’s primary coercive effect. This effect differs depending on whether the function primarily creates punishment effects, affecting the will of the adversary to resist, or denial effects, affecting the capacity of the adversary to resist. Finally, the functions differ in terms of the latency of their effects. Some of the strategic functions LRS can fulfil create their effects in a more latent fashion, while others create their effects more directly. Figure 1 summarises the four strategic functions according to the dimensions outlined above. The following paragraphs consider each strategic function in more detail.

Figure 1. The strategic functions of LRS.

Counter-population

The first strategic function, counter-population, relates to engaging a broad range of civilian targets. This function has historically been most famously associated with inter-war air power theorists who have argued that counter-population attacks can break the enemy’s morale.³⁸ According to this argument, a government whose population had been tormented and worn down by counter-population attacks would have no choice but to sue for peace in order to maintain domestic control. Similarly, a government that witnesses the significant loss of lives among its people may be motivated to cease hostilities, even in unfavourable circumstances. Strategic counter-population attacks were first employed at a large scale in World War Two and several times thereafter.

Broad scholarly consensus exists that counter-population attacks have rarely been successful.³⁹ On the contrary, they often seem to have had counterproductive effects from the perspective of the attacker.⁴⁰ Nevertheless, states still initiate counter-population campaigns, though often in more indirect ways. Rather than striking civilian objects, they may choose to engage critical civilian infrastructure targets, in particular national electricity grids, to weaken the morale of the population and lower support for the regime in power.⁴¹ While attacks against civilian objects are always illegal under international humanitarian law, strikes against civilian infrastructure can be considered legal if that infrastructure directly contributes to the overall warfighting effort.⁴² Notwithstanding this distinction, indiscriminate attacks against civilian objects, including population centres, have not vanished and remain a regular occurrence in warfare.⁴³

LRS can fulfil counter-population functions in both direct and indirect ways by either striking civilian population centres directly or engaging critical civilian infrastructure. The targeted nature of their destructive effects means LRS are likely better suited to engage critical civilian infrastructure targets to maximise the effects of a single blow, rather than engaging area targets, such as apartment blocks. This being said, recent conflicts have seen LRS being used against both types of targets, including residential areas.⁴⁴

Strategic interdiction

The second strategic function, strategic interdiction, relates to targeting the adversary state’s war industrial infrastructure, key domestic defence industries and supply chains, strategic transportation nodes, and related assets. Similar to the counter-population function, discussion of this type of strategic attack largely dates back to the interwar period. Prior to World War Two, theorists of the United States Air Corps Tactical School, for example, argued that the attacker should engage ‘key nodes’ in the adversary’s ‘industrial fabric’, causing the enemy’s war economic system to collapse.⁴⁵ Strategic interdiction attacks can be conceived in broad and narrow terms. A narrow strategic interdiction approach would focus on a small set of key targets, including electricity, critical manufactured goods (e.g., ball-bearings), and raw materials, such as oil, for example. A broader strategic interdiction approach may include attacks against a larger set of facilities related to defence production, as well as key strategic infrastructure nodes to undermine the state’s overall logistical effort. In any case, the objective of strategic interdiction is to disrupt the military capabilities of the defender in the deployment and pre-deployment stages, resulting in a reduction of aggregate war materials available to the defender.⁴⁶

Strategic interdiction was practiced at a large scale during both World War One, in the form of strategic naval power, and during World War Two, in the form of strategic airpower.⁴⁷ In particular in World War Two, strategic interdiction had a major effect on the war by critically weakening Germany’s war-industrial output.⁴⁸ LRS may fulfil a strategic interdiction function by engaging infrastructure nodes deep inside enemy territory or by attacking facilities relevant to defence-industrial production, such as manufacturing facilities for military equipment or their individual parts, for example.

Counter-leadership

A third type of strategic function, counter-leadership, relates to targeting or neutralising the enemy’s high-level political and/or military leadership. In recent decades, the efficacy of counter-leadership targeting has repeatedly been discussed in the context of counterterrorism and counter-insurgency campaigns.⁴⁹ However, engaging the enemy leadership may also constitute a potentially attractive option in inter-state war. First, removing the state’s military leadership can undermine the adversary’s command and control arrangements, and critically weaken the state’s ability to defend itself without having to engage its forces directly. Second, attacking and removing the enemy’s political leadership may lead to a loss of control, potentially creating an environment for government overthrow which can ultimately lead to a change in policy of the targeted state.⁵⁰

The enemy leadership can be neutralised in two ways. First, by neutralising the enemy leadership directly, typically through kinetic strikes on its political and military headquarters or war-time command-and-control facilities. Alternatively, targeting enemy command, control, and communication (C3) can sever the link between the political and military leadership and its population or armed forces, bringing about the same effects.⁵¹ Some have argued that counter-leadership targeting may be particularly effective in autocratic or totalitarian regimes where decision-making authority tends to be more concentrated.⁵² Independent of regime type, counter-leadership attacks can be effective, especially in contexts where states need to project power across greater distances, which can be interrupted by coordinated attacks against their C3. Counter-leadership attacks were conducted in the wars and interventions of the 1990s, for example, though with limited success.⁵³

LRS can be employed in strategic functions by targeting a range of counter-leadership targets. The accuracy and lethality of LRS, most notably their ability to engage and destroy hardened and buried targets, has made it possible to engage certain types of counter-leadership targets, such as command-and-control bunkers, that were previously invulnerable to conventional attack. LRS also constitute effective weapon systems to take out critical C3 nodes at stand-off range distances. Further technological developments, in particular in the field of hypersonic and sensor technology, allowing states to threaten time-sensitive targets more effectively, could render leadership decapitation a more viable strategy.⁵⁴

Counterforce

A final type of strategic function, counterforce, relates to engaging the adversary’s armed forces directly. Counterforce aims to render the enemy military incapable of further action, either by disarmament or incapacitation, thus denying the enemy its primary means of waging war.⁵⁵ At first glance, counterforce targeting may seem counterintuitive to the notion of strategic attack. As outlined above, the objective of strategic-level attacks is, after all, to undermine the enemy sources of power directly, without having to first defeat the adversary’s armed forces on the battlefield. Nevertheless, due to their role as the state’s ultimate guarantors of national sovereignty, it is obvious that a state’s armed forces should be regarded as a source of national power and therefore a strategic target, in particular those selected elements that are most important to achieving the state’s strategic objectives. For instance, states that require the projection of power across vast distances often rely on LRS for this task. By neutralizing the adversary’s LRS arsenal and hampering their ability to project power, strategic-level effects can be achieved.

Counterforce as a form of strategic attack has been particularly relevant in the nuclear age, given that it is the only strategy that may promise victory in a nuclear conflict dyad where both sides have the ability to retaliate unless they are disarmed outright. With growing capabilities of LRS, these weapon systems may, under certain circumstances, directly contribute to nuclear counterforce attacks by engaging a set of nuclear or nuclear-related targets.⁵⁶

While counterforce is almost exclusively associated with nuclear strategy in the contemporary literature, there may be an argument, and indeed a necessity, to extend counterforce thinking beyond the nuclear realm. First, especially in strongly asymmetric conflict dyads, the employment of conventional force at the tactical and operational levels may be so overwhelming and one-sided that it results in the virtual loss of war’s reciprocal nature.⁵⁷ Even if the application of military force is restricted to the adversary’s conventional armed forces, and individual strikes look like tactical or operational-level force engagements, their disarming effects may nevertheless scale up to the strategic level. If a state can outright eliminate the majority of the enemy’s armed forces without having to engage in attritional warfare characterized by continuous engagement and mutual resource depletion,⁵⁸ then there is no reason to deny the campaign’s strategic, independent effect. Arguably, such strategic-level attacks occurred during Operation Desert Storm, where the US military destroyed between 35 to 46% of Iraq’s heavy military equipment during a four-week-long air campaign, while only taking minimal losses.⁵⁹ The military requirements for this type of operation are without doubt prohibitively high. Yet, if successful, theatre operations against these types of conventional military targets can yield clear-cut strategic results.⁶⁰ While LRS are, in principle, capable of engaging individual units, their relative costliness and the large amount of ammunition required to create a disarming effect renders counterforce engagements employing more expensive types of LRS, such as conventional cruise and ballistic missiles, cost-ineffective. Other types of LRS, such as gravity or glide bombs, rocket artillery, or cheaper one-way drone systems, may be more appropriate for this function but require a level of air superiority or ground control that cannot be taken for granted.

