Boost-glide Weapons and US-China Strategic Stability

ABSTRACT

The United States and China are testing boost-glide weapons, long-range strike systems capable of flying at Mach 5 or faster through the upper atmosphere. For the United States, these systems would provide a conventional prompt global strike capability, which, together with US ballistic missile defense programs, Chinese experts regard as a threat to China's ability to conduct nuclear retaliation. This perception is encouraging the Chinese military to modify its nuclear posture in ways that tend to create greater risks for both sides. If China's own boost-glide systems are meant to carry nuclear payloads only, their deployment would not fundamentally alter the current situation between the two states. However, if they were conventionally armed or dual-purpose, or if the United States could not determine the payloads they carried, the deployment of Chinese boost-glide systems could compound problems of strategic stability created by the introduction of ballistic missile defense, antisatellite, and antiship ballistic missile capabilities. If the technical hurdles can be overcome, it may be difficult for the two sides to refrain from these deployments in the absence of strong mutual trust or an established arms-control relationship. New confidence-building measures and expanded mutual transparency are warranted to avoid creating new dangers.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• United States
• boost-glide weapons
• ballistic missile defense
• conventional prompt global strike
• strategic stability
• missiles
• hypersonic weapons
• antisatellite weapons
• modernization

Notes

1. M. Elaine Bunn and Vincent A. Manzo, “Conventional Prompt Global Strike: Strategic Asset or Unusable Liability?” INSS Strategic Forum No. 263, February 2011, <http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/110201_manzo_sf_263.pdf>; James M. Acton, Silver Bullet? Asking the Right Questions About Conventional Prompt Global Strike (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013), <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/cpgs.pdf>. On stability concerns, see especially pp. 111–33.

2. The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review Report described “reinforcing strategic stability” as a major goal in US relations with both Russia and China. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report, April 2010, pp. 28–29.

3. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2014, <www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2014_DoD_China_Report.pdf>, p. 45.

4. Mark Stokes, “China's Evolving Conventional Strategic Strike Capability,” Project 2049 Institute, September 14, 2009, <http://project2049.net/documents/chinese_anti_ship_ballistic_missile_asbm.pdf>, p. 28.

5. Lora Saalman, “Prompt Global Strike: China and the Spear,” Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, April 201, pp. 11–16.

6. Bill Gertz, “China Conducts First Test of New Ultra-High Speed Missile Vehicle,” Washington Free Beacon, January 13, 2014, <http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-conducts-first-test-of-new-ultra-high-speed-missile-vehicle/>; Bill Gertz, “China Secretly Conducts Second Flight Test Of New Ultra High-Speed Missile,” Washington Free Beacon, August 19, 2014, <http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-secretly-conducts-second-flight-test-of-new-ultra-high-speed-missile/>; Bill Gertz, “China Conducts Third Flight Test of Hypersonic Strike Vehicle,” Washington Free Beacon, December 4, 2014, <http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-conducts-third-flight-test-of-hypersonic-strike-vehicle/>; Bill Gertz, “China Conducts Fourth Test of Wu-14 Strike Vehicle,” Washington Free Beacon, June 11, 2015, <http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-conducts-fourth-test-of-wu-14-strike-vehicle/>; Bill Gertz, “China Conducts Fifth Test of Hypersonic Glide Vehicle,” Washington Free Beacon, August 21, 2015, <http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-conducts-fifth-test-of-hypersonic-glide-vehicle/>. See also: James Acton, Catherine Dill, and Jeffrey Lewis, “Crashing Glider, Hidden Hotspring: Analyzing China's August 7, 2014 Hypersonic Glider Test,” Arms Control Wonk, September 3, 2014, <http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/7443/crashing-glider-hidden-hotspring>.

7. Reuters, “China confirms hypersonic missile carrier test,” January 15, 2014, <www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/16/us-china-missile-idUSBREA0F03R20140116>.

8. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2014, pp. 6–8.

