A satellite photo, with markings, of China’s underground submarine base at Jianggezhuang near Qingdao in northeastern China. The base is super-hardened against air and missile attacks. While this 2000s photo depicts only a Han and a Xia class submarine present outside the base, more submarines were based inside. This is the base from which Chinese SSBNs going on deterrence patrols against the US probably operate. Photo source: DigitalGlobe/”China’s Nuclear Forces,” Imaging Notes, Winter 2006, p. 25.

DOD releases report on China’s military power

On Tuesday, May 7th, the DOD released its annual report on China’s military power and defense policies. The report is much longer and more detailed than last year’s, which was dramatically shortened to just 10 unclassified pages, ostensibly to cut costs while costing more to prepare than 2011′s much longer report.

This year’s version, at 92 pages, gives a great amount of information – both verbal and graphic – on China’s military power, the dispersal of its troops and bases, and the ranges of its missiles. However, while analysts consider it a significant improvement over last year’s document, this year’s still significantly understates China’s military power.

For example, it claims that China’s air force still flies, for the most part, obsolete 2nd- and 3rd-generation fighters and that modern fighters are still a minority in its fleet. This is factually incorrect: the J-7 and J-8 fighters which the report refers to, at 569 aircraft, are now less numerous than the PLAAF’s modern fighters, which number 587 (J-10s, J-11s, Su-27s, Su-30MKKs, JH-7s). Moreover, modern aircraft’s share of the PLAAF’s fleet will only grow overtime: 70 additional J-11s as well as 24 Su-35s are on order and an unknown number (but possibly hundreds) of 5th generation stealthy J-20 and J-31 fighters are poised to join the fleet.

Moreover, the J-7 and J-8, despite their age, are actually superior to the costly F-35 now under development: they can fly much higher and faster and are more agile. The J-7 has a max altitude of over 57,000 feet and a top speed of Mach 2; and its light weight and low wingloading ratio make it a superior dogfighter to the F-35. The J-7 can defeat an F-35 easily by simply refusing to be a straight, level target. In Vietnam, MiG-21s (on which the J-7 is based) routinely defeated American F-4 fighters.

The report also significantly understates China’s nuclear arsenal and submarine fleet. It claims that only 3 modern Jin class SSBNs (“boomers”) are in service, even though there were that many as early as 2007/2008; China actually has 5 in service with a sixth one under construction. This is intended to replace the old Xia class SSBN, still in service, which, together with the Jins, gives China a 6-boat SSBN fleet and thus already a continous at-sea nuclear deterrent – which the report falsely claims China doesn’t yet have.

Nonetheless, the report does warn of a large ongoing expansion of China’s sub fleet – it plans to deploy a total of 8 Jins and 6 Shangs (other sources say 6-8) and is developing a new SSBN (Type 096) and attack submarine (Type 095, Tang class). Two Tangs have already been deployed, and these are much quieter than China’s previous, noisier submarine classes.

This makes mockery of Adm. Jonathan Greenert’s recent claim that “we own the undersea domain” and that “the Chinese are not there yet”, especially in light of the fact that the USN can only supply 10 attack submarines to combatant commanders when its own minimum need is 16, and the fact that the USN’s anti-sub-warfare skills and equipment have atrophied.

The report claims that the range of the JL-2 SLBM is only 7,200 kms and can reach only parts of Alaska. But the JL-2 actually has a range of 8,000 kms according to multiple Chinese and Western sources (including SinoDefence and GlobalSecurity), and the report’s map deceptively shows the JL-2′s range as if it were launched from Chinese mainland. (p. 81)

But the JL-2 is a submarine-launched missile, meaning China can launch it from anywhere on Earth. Even with a 7,200 km range, the JL-2 could reach Los Angeles if launched from 160 degrees east, well west of Hawaii. With an 8,000 km range, it can reach LA from a position just east of 150E, i.e. just east of Japan.

Similarly, the report wrongly claims that the DF-21 land attack and anti-ship ballistic missile’s range is only 2000 kms. In fact, the DF-21A, the longest-ranged land attack variant, has a range of 2,700 kms, and the DF-21D ASBM, 3,000 kms – stretching out almost to the Second Island Chain, including Taiwan. This means any surfance ship within 3,000 kms of China’s coast can be sunk.

The report admits, for the first time, that China is testing a DF-41 multiple-warhead ICBM, but does not include it on its missile range map nor acknowledge that the DF-41 may very well already be deployed (it was first photographed in 2007). It also claims the DH-10 land-attack cruise missile has only a 2,000 km range; in reality, it’s 4,000 kms, more than enough to reach Guam.

Last but not least, Richard Fisher, a Chinese affairs expert with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, has criticized the report for failing into account China’s supply of transporter-erector-launchers for North Korean KN-08 ICBMs.