A second approach to conventional counterforce is more indirect, relating to the rapid engagement of key nodes in the adversary’s warfighting system. The objective is to incapacitate or paralyse the adversary, rather than outright disarmament. This approach may be particularly feasible against information-dependent and platform-centric militaries, where the loss of access to battlefield information, in particular ISR, and the destruction of high-value platforms can effectively ‘lock out’ the opponent from the battlefield.⁶¹ As such, even though the adversary is not completely disarmed and may even retain relatively high overall force numbers, the loss of critical warfighting components can cripple its military effectiveness, and cascading effects may induce functional defeat.⁶² As a result, the adversary may be defeated long before any culminating point is achieved.⁶³ No successful example of such a strategic attack comes to mind. Arguably, the United States’ Air-Sea Battle Concept and its emphasis on destroying and disrupting key enemy C4ISR capabilities as well as adversary A2/AD platforms and weapons aims at this type of strategic-level effect.⁶⁴ In addition, as the next section will show, there are strong indications that China intends to employ its LRS in this strategic function. In principle, LRS provide states the ability to engage a variety of critical military assets across the theatre sequentially or in parallel, including those located at strategic depth, to create decisive military outcomes. The military requirements for this kind of LRS attack are, similar to the previous type of counterforce function, likely very high.

The four strategic functions – counter-population, strategic interdiction, counter-leadership, and counterforce – can be categorised in terms of their primary coercive effects. Strategic interdiction and counterforce attacks are directed at the military capabilities of the adversary and, as such, affect the enemy’s estimate of the probability of achieving its objective through the use of force. They therefore primarily create denial effects.⁶⁵ Counter-population attacks, by contrast, inflict high degrees of suffering, affecting the adversary’s estimate of possible costs. They therefore primarily create punishment effects.⁶⁶ Counter-leadership attacks fall somewhat in-between, given that they inflict high degrees of punishment against a targeted set of individuals, while also creating important denial effects, in particular by undermining military command-and-control. They can therefore create both denial and punishment effects, depending on the circumstances.

In addition, these functions differ in terms of the relative latency of their strategic-level effects. In this regard, some strategic functions of LRS are more latent than others. For example, even if LRS strikes against the enemy population can contribute to victory by undermining the adversary’s will to resist, the empirical evidence suggests that doing so takes a long time.⁶⁷ In contrast, counterforce attacks employing LRS may contribute to victory in a much more decisive fashion, given that, if successful, they remove a key power source of the state – its armed forces – almost immediately. Strategic interdiction and counter-leadership lie somewhere in-between, although the strategic-level effects of strategic interdiction attacks are likely more latent, while those of counter-leadership strikes can affect outcomes more decisively, at least in theory. Taking latency into account is important. It shows that although strategic weapons can have powerful effects, their employment does not necessarily have to be decisive and war-ending right away, a factor that was appreciated by early theorists discussing the implications of advanced conventional weapons but is rarely acknowledged nowadays.⁶⁸

Finally, while this framework aims to provide an exhaustive list of strategic functions that LRS might fulfil, their conduct is not mutually exclusive. States may engage in several types of strategic functions simultaneously. For example, a state’s electrical grid may constitute an important target in both counter-population and strategic interdiction attacks. Similarly, communication facilities may be critical assets in both counterforce and counter-leadership attacks. In addition, states intending to employ LRS for strategic-level effects may not settle for a single approach. For instance, during Operation Desert Storm, the United States arguably employed its LRS in all four strategic functions in parallel. Especially in high-intensity wars, it is likely that several types of strategic-level attacks are pursued either in parallel or sequentially.

The strategic functions of China’s LRS arsenal

How do states plan for employing their LRS in strategic functions? Although several states are currently upgrading their missile arsenals, only a handful of states deploy LRS arsenals capable of creating strategic-level effects. These include the United States, Russia, China, and arguably South Korea.⁶⁹ In this section, I illustrate how modern states plan for the strategic-level employment of LRS by applying the arguments to China’s conventional missile arsenal and doctrine. The case study serves as a plausibility probe to demonstrate the relevance of the theoretical propositions outlined in the framework.⁷⁰ Moreover, it illustrates how states plan to utilize their LRS arsenals for strategic functions.

China today deploys a large and growing LRS arsenal to which it attaches substantial value. In addition, Chinese conventional missile doctrine, in theory, provides for the strategic-level employment of LRS. In case of an inter-state conflict, this arsenal would likely play a crucial role in China’s military conduct. Current strategic guidelines suggest that the primary strategic direction within the context of local wars remains the southeast (Taiwan), where they believe conflict is most likely to occur.⁷¹ Considering the increasing risks of a Taiwan conflict and its potentially devastating consequences for the region and beyond, grasping a better understanding of the conflict dynamics becomes especially important. In addition, the Chinese case provides important insights into how the introduction of LRS arsenals capable of creating strategic-level effects affects security dynamics in the region and beyond.

How a Taiwan contingency would unfold and how China would employ its military capabilities, including its LRS arsenal, depends on a larger set of variables, most notably that of outside intervention. China is likely preparing for two scenarios: one where it successfully isolates Taiwan politically and militarily, and another where third parties, particularly the United States get involved directly, and regional powers like Japan or Australia provide basing and fire support. The analysis below proceeds with the assumption that outside intervention takes place. I argue that China’s LRS arsenal, in principle, provides its leadership with a strategic-level attack option. In addition, I demonstrate that Chinese military thinking assumes that employing LRS in strategic functions constitutes a potentially effective way of subduing their enemies. The employment of LRS by China for strategic-level purposes in a future warfighting contingency over Taiwan can therefore be expected.

The section proceeds as follows. First, I outline China’s current military strategy, highlighting a preference for strategic-level engagements, and the key role played by LRS in this strategy. Second, I discuss China’s conventional missile doctrine in more detail, emphasising the tactical-strategic dual-capability of its LRS arsenal. Third, I analyse the strategic functions China’s conventional missile force might fulfil in a Taiwan contingency by reference to China’s missile capabilities, strategy, and doctrine.

China’s military strategy

China’s current military strategy of ‘winning informatised local wars’ was adopted in July 2014.⁷² The strategy places information at the core of the warfighting effort, with Chinese doctrinal documents referring to ‘informatisation’ as war’s dominant feature.⁷³ Informatisation refers to the ‘collection, processing, and utilisation of information in all aspects of warfighting in order to seamlessly link individual platforms in real-time from across the services to gain leverage and advantage on the battlefield’.⁷⁴ Chinese sources claim that this process has drastically increased the lethality, effectiveness, and speed of military operations, enabling fewer forces to achieve outsized effects through close coordination and integration.⁷⁵ Additionally, they highlight the ‘fluid’ nature of informatised war, emphasising the blurring lines between front and rear, offense and defence, and highlighting the role of ‘non-contact, non-linear warfare’, particularly through stand-off strikes.⁷⁶

Contemporary PLA doctrine conceptualises war as a clash between opposing ‘operational systems’.⁷⁷ The term describes ‘a linkage of organisations, functional processes, and networks enabling integrated joint service warfighting across all domains’.⁷⁸ In this type of ‘system destruction warfare’, the primary goal is not to comprehensively defeat the adversary’s armed forces, but to degrade or destroy key nodes and assets that make up the enemy’s operational system.⁷⁹ China’s current military thinking emphasises the use of offensive operations employing a relatively small number of ‘elite forces’ to achieve political objectives by targeting critical assets across the entire combat space.⁸⁰ The objective is to achieve decisive effects by paralysing the adversary’s warfighting functions and causing the enemy to lose its ‘integrated-whole resistance capabilities’.⁸¹

This type of information-based ‘key target warfare’ relies heavily on advanced conventional weapons, in particular LRS. According to Chinese military writers, these weapon systems are able to strike the enemy’s ‘deep and important strategic targets’ at short notice and with high precision.⁸² As such, they have become ‘the primary and inevitable choice’ for modern combat operations and constitute an ‘important strategic assault force for winning informatised wars’.⁸³

Overall, Chinese military thinking envisions an information-based struggle with a particular focus on LRS employed against critical enemy assets to destroy the adversary’s ‘effective forces’ and to cause ‘psychological shock’.⁸⁴ This approach is reflected in the PLA’s current operational guiding thought which emphasises ‘information dominance, precision strikes on strategic points, [and] joint operations to gain victory’.⁸⁵ As such, Chinese military strategy indicates a clear preference toward strategic-level engagements over lower-level attritional warfighting, and highlights the important role of LRS in modern warfare.