9. Evan S. Medeiros, “‘Minding the Gap’: Assessing the Trajectory of the PLA's Second Artillery,” in Roy Kamphausen and Andrew Scobell, eds., Right Sizing the People's Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China's Military (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), p. 178. Academics affiliated with the Second Artillery have commented on aspects of China's hit-to-kill test program. See Kevin Pollpeter, “China's Second Ballistic Missile Defense Test: A Search for Strategic Stability,” SITC Bulletin Analysis, February 2013, p. 2.

10. Dennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier: Assessing China's Cruise Missile Ambitions (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2014); Zhao Lei, “Air force now able to launch long-range, precision strikes,” China Daily, October 14, 2015, <www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-10/14/content_22178512.htm>

11. Saalman, “Prompt Global Strike: China and the Spear,” p. 16

12. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2013, 2013, p. 41; Ministry of Defense of the People's Republic of China, “China displays missiles in massive military parade,” September 3, 2015, <http://eng.mod.gov.cn/DefenseNews/2015-09/03/content_4617007.htm>.

13. Stokes, “China's Evolving Conventional Strategic Strike Capability,” p. i.

14. For past examples of emulation in the conventional sphere, see Acton, Silver Bullet, pp. 132–33.

15. National Research Council, U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike: Issues for 2008 and Beyond (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2008).

16. Jeffrey Lewis, “Chinese Nuclear Posture and Force Modernization,” Nonproliferation Review 16 (July 2009), pp. 197–209; Michael S. Chase, Andrew Erickson, and Christopher Yeaw, “Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization and its Implications for the United States,” Journal of Strategic Studies 32 (February 2009), pp. 67–114; Joshua Pollack, “Emerging Strategic Dilemmas in U.S.-Chinese Relations,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 65 (July 2009), pp. 53–63. On Chinese ASATs or anti-access systems as targets for US CPGS, see Acton, Silver Bullet?, pp. 17–21.

17. Saalman, “China and the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review,” pp. 22–26.

18. Department of Defense, Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review, January 9, 2002,

19. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report, April 2010, p. 46.

20. In US Army terminology, “airborne assault” refers to the employment of paratroops, while “air assault” refers to the employment of troops carried by helicopter. Yu Jixun, ed., Dier Paobing Zhanyi Xue [Science of Second Artillery Operations] (Beijing: PLA Press, 2004), pp. 355–72.

21. Shou Xiaosong, ed., Zhanlue Xue [Science of Strategy] (Beijing: Military Science Press, 2013), p. 171. The author thanks Michael Chase for pointing out this reference.

22. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2011, p. 36. The 2014 edition of the report carried this observation well beyond the Second Artillery, stating, “China maintains a technologically advanced underground facility (UGF) program protecting all aspects of its military forces, including command and control, logistics, and missile and naval forces. Given China's NFU [no first use] nuclear policy, China has assumed it might have to absorb an initial nuclear blow while ensuring leadership and strategic assets survive.” Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2014, p. 29.

23. Tong Zhao, “Conventional Counterforce Strike: An Option for Damage Limitation in Conflicts with Nuclear-Armed Adversaries?” Science & Global Security 19 (October 2011), pp. 195–222.

24. Tamara Patton, Pavel Podvig, and Phillip Schell, A New START Model for Transparency in Nuclear Disarmament: Individual Country Reports (New York and Geneva: UNIDIR, 2013), pp. 3–16.

25. For Google Earth placemarks, see: http://nuclearforces.org/kmz/ModelNewSTARTData1Sep2012.kmz. For other commercial imagery and analysis, see Hans Kristensen, “China's Nuclear Forces and Potential Vulnerabilities: Potential Implications for Posture and Strategy,” Federation of American Scientists, September 24, 2012, pp. 7, 10.