General Dempsey bows to the Muslim Brotherhood

An Army Lieutenant Colonel currently lecturing at the Joint Forces Staff College has been denied promotion and faces possible dismissal following an intervention by Gen. Martin Dempsey.

Dempsey, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, ordered an investigation after Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations filed a complaint with the DOD urging LTCOL Matthew Dooley, a combat veteran and West Point graduate, to be punished after LTCOL Dooley was found to teach his students about the dangers of radical Islam. The National Defense University, which oversees the college, has not found any fault with Dooley’s teachings.

Dooley, a West Point graduate, has 6 combat deployments and 18 years of military service under his belt. An Army promotion board unanimously recommended him for promotion to battalion command, praising his career and accomplishments. However, in 2011, a student of Dooley’s complained about his supposedly offensive teachings to the DOD, and General Dempsey was informed. Dempsey, a political general, personally ordered that Dooley be denied promotion and that an investigation aimed at throwing him out of the military be initiated. The investigation has reached its predetermined conclusions, claiming that he was a “poor officer” and resulting in his firing.

The Washington Times has narrated the story in more detail here.

France makes defense cuts, retains ambitions

The French government announced some painful cuts to the military last week, as it looks to defense spending to cut France’s massive budget deficit.

While the cuts will not be as deep as in other countries – defense spending will be frozen in nominal terms (and cut slightly in inflation-adjusted euros) – there will be a cut of 24,000 personnel, mostly from the defense ministry’s administrative staff, but also a reduction of the number of troops deployable abroad from 30,000 to 15,000-20,000. The Navy will have only 15 “first-rang frigates” rather than 17, and the fleet of fighters for the Air Force and Navy combined will be cut sharply, from 300 to 225. France will also not resume production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Moreover, the government has delayed the delivery of new weapon systems, which, in the long term, will cost more than if they were to be delivered sooner. The decisions, outlined in the new White Paper on National Defense, will form the basis of the Law on Military Procurement for 2014-2019 and for the defense budgets for those years.

The defense cuts have been criticized from both the Right and the Left. Far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon has denounced them as weakening the stature of France; far-right leader Marine Le Pen has called for defense spending to be ring-fenced and kept permanent at 2% of GDP. Mainstream right-wing UMP (neo-Gaullist) party politicians have also expressed worries. So have retired generals, who estimate that with just 15-20K troops deployable abroad France will have little capacity to intervene abroad in defense of its national interests and be only a minor contributor to coalition operations alongside the US, Britain, or other allies.

Under the plans, announced recently in detail by Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, the French military will avoid the deep cuts in programs imposed on other Western militaries. However, it is already a small military by American standards. Furthermore, it is estimated that 20,000 deployable troops won’t be enough to make a significant contribution to allied operations. The same can be said of its plan to cut the combined Air Force – Navy fighter fleet to just 225 aircraft, down from 300 today.

Moreover, there is a basic criticism of the White Paper: that it is being made to fit the budget, rather than the other way around, i.e. some critics claim that the government is putting the cart before the horse by making the strategy fit the budget. This is the same mistake that the governments of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, and other countries have made, which has made them less secure.

“The Chengdu J-XX [J-20] thus represents a techno-strategic coup by China, and if deployed in large numbers in a mature configuration, a genuine strategic coup against the United States and its Pacific Rim allies. The development of the Chengdu J-XX [J-20] represents an excellent case study of a well thought out “symmetrical techno-strategic response” to the United States’ deployment of stealthy combat aircraft, which no differently to the United States’ play in the late Cold War and post Cold War period, elicits a disproportionate response in materiel investment to effectively counter.

The only US design with the kinematic performance, stealth performance and sensor capability to be able to confront the J-20 [J-XX] with viable combat lethality and survivability is the F-22A Raptor, or rather, evolved and enhanced variants of the existing configuration of this aircraft.

The US Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is outclassed in every respect, and would be as ineffective against a mature J-XX [J-20] as it is against the F-22A Raptor.

All variants of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would be equally so outclassed, assuming this failed project even progresses to any kind of actual production.

All US Air Force, US Navy and allied legacy fighters are outclassed in much the same manner, and are ineffective kinematically and in sensor capability against this class of threat system.

From the perspectives of both technological strategy and military grand strategy, the J-XX [J-20] is the final nail in the coffin of the utterly failed “Gates recapitalisation plan” for United States and allied tactical fighter fleets. Apologists for the “Gates fighter recapitalisation plan” will no doubt concoct a plethora of reasons as to why the J-XX [J-20] should be ignored, as they did exactly one year ago when the Russians unveiled the T-50 PAK-FA stealth fighter.“

Those last words were prophetic.

Shortly after the J-20 first flew, a large group of pseudo-experts – some supporters of deep defense cuts with an agenda to deny and downplay threats to America, others being delusional megalomaniacs who don’t believe America could ever lose its military edge to other countries – began an unyielding spin campaign (which continues to this day) of downplaying the J-20′s capabilities, utility, impact, and prospects for production, and thus downplaying it as a threat to US air superiority.