Conventional missile doctrine

The increasing lethality of modern cruise and ballistic missiles, and the importance attached to LRS in Chinese military strategy, has reportedly led the PLA to elevate their utility from a supporting role in joint warfighting efforts to an independent role in combat, capable of achieving offensive goals on their own.⁸⁶ PLA doctrine differentiates between two distinctly organised and implemented conventional missile strike campaigns: a joint campaign conducted in cooperation and coordination between different PLA services, and an independent strike campaign conducted by the PLA Rocket Force without the direct involvement of other services.⁸⁷ During a joint campaign, the PLA Rocket Force’s conventional missile capabilities contribute to operations of other services by engaging a variety of tactical, operational, and strategic-level targets.⁸⁸ In this regard, the PLA Rocket Force acts as the main player in the initial wave of firepower and assumes a supporting role in the subsequent warfighting efforts.⁸⁹ Independent conventional missile campaigns, by contrast, are conducted by the PLA Rocket Force to achieve military objectives on its own, without direct involvement of other PLA services.⁹⁰ The latter aim at creating the conditions for victory primarily by paralysing the enemy’s command, weakening its military strength, and undermining the adversary’s operational resolve by creating psychological shock.⁹¹

The distinction between joint and independent missile strike campaigns highlights the tactical-strategic dual-capability of China’s LRS. While Chinese doctrine clearly provides for the prospect of strategic-level engagements using conventional missile capabilities, it also emphasises the tactical and operational-level value these weapon systems may hold, especially during joint campaigns with other PLA services. For example, when assisting an amphibious landing campaign, missile engagements would likely focus on a range of tactical and operational-level targets (artillery, air defence systems, enemy force concentrations) as well as potential strategic-level targets (logistical infrastructure, key supply nodes).⁹² As such, even where conducting a strategic-level attack is an option, more pressing tactical needs or considerations may require the diversion of missile capabilities for non-strategic purposes. Limited LRS stocks may require Chinese decision-makers to choose between a comprehensive independent strike campaign to create strategic-level effects at the outset of a conflict, and sufficient ammunition levels for a protracted campaign where conventional missile forces may assume a largely supportive role of the overall warfighting effort. Even inside joint strike campaign efforts, however, the opportunity costs of engaging strategic-level targets may simply be too high, resulting in the prioritisation of tactical or operational-level targets.

Exact employment scenarios depend on the conflict in question and how it plays out. In any case, however, there is no automaticity behind the employment of China’s LRS forces for strategic-level purposes, even if China’s conventional missile doctrine, in principle, provides for this type of mission. The final section of this article looks more closely at the strategic functions China’s conventional missile forces may fulfil in a Taiwan contingency.

Strategic functions

Given the importance attached to LRS in Chinese military strategy, it is no surprise that China has put great effort into improving its conventional missile arsenal. Official documents, including China’s 2019 defence white paper, indicate that the country remains committed to ‘strengthening [its] intermediate and long-range precision-strike forces’.⁹³ Today, the PLA Rocket Force alone deploys up to 850 ground-based launchers and 2,200 conventional cruise and ballistic missiles, complemented by those of other PLA services, most notably the PLA Navy and Air Force.⁹⁴ The Appendix provides a comprehensive overview of China’s LRS arsenal, including weapon type, range, accuracy, warhead and payload. When it comes to utilizing these LRS capabilities, Chinese writings indicate a strong inclination towards engaging in strategic counterforce attacks.

Table

Missile	Type	IOC	Launcher Platform	Range	CEP^b	Guidance (Midcourse/ Terminal)	Warhead	Payload
DF-11A^i	SRBM	~1992	Road-mobile TEL	~600 km	150–200 m	INS + GPS	High explosive, Submunitions	500 kg
DF-15A^ii DF-15B^iii DF-15C^iv	SRBM	~1992	Road-mobile TEL	~600 km (DF-15A) ~725 km (DF-15B) ~850 km (DF-15C)	200–300 m (DF-15A) 30–100 m (DF-15B)	INS + GPS	High explosive (DF-15A, DF-15B) Earth penetrator (DF-15C)	500–750 kg
YJ-83^v YJ-83A^vi YJ-83K^vii YJ-83KH^viii	ASCM	~1994	Surface vessel (YJ-83), Road-mobile TEL (YJ-83A) Aircraft (YJ-83A, YJ-83K, YJ-83KH)	~120 km (YJ-83) ~180 km (YJ-83A, YJ-83K) ~ 230 km (YJ-83KH)	5–10 m (YJ-83, YJ-83A, YJ-83K) 5 m (YJ-83KH)	INS + GPS/Active radar (YJ-83, YJ-83A, YJ-83K) INS + GPS/IIR (YJ-83KH)	High explosive	156 kg
3 M–54 Klub^ix	ASCM	~2000s	Submarine	~200 km	5–10 m	INS + GPS/Active radar	High explosive	200 kg
YJ-62^x YJ-62A^xi	ASCM	~2005	Surface vessel, Road-mobile TEL	~280 km (YJ-62) ~400 km (YJ-62A)	5–10 m	INS + GPS/Active radar	High explosive	210 kg
KD-88^xii KD-88A^xiii	LACM	~2006	Aircraft	~180–200 km	5 m (KD-88) 5 m (KD-88A)	INS + GPS/ Electro-optical (KD-88) INS + GPS/ IIR (KD-88A)	High explosive	165 kg00
CJ-10^xiv KD-20^xv KD-20A^xvi	LACM	~2006	Road-mobile TEL (CJ-10) Aircraft (KD-20; KD-20A)	~1,500–2,000 km	5–10 m	INS + GPS + TERCOM/ DSMAC (CJ-10; KD-20) INS + GPS + TERCOM/ Active radar (KD-20A)	High explosive	500 kg
^bDF-21C^xvii DF-21D^xviii	MRBM	~2006	Road-mobile TEL	~1,500 km	40–50 m (DF-21C) 20 m (DF-21D)	INS + GPS/Active radar	High explosive	600 kg3bB
KD-63^xix KD-63B^xx	LACM	~2011	Aircraft	~200 km	5 m	INS +?/ Electro-optical (KD-63) INS + GPS/ IIR (KD-63B)	High explosive	500 kg
YJ-12^xxi YJ-12B^xxii	ASCM	~2011	Surface vessel (YJ-12), Road-mobile TEL (YJ-12B)	~400 km	5–10 m	INS + GPS/Active radar	High explosive	200 kg
DF-16^xxiii	SRBM	~2012	Road-mobile TEL	~700–1,000 km	5–10 m	INS + GPS	High explosive, Submunitions, Earth penetrator	500–1,000 kg
YJ-18^xxiv YJ-18A^xxv YJ-18B^xxvi YJ-18C^xxvii YJ-18 CD^xxviii	ASCM (YJ-18, YJ-18A) LACM (YJ-18B, YJ-18C)	~2015	Surface vessel (YJ-18A, YJ-18C), Submarine (YJ-18, YJ-18B), Road-mobile TEL (YJ-18 CD) Aircraft (?)	~220–540 km	5–10 m	INS + GPS/Active radar	High explosive	150–300 kg
DF-26^xxix DF-26B^xxx	IRBM	~2018	Road-mobile TEL	~3,000 km	150–400 m (DF-26) 20 m (DF-26B)	INS + GPS/Active radar	High explosive	1,200–1,800 kg
DF-17^xxxi	HGV	~2021	Road-mobile TEL	~1,800–2,500 km	5–20 m	INS + GPS/?	?	?
YJ-21^xxxii	ASBM	~2022	Surface vessel	?	?	?	?	?

