There are serious proponents in Japan (and elsewhere in Asia) of American post-INF ground-based missile deployments; not one that I’ve spoken to sees targeting Chinese nuclear forces with these capabilities as a priority 1/n asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks…
You can read some of the rationales here; in Tokyo, there is concern about a “missile gap,” but that describes the imbalance between the PLARF’s ground-based conventional/dual-capable missile arsenal and capabilities available to the US and US allies. thediplomat.com/2019/11/the-us…
For context: no US ally has agreed to base American ground-based missiles that are under development nor have formal consultations on basing been opened with any ally (as far as is publicly known).
Holding Chinese nuclear capabilities at risk with new conventional deployments in Asia would be highly inadvisable: it’ll raise nuclear dangers, incentivize undesirable changes in Chinese nuclear posture, and complicate planning for conventional deterrence. 4/n
China’s self-perception regarding the survivability of its nuclear forces is not particularly high; as a result, US missile defenses and long-range conventional precision weapons are a major concern to Beijing (see my colleague @zhaot2005’s recent work on BMD). 5/n
Billingslea is also trying to incentivize China to join Russia and the United States in trilateral arms control talks; threatening the survivability of Chinese nuclear forces with conventional post-INF US deployments suggests that those efforts are insincere. 6/6
The more conventional (no pun intended) rationales that many in INDOPACOM favor for ground-based conventional missiles: reduce burdens on existing air-/sea- assets, free up ship-based, non-reloadable VLS tubes, and complicate PLARF conventional targeting.