26. Mark A. Stokes, “China's Nuclear Warhead Storage and Handling System,” Project 2049 Institute, March 12, 2010, <https://project2049.net/documents/chinas_nuclear_warhead_storage_and_handling_system.pdf>.

27. Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, China's National Defense in 2008, January 2009

28. John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, Imagined Enemies: China Prepares for Uncertain War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 202–05.

29. Yu, ed., Dier Paobing Zhanyi Xue, pp. 382–88. For “standby positions,” see p. 385.

30. Xie Tao, Wang Minle, Zhong Jianqiang, and Fang Qin, “Changgui Daodan Zhendi Peizhi Youhua Yanjiu” [Research on Optimal Deployment of Conventional Missile Positions], Xitong Fangzhen Xuebao 21(March 2009), pp. 1535–37. Wang Minle and Gao Xiaoguang, “Zhanlue Daodan Jidong Zhendi Bushu Youhua Yanjiu Sheji [Optimal Design of Deployment of Strategic Missile Mobile Positions],” Xitong Gongcheng Lilun Yu Shijian 10 (1999), pp. 94–98, both as cited in Wu Riqiang, “Sino-U.S. Inadvertent Escalation,” Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE), n.d.

31. Yu, ed., Dier Paobing Zhanyi Xue, pp. 270–95.

32. “Text of Nov. 28 E-mail from Strategic Command responding to ACT's questions on the alert status of U.S. nuclear weapons,” Arms Control Today, November 2007, <www.armscontrol.org/interviews/20071204_STRATCOM>.

33. Credible open-source estimates of the size of China's nuclear stockpile range from about 170 (Zhang) to about 250 (Kristensen and Norris). Hui Zhang, “China's Nuclear Weapons Modernization: Intentions, Drivers, and Trends,” Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, July 15, 2012, <http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/22292/chinas_nuclear_weapons_modernization.html>; Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2013,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2013, <http://thebulletin.org/2013/november/chinese-nuclear-forces-2013 http://thebulletin.org/2013/november/chinese-nuclear-forces-2013>.

34. Zhang, “China's Nuclear Weapons Modernization;” Kristensen and Norris, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2013.”

35. Yu, ed., Dier Paobing Zhanyi Xue, pp. 382–88.

36. The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, “China's Military Strategy,” Beijing, May 2015.

37. Shou, ed., Zhanlue Xue, p. 175.

38. Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2014, p. 7.

39. Kyodo News, “China plans to launch test satellite for missile defense,” August 24, 2015.

40. Jeffrey Lewis, Paper Tigers: China’s Nuclear Posture (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2014), p. 115.

41. Jeffrey Lewis, “China’s Nuclear Modernization: Surprise, Restraint, and Uncertainty,” in Ashley Tellis, Abraham M. Denmark, and Travis Tanner, eds., Strategic Asia 2013–14: Asia in the Second Nuclear Age (Seattle and Washington, DC: The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013), p. 83.

42. Bruce G. Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1993), pp. 168–218.

43. According to the Department of State, the US side asserted this viewpoint during the negotiation of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. This perspective was later enshrined as an “understanding” in the Senate's resolution of ratification. See: Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, “Article-By-Article Analysis of New START Treaty Documents,” May 5, 2010, Main Treaty Text, Art. V, Para. 2; Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, “New START Treaty: Resolution Of Advice And Consent To Ratification,” (b)(3).

44. David C. Gompert and Phillip C. Saunders, The Paradox of Power: Sino-American Strategic Restraint in an Age of Vulnerability (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2011); Lewis A. Dunn, ed., “Building Toward a Stable and Cooperative Long-Term U.S.-China Strategic Relationship,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, December 31, 2012, <http://csis.org/files/publication/issuesinsights_vol13no2.pdf>; Elbridge A. Colby, Abraham M. Denmark, and John K. Warden, “Nuclear Weapons and U.S.-China Relations: A Way Forward,” .Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, March 2013, <http://csis.org/files/publication/130307_Colby_USChinaNuclear_Web.pdf>.