^aTable includes all Chinese conventional missile capabilities with a range greater of 120 km. Other potential missile capabilities that fall below this range requirement are the Russian-imported Kh-31P (AS-17 Krypton) and its indigenized derivative YJ-91/KR-1 and the Russian-imported Kh-59MK (AS-13 Kingbolt).

^bAgainst land-based targets. Where no credible information can be found, accuracy is estimated based on available guidance systems in the missile.

^cPossibly retired.

ⁱDecker Eveleth, People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023 (Middlebury: Center for Nonproliferation Studies 2023), 8; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-11’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 29 Jan. 2018.

ⁱⁱEveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 9; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-15’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11 Jan. 2017.

ⁱⁱⁱIbid.

^ivIbid.

^vDennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier (Washington DC: National Defense University Press 2014), 16–18; Dennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, ‘A Potent Vector: Assessing Chinese Cruise Missile Developments’ Joint Forces Quarterly 75/4 (2014), 101–2.

^viIbid.

^viiAndreas Rupprecht, ‘Images Show PLAAF J-16 Armed with YJ-83K Anti-Ship Missile’, Janes, February 18, 2020; Hui Tong, ‘Missiles III’, Chinese Military Aviation, 14 Nov. 2022.

^viiiIbid.

^ixMissile Defense Project, ‘3 M–54 Kalibr/Club (SS-N-27)’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 Jan. 2017.

^xGormley, Erickson, and Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier, 17–18; Gormley, Erickson, and Yuan, ‘A Potent Vector: Assessing Chinese Cruise Missile Developments’, Joint Forces Quarterly 75/4 (2014), 101–2; Kosuke Takahashi, ‘China’s PLAN Exercises with YJ-62 Anti-Ship Missile’, Naval News, 27 Jan. 2024; Kapil Kajal, PLA Exercises with YJ-62 Anti-Ship Missile in Northern Theater Command’, Janes, 25 Jan. 2024.

^xiIbid.

^xiiHui Tong, ‘Missiles II’, Chinese Military Aviation, 8 May 2021; Carlo Kopp and Martin Andrew, ‘PLA Cruise Missiles: PLA Air-Surface Missiles’, Air Power Australia, 27 Jan 2014; Andreas Rupprecht, ‘Images Show PLANAF J-15s Armed with KD-88 and YJ-91 Missiles’, Janes, 15 Nov 2019; Wendell Minnick, ‘China Reveals New Missiles at Singapore Airshow’, Defense News, 16 Feb. 2016.

^xiiiIbid.

^xivGormley, Erickson, and Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier, 30–34; Tong, ‘Missiles II’; Kopp and Andrew, ‘PLA Cruise Missiles: PLA Air-Surface Missiles’; Eveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 12.

^xvIbid.

^xviIbid.

^xviiEveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 15; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-21 (CSS-5)’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 13 Apr. 2016.

^xviiiEveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 16; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-21 (CSS-5)’.

^xixGormley, Erickson, and Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier, 57; Tong, ‘Missiles II’; Kopp and Andrew, ‘PLA Cruise Missiles: PLA Air-Surface Missiles’.

^xxIbid.

^xxiGormley, Erickson, and Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier, 51; Tong, ‘Missiles III’; Robert Haddick, ‘China’s Most Dangerous Missile (So Far)’, War on the Rocks, 2 Jul. 2014; ‘First Picture of China’s New YJ-12A Anti-Ship Missile During Launch Revealed’, Navy Recognition.

^xxiiIbid.

^xxiiiEveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 10; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-16’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 16 Nov. 2017.

^xxivGormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, ‘A Potent Vector’, 102; Missile Defense Project, ‘YJ-18’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 25, 2020; Michael Pilger, ‘China’s New YJ-18 Antiship Cruise Missile: Capabilities and Implications for U.S. Forces in the Western Pacific’, Staff Research Report (Washington DC: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 2015); Lyle J. Goldstein, ‘China’s YJ-18 Supersonic Anti-Ship Cruise Missile: America’s Nightmare?’, National Interest, 1 Jun. 2015.

^xxvIbid.

^xxviIbid.

^xxviiIbid.

^xxviiiIbid.

^xxixEveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 17; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-26’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 8 Jan. 2018.

^xxxIbid.

^xxxiMissile Defense Project, ‘DF-17’ Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 19 Feb. 2020.

^xxxiiTayfun Ozberk, ‘China Test-Fires New YJ-21 Hypersonic Missile’, Naval News, 20 Apr. 2022; Amber Wang, ‘Chinese Military Announces YJ-21 Missile Abilities in Social Media Post Read as Warning to US Amid Tension in Taiwan Strait’, South China Morning Post, 2 Feb. 2023.

Writings suggest a pre-emptive ‘key-point surprise attack’, employing conventional missiles against vital information-related and military targets, as the preferred way of dealing with a Taiwan contingency, particularly with US intervention.⁹⁵ In this regard, the launching phase of a military operation in the region would prioritise disabling the adversary’s ‘information system’.⁹⁶ The objective would be to destroy the enemy’s C4ISR capabilities, which are described as the ‘backbone’ of a modern military’s combat system.⁹⁷ Early operations in the missile domain would therefore likely focus on command centres, communications hubs, radar stations, grounded AWACS aircraft, and other information-related targets.⁹⁸ To do so, China might employ longer-range cruise missiles like the CJ-10 and KD-20 to engage critical Taiwanese and American military targets with high accuracy.⁹⁹ Hardened and buried command and control assets could be engaged with DF-15C and DF-16C short-range ballistic missiles that are reportedly capable of carrying earth-penetrating warheads.¹⁰⁰ The aim of such attacks would be to ‘information isolate’ the adversary’s combat system, ideally resulting in functional paralysis.¹⁰¹ Other potential targets include air and naval bases, missile batteries, air defence sites, and other critical military capabilities and platforms in the region, in order to undermine the adversary’s overall offensive and defensive potential.¹⁰² These area targets are vulnerable to Chinese short and medium-range ballistic missiles, including older ones like the DF-11A, DF-15A and DF-15B that can saturate a target area with reasonable efficiency, especially if they are equipped with submunition warheads.¹⁰³ China’s overall effort would be focused on locking out the adversary from the ongoing campaign and denying both Taiwan and the United States any kind of meaningful initiative.¹⁰⁴

While counterforce appears to feature prominently in China’s military strategy, Chinese writings suggest that following the initial counterforce strike, or concurrent to it, conventional missiles may engage a broader set of military, political, and economic targets.¹⁰⁵ First, China’s conventional missile forces may fulfil an important strategic interdiction function during a Taiwan contingency. Chinese analysts highlight the dependence of U.S. forces in the region on continuous sea- and airlift operations to resupply aircraft and vessels with oil, ammunition, and other logistical necessities.¹⁰⁶ As such, they frame logistics assets as potential bottlenecks and key vulnerabilities in modern warfare, which the PLA may attempt to exploit through long-range precision-strikes.¹⁰⁷ In this regard, the PLA reportedly considers railway stations, port infrastructure, bridges, maintenance, and other logistics facilities as critical targets.¹⁰⁸ In addition, China’s conventional missile forces can be used to strike economic targets that directly and indirectly contribute to the adversary’s warfighting effort, potentially including arms manufacturing facilities.¹⁰⁹ The PLA Rocket Force’s modern and relatively accurate longer-range ballistic missiles, such as the DF-21D and DF-26, could be used in strategic interdiction functions to strike infrastructure and logistics targets, such as harbours and other transportation nodes, as far out as Guam or Japan (if the latter becomes involved).¹¹⁰ Shorter-range missile assets could pressure relevant Taiwanese targets. A strategic interdiction campaign would be greatly facilitated if it was supported by the PLA Air Force and Navy’s LRS assets, including land-attack cruise missiles (e.g., KD-88A, YJ-83, YJ-18B) and repurposed anti-ship capabilities to provide the necessary volume of fire.¹¹¹ While likely not capable of engaging pinpoint targets due to lack of terminal guidance designed for land attack, modern Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles equipped with satellite navigation, like the YJ-62A, YJ-12, and YJ-18A/B, should provide for adequate accuracy to damage or destroy most types of relevant targets.¹¹² If successful, strategic interdiction strikes could contribute to undermining the United States and Taiwan’s warfighting capacity in the deployment and pre-deployment stage, and contribute substantially to China’s campaign objectives.