But in doing so, they displayed their ignorance of defense issues, including the facts about the J-20. So, using Kopp’s and Goon’s work as the primary source, I’ll state the facts here (in a condensed version compared to the lengthy analysis Kopp and Goon have written) and refute some of the false claims made by deniers to downplay the J-20.

What are the J-20′s characteristics?

Little is known for sure about the J-20 in open literature, but it is known that the J-20 is a 70 ft long, twin engined Mach 2 class capable aircraft with long wings, large weapon bays, and quite likely, a large fuel load and much room for capability growth. Moreover, as images and videos of it revealed, its designers followed all the cardinal rules of stealth design (including stealth shaping) – and, as experts like to say, stealthiness depends on “shaping, shaping, shaping, and materials”. There are no surfaces that allow an easy radar wave return, not even its canards, which improve its aerodynamic performance and make it even more efficient in supersonic flight than it would be without canards. It’s clear that the J-20 was designed in accordance with the stealth shaping rules employed by the Raptor’s designers.

What are its capabilities?

Based on what is known for sure and on the known capabilities and utilities of similar aircraft, the J-20 will be capable of a wide number of roles, including medium range bombing, long range interception, air superiority, escort of other aircraft, AWACS/tanker killing, long range recon, electronic attack, and anti-satellite attack. In other words, missions of which the F-15 and the F-22 are also capable (except EW, which they can’t do).

Basically, a fighter/attack jet with the fuel load, efficient engines and design, range, and payload as large as the J-20′s gives you the capability to strike a lot of targets out to the Second Island Chain and conduct the full range of the above-listed missions by virtue of that range and payload as well as the J-20′s stealthiness, albeit some of them, such as recon, would require a specialized variant.

What are the deniers’ claims?

The deniers claim, inter alia, that:

1. The J-20 lacks engines sufficient to power this plane; Russian AL-31F engines, even their 117S variant, are insufficient, and the Chinese are not capable of producing sufficiently powerful engines themselves.
2. The J-20′s canards are inconsistent with being stealthy (i.e. with a very low radar signature).
3. The J-20 will be primarily a bomber, not a fighter.
4. The J-20 is unlikely to enter service in the stated 2017-2019 timeframe because the F-22 took over 15 years to develop and field, and so will the F-35.
5. It’s unlikely that more than a few hundred J-20s and more than a few hundred Sukhoi T-50 PAKFAs will be produced, while the US will, by the 2030s, have 2,600 F-22s and F-35s.
6. The J-20 has traditional, round engine nozzles and no thrust vectoring places.
7. The J-20 is 70 feet long, “big for a fighter”, claims defense issues ignoramus David Axe.
8. Chinese fighters are low-grade copies of Russian fighters.

I’ll refute each of these false claims in turn:

