By Francis P. Sempa
“It may be time to blow the dust off of some old books and articles written by the nuclear strategists of the Cold War.”
The Pentagon’s latest annual report to Congress on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” states that the PLA is arming its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with as many as three independently targetable nuclear warheads (multiple independent reentry vehicles or MIRVs). According to a May 16 New York Times article by David Sanger and William Broad, this decision represents a break with previous Chinese nuclear arms policy. “[T]he technology of miniaturizing warheads and putting three or more atop a single missile,” they explain, “has been in Chinese hands for decades. But a succession of Chinese leaders deliberately let it sit unused; they were not interested in getting into the kind of arms race that characterized the Cold War nuclear competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision to develop and deploy MIRVed missiles, at the same time that China is increasing its naval power and taking aggressive steps to dominate the South China Sea, according to Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “is obviously part of an effort to prepare for long-term competition with the United States.”
The Pentagon report notes that China fields 50-60 silo-based and road-mobile ICBMs. China is also developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with a range of 7,400 kilometers. MIRV capability will therefore enable China to at least triple the number of nuclear warheads it can launch at U.S. or other targets. Sanger and Broad point out that currently the U.S. has an eight-to-one lead over China in nuclear forces.
Read the full story at The Diplomat