Furthermore, China’s conventional missile forces may be employed in counter-population and counter-leadership functions. According to the 2020 Science of Military Strategy, missile strikes against political and economic ‘key targets’ can,, under certain circumstances, ‘promote the realisation of political goals’.¹¹³ Civilian targets include electricity production and storage facilities, and important economic centres.¹¹⁴ Additionally, Chinese writings point out that recent local wars fought by the United States have commenced with direct strikes against political high-value targets, including the adversary’s political and military leaders.¹¹⁵ In response, the U.S. Department of Defence has suggested that PLA missile forces may be prepared, in principle, to conduct missile attacks against political leadership targets in a Taiwan contingency.¹¹⁶ Land-attack and anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as ballistic missiles, might be employed by China in counter-population functions, similar to how they have been employed in Ukraine by Russia. More specialized and higher-end land-attack cruise missiles, ballistic missiles equipped with penetrator warheads, and potentially Chinese hypersonic capabilities, most notably the DF-17, could be used to neutralize buried and time-sensitive leadership targets.¹¹⁷ Counter-population and counter-leadership attacks could provide a supplemental role to the overall war effort, further increasing the personal and societal costs of war, and incentivising the enemy to submit to China’s demands.

Overall, a review of China’s conventional missile doctrine and capabilities indicates China’s ability and willingness to employ its conventional missile arsenal in strategic functions during a Taiwan contingency. PLA writings suggest that China is particularly intent on employing its conventional missile forces in a strategic counterforce function, most notably to deal with a U.S. intervention. Strategic interdiction, counter-population and counter-leadership are also represented, although less prominently. Most likely, they assume a complementary role in Chinese military thinking, secondary to the primary counterforce effort, and coming in if and when the decisive part of the missile campaign – the intended lightning strike – falls short of achieving its objectives.

The analysis of China’s conventional missile doctrine also highlights the tactical-strategic dual-capability of advanced conventional weapons. China appears to attach a range of tactical, operational, and strategic functions to its conventional missile force. The employment of LRS against strategic-level targets therefore constitutes no automaticity. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates the relevance of LRS with strategic-level effects below the nuclear threshold. Conflicts do not need to escalate to the nuclear level before the strategic-level effects of LRS become relevant.

Finally, this section has not been able to fully illustrate the latency argument advanced in the framework. Doing so would have required extensive modelling efforts that are beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, Chinese doctrine and its preference for decisive counterforce engagements indicates an awareness of the fact that the fastest and most direct way to defeat Taiwan and the United States would be to incapacitate and paralyse their armed forces. In sum, this brief analysis suggests that the framework constitutes a useful tool for understanding and categorising China’s behaviour in the missile domain.

Implications for stability

Beyond the immediate utility for warfighting purposes, China’s emphasis on the strategic-level employment of LRS in doctrine and force employment has broader implications for crisis and arms race stability in the region. The case study demonstrates how the concept of strategic stability, and its constituent concepts of crisis and arms race stability, which have long featured as core pillars of the nuclear strategy literature, find increasing applicability in the conventional realm due to the deployment of strategic conventional weapons.

Crisis stability has typically been related to the likelihood of states initiating a first strike during a crisis.¹¹⁸ The propensity for conflicts to escalate once hostilities commence, typically from the conventional to the nuclear level, also falls under crisis stability. On the one hand, China’s ability to credibly threaten the employment of LRS for strategic-level effects may increase crisis stability by increasing the costs of war and intervention for adversaries. Chinese missile capabilities and doctrine enable the swift infliction of harm. The ability to do so creates substantial coercive leverage in times of peace. ¹¹⁹ In times of war, it can constitute an intra-war deterrent that potentially restrains the freedom of action of the adversary by threatening strategic-level attacks against certain types of targets. This can deter regional adversaries from resorting to the use of force to achieve their political objectives in the first place, or dissuade escalatory behaviour, such as strikes on homeland territory.¹²⁰

At the same time, the ability of China to employ LRS to rapidly inflict pain, including at the strategic level of warfare, puts a premium on finding and taking out missile capabilities and delivery vehicles before a devastating ‘lightning strike’ is launched. Similarly, given the priority China attaches to its LRS forces doctrinally, and Chinese and American preferences for blinding and disarming counterforce strikes, Chinese decision-makers will want to make sure that they can launch their arsenal before a potentially disarming strike hits them.¹²¹ The combined pressures of one side attempting to launch early to maximize effectiveness, while the other side is looking to disarm the adversary before a strategic-level missile attack is launched, can introduce strong ‘use-them-or-lose-them’ pressures into the region.¹²² This increases the likelihood that one conflict party deliberately escalates hostilities because it deems it in its best interest, which ultimately results in decreased first-strike stability in the region.¹²³

The deployment and use of LRS for strategic-level effects also provide for high intra-war escalation pressures. China’s missile doctrine leaves little scope for probing attacks and lower-scale conflict. Instead, Chinese decision-makers appear to plan for a large-scale missile strike that aims for maximum strategic effect early on. This stands in clear contrast to Russia’s conventional missile doctrine, for example, which similarly ascribes strategic functions to Russia’s LRS arsenal, but provides for a gradual, calibrated, and measured approach to inflicting pain for escalation control and escalation management purposes.¹²⁴ In theory, the latter creates offramps and opportunities for conflict termination that do not exist in China’s missile doctrine, or at least not to the same extent. China attributes a clear and primary warfighting function to its LRS capable of creating strategic-level effects that aims at rapidly and kinetically bringing the adversary to its knees, rather than coercing its foe into submission through psychological pressure. This, in principle, provides for a more explosive conflict environment where restraints are dropped early, and crisis stability is low.

Arms race stability, as a concept, has been used to describe a situation where the incentives for states to build up their arsenals, either in terms of quality or quantitiy, are low or not present. China’s deployment of LRS for strategic-level effects and its doctrinal emphasis on these weapon systems introduces substantial – and already visible – arms race pressures in the region. China’s current missile arsenal and doctrine forces Taiwan, the United States, and U.S. allies in the region to prepare for and defend strategic-level attacks. Options to respond include building up denial capabilities in the form of missile defence, increasing overall societal and military resilience to absorb incoming strategic-level attacks, and acquiring an offensive counterstrike capability to pre-emptively take out Chinese launchers and/or punish Chinese aggression.¹²⁵ While all three options play a role in China’s potential adversaries to varying degrees, it seems that their main focus is on developing a credible missile capability for counterstrike purposes. In recent years, the United States, Japan, Australia, and Taiwan have engaged in substantial missile buildups in response to growing Chinese missile threats.¹²⁶ Of course, allied missile buildups spur Chinese missile-related efforts in return, forcing an arms race spiral.

Overall, this indicates that China’s LRS arsenal and doctrine, aimed at achieving strategic-level effects by fulfilling a range of distinct strategic functions contributes to undermining crisis and arms race stability in the region.

