Let’s get straight into the top-line numbers. The report shows major increases in every category of China’s long range missiles.
Fielded ICBM launchers jump from 300 to 500, and the number of missiles goes up from 300 to 350 (I guess they haven’t filled all those silos yet).
While the number of launchers stays the same, the estimate of the number of intermediate-range missiles (i.e., the “Guam Killers”) goes from a somewhat vague “250+” to a solid 500.
I’ve said for years that if each DF-26 launcher had just one reload, we could be facing 400+ missiles. Well, here we are…
As I said at the time, numbers like that could change the DF-26 from a “carrier killer” to just a “ship killer” (from a report I wrote for @LowyInstitute).
This checks with images of test missile targets in China’s western desert shaped like U.S. destroyers, not just carriers: news.usni.org/2021/11/07/chi…
Moving on to MRBMs - what I’d call “Japan Killers” (too long-range to use on Taiwan, too short-range to hit Guam) the numbers are even more dramatic: going from “500+” to a solid 1000.
Yes, ONE THOUSAND missiles with enough range to hit anywhere in Japan (see the CSS-5 ring).
Whenever I hear someone say the PRC would be crazy to strike U.S. bases in Japan, I can’t help but think - sure, that might seem true to us, but they’ve been practicing doing it for years, and have put tremendous resources into building the force to do it. cnas.org/publications/r…
In this year’s report, there’s a new discussion of the PLA’s underground facilities (UGFs). This is a relatively hard thing to spot w/ open source imagery, so DoD’s emphasis draws my attention.
This sort of hardening is something the US and allies are not doing nearly enough of.
Perhaps most interesting in the PLARF discussion is this reveal - that the PLA may be developing non-nuclear-tipped ICBMs.
I talked about this idea a couple of years ago as an “out-there” possibility, so I’m not too surprised to see it here.
There are a lot of very valuable and pretty soft U.S. targets in CONUS: think carriers & subs at their piers, valuable bombers on the ramp at their bases, etc.
I know some people will say “that would be crazy, we might respond with a nuke if we think it might be one, they’d never take the risk.”. But this is engaging in mirror-imaging, and not thinking through what that might really look like.
If you think it through from their perspective, what they could expect is that if they launch them in a fashion that clearly doesn’t threaten our nuclear forces or NC2, then a reasonable assumption would be that POTUS would wait and see what it was before launching nukes back.
This is yet another way that their massively-expanded nuclear arsenal comes in handy. There won’t be any way to execute a “splendid first strike” and disarm China’s nuclear forces, just in case - we’d have to ride it out and see what it was, or else face nuclear retaliation.
Moving on to those nuclear forces, one interesting word change is that DoD now says that China’s nuclear modernization efforts now “dwarf” rather than “exceed” those of the past decade. May give an unclas indication of the level of alarm at DoD over what it’s seeing.
DoD now estimates China has a stockpile of 500 nuclear warheads, up 100 from last year. It also moves up its longer timeline to “over 1,000 warheads” by 2030, vice “about 1,500” warheads by 2036.
DoD now also indicates that the huge expansion of China’s missile fields that was still in progress in 2022…
…it’s done, and they’re already loading missiles into the silos.
As for any “shell game” nonsense with those silo fields…
I’m confident the PLA will fill those silos, just a matter of time.
For China’s SSBNs, we now have confirmation that they aren’t just “equipped to carry” the longer-range JL-3 missile - rather, they ARE fielding the JL-3 on them.
Also, apparently they are continuing/restarting production of Type 094 SSBNs?
This is new in this year’s report - and news to me. 😮
Moving on to cyber and space systems, DoD has a new discussion of PRC cyber activity directed at DoD.
Anything cyber can get classified pretty quickly, so it’s notable to me that they’re talking about this in public.
As for satellites, apparently the PRC is up to 290 ISR satellites from 260 last year (a 10+% annual increase).
On the chem-bio front, there’s an interesting change in wording - that China has gone from having the “technical expertise” to weaponize CBW agents, to a statement that they “likely possess capabilities relevant” to CBW that pose a threat, which sounds quite a bit more real. 🤔
On the topic of defense contacts and exchanges, DoD makes the point that the PLA basically isn’t talking any more, despite many DoD attempts to restore contacts.
This is why when I see articles - in Western media - that talk about how the U.S. and China need to talk more, it just makes me wonder: Are you paying attention at all to the reality of the situation? foreignaffairs.com/china/america-…
DoD also adds a discussion of the PLA's risky and dangerous behavior - with more such incidents in the previous 2 years than in the previous decade.
There was a recent @washingtonpost story on just this topic that unfortunately got buried by what's going on in Gaza.
But this is important - this sort of thing could lead to a war that could make what's happening in Gaza pale in comparison. washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
Next up: a topic my followers will know is near and dear: China's use of roll-on/roll-off (RORO) civilian shipping to enable an otherwise-impossible invasion of Taiwan.
This time, the topic gets its own multi-page section, which indicates to me how seriously DoD takes it.
