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| RD-181 engines (Image: Flickr User - NASA Johnson) |
By Kent Johnson
Russian engines could offer China a fast track for its ICBM capability building.
Have you been watching? In August, China quietly tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), to which it attached two “simulated” warheads. This missile, alternately called the DF-41 or CSS-X-20, has been tested four times since 2012. Why do we care? Because China’s ability to launch multiple warheads – on one rocket – is a significant technological advancement. And uniquely dangerous: The proliferation of multiple Chinese warheads, or heavy-lift rockets carrying nuclear-tipped “multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles,” could put us on the fast-track to the past.
What if, hypothetically, China continued to mature this capability and accelerated ICBM testing? What if China decided to upgrade its ICBM launch capacity, or supplement it, with Russian ICBM rocket engines? And what if Russian rocket engines offered China the chance to accelerate ICBM launches, and consequently delivered a “break out” or “leap ahead” ability essential to seizing the high ground – space. The result could be militarily and politically destabilizing – even making all of the en vogue discussion about Chinese anti-access/area-denial capabilities (or A2/AD for short) with advanced missile technology look like yesterday’s news.
And yet that is the course we may be on.
Read the full story at The Diplomat