Conclusion

Rather than engaging the adversary in grinding attritional warfare on the battlefield, LRS allow states to overwhelm their adversaries at the strategic level of warfare by directly undermining their military, political, and economic sources of power. LRS can create strategic-level effects by fulfilling four distinct strategic functions: (1) counter-population, (2) strategic interdiction, (3) counter-leadership, and (4) counterforce. This has important implications.

First, my analysis challenges the claim that technologies of contemporary warfare diminish established analytical boundaries and distinctions, including between the different levels of warfare.¹²⁷ While LRS can achieve effects across increasingly spacious geographical areas and fulfil various types of functions, it makes sense to retain a distinction between the different levels of warfare. By engaging the adversary directly at the strategic level of warfare, states seek to circumvent the lower levels of warfare where fighting is inherently attritional. As the previous sections show, this is a distinct approach to warfighting that remains reflected in both theory and state practice.

Second, this article demonstrates that employing LRS for strategic-level purposes imposes substantial opportunity costs. States must consider whether they can prioritise strategic-level targets with their LRS arsenals, or whether they have to employ their LRS for tactical and operational-level functions. For example, even if Taiwan could theoretically deploy some of its LRS in counter-populations functions, as was threatened in the past,¹²⁸ Taiwanese decision-makers will seriously question their ability to allot their limited LRS arsenal for such missions in times of war. The allocation of large numbers of LRS for strategic-level purposes will, most likely, remain a luxury that only the most powerful states can afford.

Third, the article highlights the importance of military strategy and doctrine over military technology when it comes to the capacity to achieve strategic-level effects. For example, while hypersonic velocity may facilitate the ability of LRS to fulfil strategic functions, they do not depend on it. The ability of LRS to achieve strategic-level effects depends primarily on how they are employed and the context in which they are used. Their technical characteristics are not the determining factor, although they cannot be disregarded, of course.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for comments from Henrik Hiim, Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, James Cameron, Jim Lamson, Liviu Horovitz, Mauro Gilli, William Alberque, Todd Robinson, and Benjamin Tallis. The manuscript also benefitted from the constructive advice of two anonymous reviewers, and from being workshopped in the Oslo Nuclear Project Reading Group at the University of Oslo.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fabian R. Hoffmann

Fabian R. Hoffmann is a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo. His research focuses on defense policy, missile technology, and nuclear strategy.

Notes

¹ The meaning of ‘long distance’ is certainly subject to geographical context. See Fabian Hoffmann and William Alberque, Non-Nuclear Weapons with Strategic Effect: New Tools of Warfare? (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies 2022), 3–4.

² See, for example, Andrew Futter and Benjamin Zala, ‘Advanced US Conventional Weapons and Nuclear Disarmament: Why the Obama Plan Won’t Work’, Nonproliferation Review 20/1 (February 2013), 107–22; Dennis M. Gormley, ‘US Advanced Conventional Systems and Conventional Prompt Global Strike Ambitions: Assessing the Risks, Benefits, and Arms Control Implications’, Nonproliferation Review 22/2 (February 2015), 123–39; James M. Acton, ‘Russia and Strategic Conventional Weapons: Concerns and Responses’, Nonproliferation Review 22/2 (February 2015), 141–54; Joshua H. Pollack, Cristina Varriale, and Tom Plant, ‘The Changing Role of Allied Conventional Precision-Strike Capabilities in Nuclear Decision Making’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 20–37; David Blagden, ‘Strategic Stability and the Proliferation of Conventional Precision Strike: A (Bounded) Case for Optimism?’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 123–36.

³ See for example, Andrew Futter and Benjamin Zala, ‘Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons and the Onset of a Third Nuclear Age’, European Journal of International Security 6/3 (February 2021), 257–77; Andrew Futter and Benjamin Zala, ‘Emerging Non-Nuclear Technology and the Future of Global Nuclear Order’, in Bård Steen and Olav Njølstad (ed.), Nuclear Disarmament: A Critical Assessment (Abingdon: Routledge 2019), 205–24; Futter and Zala, ‘Advanced US Conventional Weapons and Nuclear Disarmament’; Acton, ‘Russia and Strategic Conventional Weapons’; Pollack, Varriale, and Plant, ‘The Changing Role of Allied Conventional Precision-Strike Capabilities in Nuclear Decision Making’; Fiona S. Cunningham, ‘Maximizing Leverage: Explaining China’s Strategic Force Postures in Limited Wars’, doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018.

⁴ Carl H. Builder, ‘Strategic Conflict Without Nuclear Weapons’ (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 1983).

⁵ Saunders, Phillip C. and David C. Logan, ‘China’s Regional Nuclear Capability, Nonnuclear Strategic Systems, and Integration of Concepts and Operations’, in James M. Smith and Paul J. Bolt (ed.), China’s Strategic Arsenal: Worldview, Doctrine, and Systems (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press 2021), 130.

⁶ Several recent contributions have considered these implications in more detail. See, for example, Fiona S. Cunningham, ‘Strategic Substitution: China’s Search for Coercive Leverage in the Information Age’, International Security 47/1 (July 2022), 46–92; Pollack, Varriale, and Plant, ‘The Changing Role of Allied Conventional Precision-Strike Capabilities in Nuclear Decision Making’; Andrew Futter and Benjamin Zala, ‘Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons and the Onset of a Third Nuclear Age’.

⁷ Charly Salonius-Pasternak, ‘Friends with (Some) Benefits: How Non-Allied Sweden and Finland View Long-Range Conventional Precision Strike’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 61–79; Ian Bowers and Henrik Stålhane Hiim, ‘Conventional Counterforce Dilemmas: South Korea’s Deterrence Strategy and Stability on the Korean Peninsula’, International Security 45/3 (January 2021), 7–39.

⁸ For example Joshua H. Pollack, ‘Introduction to the Special Section on Non-Nuclear Armed States, Precision Strike, and Nuclear Risk’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 17–19; Tong Zhao, ‘Conventional Long-Range Strike Weapons of US Allies and China’s Concerns of Strategic Instability’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 109–22; Futter and Zala, ‘Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons and the Onset of a Third Nuclear Age’; Cunningham, ‘Maximizing Leverage’; Pollack, Varriale, and Plant, ‘The Changing Role of Allied Conventional Precision-Strike Capabilities in Nuclear Decision Making’; Bowers and Hiim, ‘Conventional Counterforce Dilemmas; Futter and Zala, ‘Advanced US Conventional Weapons and Nuclear Disarmament’; Paul van Hooft and Davis Ellison, ‘Good Fear, Bad Fear: How European Defence Investments Could Be Leveraged to Restart Arms Control Negotiations with Russia’ (The Hague: The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies 2023).

⁹ Tong Zhao, ‘Conventional Long-Range Strike Weapons of US Allies and China’s Concerns of Strategic Instability’; Acton, ‘Russia and Strategic Conventional Weapons’. See also Henrik Stålhane Hiim, M. Taylor Fravel, and Magnus Langset Trøan, ‘The Dynamics of an Entangled Security Dilemma: China’s Changing Nuclear Posture’, International Security 47/4 (January 2023), 147–87; Gormley, ‘US Advanced Conventional Systems and Conventional Prompt Global Strike Ambitions’.

¹⁰ Dmitry Stefanovich, ‘Proliferation and Threats of Reconnaissance-Strike Systems: A Russian Perspective’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 97–107, 97–107.

¹¹ Joshua H. Pollack, ‘Boost-Glide Weapons and US-China Strategic Stability’, Nonproliferation Review 22/2 (February 2015), 155–64; Dean Wilkening, ‘Hypersonic Weapons and Strategic Stability’, Survival 61/5 (September 2019), 129–48; Bruce M. Sugden, ‘Speed Kills: Analyzing the Deployment of Conventional Ballistic Missiles’, International Security 34/1 (July 2009), 113–46.

¹² Joshua H. Pollack and Kim Minji, ‘South Korea’s Missile Forces and the Emergence of Triangular Strategic (In)Stability’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 81–96; Bowers and Hiim, ‘Conventional Counterforce Dilemmas’.