More specifically, me: on the left, 2 years ago in @WarOnTheRocks.
DoD provides lots of details on the PLA's 2022 RORO exercises, including that they apparently moved an entire Group Army via "civilian" shipping in a single exercise. 😯
They also discuss a major exercise from September 2022, that may have been this activity that I tracked at the time:
Lots of detail here on the exercise, which was a big one.
Also, apparently the relevant stern ramp modifications are becoming more commonplace, reducing the warning that will be available in the future if they start spooling up for an invasion.
The PLA has also been working specifically to practice working in ports with near-zero intact infrastructure.
This is the kind of thing I think of when someone tells me, "oh, well we'll just wreck their ports - and the ones on Taiwan so they can't use them." 😐
I'll wrap things up here with the overall air balance across the Taiwan Strait.
China gains 50 bombers, 50 transports, and 50 special mission (support) aircraft (150 mostly large aircraft!). Taiwan gains 20 transports and 220(?) special mission aircraft (guessing that's a typo).
In summary: the already-breakneck expansion of Chinese military capability seems to have, amazingly, picked up speed in 2022. As I've said before, we and our allies and partners need to get deadly serious—and quickly— about deterring the PRC military threat.
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What if I told you that as I type this there was a vessel, associated with the Chinese PLA, that *could* be equipped with many dozens of anti-ship cruise missiles—and was parked less than 4 miles from the bulk of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.
Well guess what: it's happening—for real.
The vessel in question is a container ship named COSCO Shipping Sakura. It's a massive ship, more than 360m long (~1200 ft), and weighing far more than a U.S. aircraft carrier. Built in 2018, It can carry more than 14000 shipping containers.
The shipyard that built it, Jiangnan Shipyard, in addition to building ships for COSCO (and western, even TAIWANESE companies!) also builds warships for the PLA Navy, including its first full-size aircraft carrier. features.csis.org/china-shadow-w…
This USNI Proceedings article advocates a "trade denial" strategy - though not a blockade - as a "low-cost option" for deterring PRC military aggression against Taiwan.
While I like the idea of finding new ways to deter China, I have some issues with this article, as follows:
My overarching concern is this: for years there's been a strain of thinking that China will never attack because the U.S. & allies could "just cut off their oil" or the like. That kind of thinking undercuts support for the necessary resources to actually deter the PRC militarily.
THIS article doesn't advocate an actual blockade, considering it infeasible in part because of the internationalized nature of modern shipping. Here I agree with the author, retired RADM Khanna, Indian Navy: this factor undercuts the idea of a "blockade" that others advocate.
Imagery update: looking back at some commercial imagery at Wuchang Shipyard (one of China's conventional submarine builders), if I'm not mistaken I believe there may be a new class of Chinese submarine out there.
I recently acquired this interesting image of the shipyard from 26 April 2024.
On the left, you can see what appears to be a freshly-launched Hangor II-class submarine, the 1st of 8 being built for Pakistan.
You can also see the other, possibly new class of boat.
The ID of the Hangor-II is based on separate reporting of its launch in late Apr, matching nicely with what we see.
Comparing the Hangor with images of earlier 039A class boats—and the new boat—the difference is plain to see.
Got some fresh @planet imagery of China's new base at Ream, Cambodia. Looks like they continue to be busy bees, constructing what looks to be a sizable naval base.
First, here's an overall comparo of where things are now-ish (6/2020) to before construction started (3/2020).
They've now completed enough of the drydock & wharf that we can now see their final dimensions: right at 140m from the back of the drydock to where the caisson would go, & a 270m wharf.
Also, there's what looks like a ramp to pull smaller vessels out for maintenance.
You can see pretty clearly that the ramp extends into the water. A facility like this would be useful for working on smaller vessels like Cambodia's patrol boats and other harbor craft, and faster than using a drydock.
So, I recently acquired some updated imagery from Wuchang Shipyard in Wuhan - China's primary shipyard for non-nuclear submarine construction.
It appears there may have been something...odd going on there in June. 🤔
First, an older image from 29 May shows nothing unusual - a presumably new-construction Yuan-class submarine (Type 039 variant) in the usual spot where newly-launched boats are fitted out.
[BTW the patchwork nature of the images is because I buy my own and pay by the area, so..]
More recently I acquired an image from June 13th. In the image, there appears to be what look like crane barges clustered around...something...near where the submarine was earlier.
Also, the floating pier where the submarine was moored appears to have been offset a bit.
Last week saw the publication in @ForeignAffairs of this article by Zhou Bo, a Senior Fellow at a Tsinghua University think tank and a retired Senior Colonel in the Chinese PLA.
The gist is that mostly due to US pushback at the rise of the PRC, the US-PRC relationship has deteriorated. But the two nations should talk more & work together where they can.
IMO the article has many misleading statements and half-truths, and serves as propaganda.
Zhou starts by stating the Chinese government experienced "surprise" at U.S. competition and is determined to "fight back", as if China was only reacting to an unprovoked American reaction to a peacefully-rising China.