¹³ Cunningham, ‘Strategic Substitution’; Futter and Zala, ‘Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons and the Onset of a Third Nuclear Age’; Cunningham, ‘Maximizing Leverage’.

¹⁴ Łukasz Kulesa, ‘Operationalizing the “Polish Fangs”: Poland and Long-Range Precision Strike’, Nonproliferation Review 27/1–3 (August 2020), 49–60.

¹⁵ Blagden, ‘Strategic Stability and the Proliferation of Conventional Precision Strike’.

¹⁶ Salonius-Pasternak, ‘Friends with (Some) Benefits’; Kulesa, ‘Operationalizing the “Polish Fangs”’.

¹⁷ Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment (Washington DC: Center for Strategic & Budgetary Analysis 2002); Patrick M. Morgan, ‘The Impact of the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 23/1 (Winter 2000), 132–162; Erik J. Dahl, ‘Network Centric Warfare and the Death of Operational Art’, Defence Studies 2/1 (Spring 2002), 1–24.

¹⁸ Jack Watling and Sidharth Kaushal, ‘The Democratisation of Precision Strike in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict’, Royal United Services Institute, 22 Oct. 2020.

¹⁹ See, for example, Aaron Mehta, ‘Mattis: No Such Thing as a “Tactical” Nuclear Weapon, But New Cruise Missile Needed’, Defense News, 6 Feb. 2018.

²⁰ John Gerring, ‘Mere Description’, British Journal of Political Science 42/4 (October 2012), 727–28.

²¹ On the role of mechanisms in air power research, see Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca: Cornell UP1996), 56.

²² USAF College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, ‘Three Levels of War (Exerpt)’, Air and Space Power Mentoring Guide (Montgomery: US Air Force 1997).

²³ Australian Army, ‘LWD 1, The Fundamentals of Land Warfare’ (Canberra: Australian Army 2002), 50.

²⁴ The utility of the operational level of warfare as a concept is disputed. See B. A. Friedman, On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 2021). Nevertheless, a large number of militaries, including the United States, employ the concept in their military planning.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ USAF College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, ‘Three Levels of War (Excerpt)’.

²⁷ Andrew S. Harvey, ‘The Levels of War as Levels of Analysis’, Military Review, November-December 2021, 75–81.

²⁸ Allan Millett and Williamson Murray conclude that strategic-level factors, not tactical or operational success, determine the outcome of war. Alan R. Millett and Murray Williamson, ‘Lessons of War’, The National Interest, Winter 1988/9.

²⁹ Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2006).

³⁰ Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2019), 5–8.

³¹ David Maclsaac, ‘Voices from the Central Blue: The Air Power Theorists’, in Peter Paret, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1986), 624–5.

³² John A. Warden, ‘The Enemy as a System’, Airpower Journal 9/1 (Spring 1995), 40–55.

³³ Michael W. Pietrucha, ‘Airpower and Globalization Effects: Rethinking the Five Rings’, Joint Forces Quarterly 73 (April 2014), 68–75.

³⁴ Collin S. Gray, ‘Understanding Airpower: Bonfire of the Fallacies’, Strategic Studies Quarterly 2/4 (Winter 2008), 51.

³⁵ Richard Overy, ‘Bombed into Defeat? Air Power and the End of the Second World War’, The RUSI Journal 160/4 (July 2015), 10–13.

³⁶ Dale E. Knutsen, Strike Warfare in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Non-Nuclear Attack by Air and Sea (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 2012).

³⁷ These competing considerations are highly visible in Russian missile doctrine, for example. See Michael Kofman, Anya Fink and Jeffrey Edmonds, ‘Russian Strategy for Escalation Management: Evolution of Key Concepts’ (Arlington: Center for Naval Analyses 2020), 11. See also below the section on Chinese conventional missile doctrine.

³⁸ See, for example, Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air (New York: Coward-McCann 1942).

³⁹ Aaron Belkin et al., ‘When Is Strategic Bombing Effective? Domestic Legitimacy and Aerial Denial’, Security Studies 11/4 (Summer 2002), 51–88; Michael C. Horowitz and Dan Reiter, ‘When Does Aerial Bombing Work?: Quantitative Empirical Tests, 1917–1999’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 45/2 (April 2001), 147–73; Pape, Bombing to Win.

⁴⁰ Kenneth P. Werrel, ‘The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II: Costs and Accomplishments’, The Journal of American History 73/3 (December 1986), 702–13.

⁴¹ Thomas E. Griffith, ‘Strategic Attack of National Electrical System’, master thesis, Maxwell Air University, 1994.

⁴² Marco Sassòli, Legitimate Targets of Attacks Under International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge: Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research 2004).

⁴³ See various chapters in Phil M. Haun, Colin F. Jackson, and Timothy P. Schultz, eds., Air Power in the Age of Primacy: Air Warfare Since the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2021).

⁴⁴ For instance, Russia has employed LRS in this type of counter-population function against Ukrainian civilian targets.

⁴⁵ Edward Kaplan, To Kill Nations: American Grand Strategy in the Air-Atomic Age and the Rise of Mutually Assured Destruction (New York: Cornell University Press 2015), 11; Werrel, ‘The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II’, 704–5.

⁴⁶ Pape, Bombing to Win, 71.

⁴⁷ On strategic interdiction and naval power see Eric Osborne, Britain’s Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914–1919 (Abingdon: Routledge 2004); Alan Kramer, ‘Blockade and Economic Warfare’, in Jay Winter (ed.), The First World War – Volume II: The State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2016). On strategic interdiction and airpower see Phillips P. O’Brien, How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015).

⁴⁸ O’Brien, How the War Was Won.

⁴⁹ Bryan Price, ‘Targeting Top Terrorists: How Leadership Decapitation Contributes to Counterterrorism’, International Security 36/4 (Spring 2012), 9–46; Patrick Johnston, ‘Does Decapitation Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Targeting in Counterinsurgency Campaigns’, International Security 36/4 (Spring 2012), 47–79; Yasutaka Tominaga, ‘Evaluating the Impact of Repeated Leadership Targeting on Militant Group Durability’, International Interactions 45/5 (September 2019), 865–92.

⁵⁰ Warden, ‘The Enemy as a System’.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² Bruce A. Ross, ‘The Case for Targeting Leadership in War’, Naval War College Review 46/1 (Winter 1993), 73–93.

⁵³ Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2000); Pape, Bombing to Win. Scholars have also pointed to the risks associated with counter-leadership targeting. See James J. Wirtz, ‘Counter Proliferation, Conventional Counterforce and Nuclear War’, Journal of Strategic Studies 23/1 (2000), 5–24.

⁵⁴ Carrie A. Lee, ‘Technology Acquisition and Arms Control: Thinking Through the Hypersonic Weapons Debate’, Texas National Security Review 5/4 (Fall 2022), 34.

⁵⁵ Bernard F. W. Loo, ‘Decisive Battle, Victory and the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 32/2 (April 2009), 193–95; Harlan Ullman and James Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University 1996), 21.

⁵⁶ Tong Zhao, ‘Conventional Counterforce Strike: An Option for Damage Limitation in Conflicts with Nuclear-Armed Adversaries?’, Science & Global Security 19/3 (October 2011), 195–222.

⁵⁷ John Stone, ‘Politics, Technology and the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 27/3 (September 2004), 419.

⁵⁸ Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman, ‘Ukraine’s Strategy of Attrition’, Survival 65/2 (March 2023), 7–22.

⁵⁹ Freedman and Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991, 373. For the counterargument see Daryl G. Press, ‘The Myth of Air Power in the Persian Gulf War and the Future of Warfare’, International Security 26/2 (Fall 2001), 5–44.

⁶⁰ Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power, 265–6.

⁶¹ Eliot A. Cohen, ‘A Revolution in Warfare’, Foreign Affairs 75/2 (March-April 1996), 44–46; Dahl, ‘Network Centric Warfare and the Death of Operational Art’, 15–17.

⁶² Jeffrey Engstrom, ‘Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare’ (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 2018), 15–19.

⁶³ Dahl, ‘Network Centric Warfare and the Death of Operational Art’, 15–17.

⁶⁴ Air-Sea Battle Office, ‘Air Sea Battle’, Unclassified Summary (Washington DC: Air-Sea Battle Office 2013).

⁶⁵ Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1961), 14–5.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 15.

⁶⁷ Michael C. Horowitz and Dan Reiter, ‘When does Aerial Bombing Work?’.

⁶⁸ Richard M. Rosenberg and Carl H. Builder, ‘The Implications of Nonnuclear Strategic Weapons’, 12–19.

⁶⁹ Other states that may soon join this exclusive club potentially include Japan and Australia. See Ankit Panda, ‘Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Escalation Risks’ (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2023).

⁷⁰ Jack S. Levy, ‘Case Studies: Types, Designs, and Logics of Inference’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 25/1 (March 2008), 6–7.

⁷¹ Fravel, ‘China’s “World-Class Military” Ambitions‘, 93.

⁷² M. Taylor Fravel, ‘China’s New Military Strategy: “Winning Informationized Local Wars”’, China Brief 15/13 (July 2015), 3–7.

⁷³ Ibid., 4.

⁷⁴ M. Taylor Fravel, ‘China’s “World-Class Military” Ambitions: Origins and Implications’, The Washington Quarterly 43/1 (March 2020), 92.

⁷⁵ PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, trans. China Aerospace Studies Institute (Beijing: PLA Academy of Military Science 2020), 34.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 183.

⁷⁷ Engstrom, ‘Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare’.

⁷⁸ Edmund J. Burke et al., ‘People’s Liberation Army Operational Concepts’ (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 2020), 8.

⁷⁹ PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 269–72.

⁸⁰ Ibid., 252.

⁸¹ Burke et al., ‘People’s Liberation Army Operational Concepts’, 8.

⁸² PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 385.

⁸³ Ibid., 389.

⁸⁴ PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 253.

⁸⁵ M. Taylor Fravel, Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2019), 232.

⁸⁶ Ron Christman, ‘Conventional Missions for China’s Second Artillery Corps’, Comparative Strategy 30/3 (July 2011), 204.

⁸⁷ David C. Logan, ‘Making Sense of China’s Missile Forces’, 412–13.

⁸⁸ Christman, ‘Conventional Missions for China’s Second Artillery Corps’, 207.

⁸⁹ Ibid., 215.

⁹⁰ Ibid., 206–7.

⁹¹ Michael S. Chase, ‘Second Artillery in the Hu Jintao Era: Doctrine and Capabilities’, in Roy Kamphausen, David Lai and Travis Tanner (ed.), Assessing the People’s Liberation Army in the Hu Jintao Era (Carlisle: U.S. Army War College), 316.

⁹² Christman, ‘Conventional Missions for China’s Second Artillery Corps’, 207.

⁹³ Information Office of the State Council, ‘China’s National Defense in the New Era’ (Beijing: The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China 2019), 21.

⁹⁴ U.S. Department of Defense, ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2022’, Annual Report to Congress (Washington DC: U.S. Department of Defense 2022), 163.

⁹⁵ Cunningham, ‘Maximizing Leverage’, 216–17.

⁹⁶ PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 271.

⁹⁷ Ibid., 247.

⁹⁸ Vitaly O. Pradun, ‘From Bottle Rockets to Lightning Bolts – China’s Missile Revolution and PLA Strategy against U.S. Military Intervention’, Naval War College Review 64/2 (Spring 2011), 14; PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 273.

⁹⁹ Dennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier (Washington DC: National Defense University Press 2014), 30–34; Decker Eveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’ (Middlebury: Center for Nonproliferation Studies 2023), 12.

¹⁰⁰ Eveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 9–10; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-15’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11 Jan. 2017; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-16’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 16 Nov. 2017.

¹⁰¹ Engstrom, ‘Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare’, 16.

¹⁰² Michael Beckley, Zack Cooper, and Allison Schwartz, ‘Deterring Coercion and Conflict Across the Taiwan Strait’, in Kori Schake and Allison Schwartz (ed.), Defending Taiwan (Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute 2022), 55; Michael Beckley, ‘The Emerging Military Balance in East Asia: How China’s Neighbors Can Check Chinese Naval Expansion’, International Security 42/2 (November 2017), 84.

¹⁰³ Eveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 8; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-11’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 29, 2018; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-15’.

¹⁰⁴ Chinese sources put a premium on achieving initiative, and ‘controlling the war situation’. PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 248–253

¹⁰⁵ Ibid., 224–25. Chinese military writings similarly assume that these targets would come under missile attack in their own country, requiring preparedness. See Ibid., 279.

¹⁰⁶ U.S. Department of Defense, ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2022’, 77–78.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., 77.

¹⁰⁸ Michael S. Chase, ‘Second Artillery in the Hu Jintao Era’, 316.

¹⁰⁹ Pradun, ‘From Bottle Rockets to Lightning Bolts’, 16.

¹¹⁰ Eveleth, ‘People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Order of Battle 2023’, 15–17; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-21 (CSS-5)’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 13, 2016; Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-26’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 8 Jan. 2018.

¹¹¹ Hui Tong, ‘Missiles II’, Chinese Military Aviation, May 8, 2021; Gormley, Erickson, and Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier, 16–18; Missile Defense Project, ‘YJ-18’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 25, 2020.

¹¹² Gormley, Erickson, and Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier, 17–18, 51; Missile Defense Project, ‘YJ-18’.

¹¹³ PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 252.

¹¹⁴ Chase, ‘Second Artillery in the Hu Jintao Era’, 316.

¹¹⁵ PLA Academy of Military Science, Science of Military Strategy, 271.

¹¹⁶ U.S. Department of Defense, ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2022’, 117.

¹¹⁷ Missile Defense Project, ‘DF-17’ Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 19 Feb. 2020.

¹¹⁸ Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1990), 207–30; Robert Powell, ‘Crisis Stability in the Nuclear Age’ The American Political Science Review 83/1 (March 1989), 61–76.

¹¹⁹ Cunningham, ‘Strategic Substitution’.

¹²⁰ Some authors have suggested, for example, that the United States should not strike Chinese homeland targets in a Taiwan contingency due to the escalation risks involved in such strikes. Mark F. Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham, ‘The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan’ (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies 2023), 137.

¹²¹ See also Avery Goldstein, ‘First Things First: The Pressing Danger of Crisis Instability in U.S. China Relations’, International Security 37/4 (Spring 2013), 66–68. This also relates to China’s new ‘Core Operational Concept’ of ‘Multi-Domain Precision-Strike’. See U.S. Department of Defense, ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2023’, Annual Report to Congress (Washington DC: U.S. Department of Defense 2023), 41.

¹²² See also Joshua Rovner, ‘Two Kinds of Catastrophe: Nuclear Escalation and Protracted War in Asia’, Journal of Strategic Studies 40/5 (February 2017): 696–730.

¹²³ For a similar argument regarding Europe, see Blagden, ‘Strategic Stability and the Proliferation of Conventional Precision Strike’.

¹²⁴ Kofman, Fink and Edmonds, ‘Russian Strategy for Escalation Management’.

¹²⁵ For states other than Taiwan, neutrality and non-intervention might also be an option.

¹²⁶ Panda, ‘Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals’.

¹²⁷ See, for example, Yoram Evron, ‘4IR Technologies in the Israel Defence Forces: Blurring Traditional Boundaries’, Journal of Strategic Studies 44/4 (June 2021), 572–93; Dahl, ‘Network Centric Warfare and the Death of Operational Art’; Loo, ‘Decisive Battle, Victory and the Revolution in Military Affairs’.

¹²⁸ Emma Helfrich, ‘Taiwan Official Warns Supersonic Cruise Missile can Strike Beijing’, The Drive, 13 Jun. 2022.

Appendix.

Chinese Conventional Missile Capabilities