1. The J-20′s engines are sufficient to power this plane. How do we know? Because it already has flown multiple times and hasn’t crashed. It’s as simple as that. Moreover, the Russian AL-31F 117S engines (originally designed for, and used on, Su-35 fighters) that were probably supplied for it are sufficient to power it fully – just not to extract its full potential, as Kopp and Goon have stated. A single AL-41F117S engine provides 142 kN (31,900 lb) of thrust; since the J-20 is a twin-engine fighter, you can double that to 284 kN. But if you think that’s not enough thrust, fear not. Vladimir Putin, who seems to be hell-bent on harming the US in every we he can and to harbor irrational hatred toward America (he blames all of Russia’s problems on the US), will be quite happy to supply NPO Saturn (formerly Lyulka) AL-31F and AL-41F engines to the Chinese, who are now testing their own supersonic, thrust-vector-control WS-10G engine, and have pre-G variants of the WS-10 already in service on their J-10, J-11, and J-15 fighters*. By the time the J-20 enters service (2017-2019), the WS-10G will almost certainly be ready for use. A single WS-10G engine produces 155 kN (35,000 lb) of thrust; double that for a twin-engine fighter. (WS stands for Woshan, which simply means a “turbofan engine” in Chinese.)
2. The J-20′s canards are not inconsistent with stealth performance, and neither is any part of the J-20′s planform. Moreover, the canards are only a stopgap measure used on J-20 prototypes and are unlikely to be used on final design aircraft.
3. The J-20 will be every bit as much a fighter as it will be a bomber.  Its large size does not inhibit it in any way from being a capable fighter, and its large weapon and fuel loads will actually come in handy in A2A combat. They will also be useful for the interceptor role. The F-22 is a large fighter like the J-20, and larger than the F-35 – yet it’s the one optimised for air superiority, while the F-35 is optimised for ground attack.
4. The long development time of the F-22 and the F-35 is the result of DOD bureaucracy, tons of overregulation, 40 committees setting (and changing) requirements, and, in the F-35′s case, misdesign and inefficiency of the US defense industry. The idea that China’s highly efficient defense industry is unable to quickly develop and produce next-gen weapons just because the US defense industry is so inefficient is absurd. Even Bill Sweetman admits that: “I would submit that the simplistic approach—comparing this aircraft to the YF-22 or X-35 and therefore projecting an (Initial Operating Capability) well beyond 2020—is philosophically wrong, dangerous and stupid.” Even David Axe admits that (and thus contradicts himself): “China has proved capable of producing new weapons quickly and in large numbers. Beijing’s Type 022 missile boat, designed for coordinated attacks on US aircraft carriers, first appeared in 2004. Just three years later, the Chinese navy possessed a whole flotilla of 40 Type 022s.”
5. Any idea that the Chinese or the Russians, once they field their 5th generation stealth fighters, will suicidally stop producing them at a few hundred aircraft is absurd, ridiculous, foolish, and naive. The Russians, in fact, plan to produce hundreds of them, and India plans to produce further hundreds. China’s production figures are unknown, but Kopp and Goon – two credible analysts – say China will likely produce “hundreds”. Indeed, striking so many bases and shooting down so many aircraft in the Western Pacific will force China to produce many hundreds. Furthermore, the Air Force Association projects that the J-20 will be produced “in quantities rivalling F-35 production estimates.” China, India, and Russia can clearly afford to do so, because 1) in those countries, $1 can buy much more than in America; and 2) these 5th generation fighters will be relatively cheap, costing well below $100 mn per copy. Furthermore, both fighters will be exported and be available to anyone able to pay for them. Vietnam is likely to be the first non-Indian export customer. Meanwhile, what is America doing? It has killed the F-22 at just 187 aircraft. The F-35 has been delayed many times and won’t achieve IOC until the late 2010s – maybe 2016, maybe 2017, maybe 2018, maybe 2019, maybe never. The entire program may not survive the next few years (and will certainly be killed if sequestration goes through). Orders for it have been cut and may be cut further even if the program survives. Furthermore, America’s Pacific allies may withdraw from the F-35 program (if it isn’t killed), and they plan to procure no more than ~150 of them. (Only two are F-35 customers: Australia and Japan.) So it’s quite likely that when the PAKFA and the J-20 achieve IOC, America’s only 5th generation fighters will be its F-22s. Any projection of 2,600 fighters by the 2030s is wildly speculative and will likely be proven wrong.
6. This is technically true, but only of the prototypes. It’s important to remember that the aircraft examples of the J-20 we’ve seen so far are prototypes, and that final design aircraft will likely have all of these problems solved. We should not delude ourselves that the Chinese won’t do that and don’t know about these issues.
7. The J-20 is not too big for a fighter, although it is certainly large – about the size of an F-111. However, its size likely won’t prevent it from being a successful fighter; otherwise, the F-22 couldn’t be, as it is significantly larger than the F-35. The J-20′s size will likely be a strength, not a weakness: it will allow for a large fuel and weapon load, necessary for long range interception and air dominance missions, similar to an F-15, which has an unrefueled combat radius of 1,967 kms. The J-20 can serve as a long range interceptor, air superiority fighter, and theater strike aircraft without modifications, and its large size makes it “a natural candidate for lateral evolution” into the reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and ASAT missile-launching aircraft roles, as AirPowerAustralia rightly says.
8. This is utterly false. Modern Chinese fighters are high-quality aircraft and are, in most respects, superior to the F-15, not to mention, of course, the F-16, the F/A-18 Bug, and the Super Bug. Once again, defense cutters are deluding the American people into a false sense of security. When the J-20 enters service, it will render every Western fighter except the F-22 and the F-35 irrelevant, impotent, and useless.

In sum, the deniers’ claims – like their other claims about the capabilities and weapons of America’s adversaries, also designed to downplay and deny threats to America – are a mixture of lies, speculations, rosy projections, delusions of grandeur and invincibility, and delusions of unchangeable inferiority of adversaries. During the Cold War, many people harbored similar views about the Soviets, claiming they were inferior people who couldn’t produce any high-quality weapons, even though they often designed and produced weapons superior to their American counterparts. Today, many people harbor similar views about the Chinese and the Russians, even though Chinese and Russian defense industries have already absorbed the most modern Western technology (freely available in this globalized economy) and have already produced high-quality weapons superior to their American counterparts.

David Axe mocks those of us who warn about the J-20 thus:

“(…) the Cope India incident marked the birth of a theme—that America could no longer reliably win battles in the sky.

It’s a theme that’s never fully faded. In the summer of 2009, Gates ordered the US Air Force to stop purchasing F-22s after the 187^th copy, and instead channel funding into the planned fleet of 2,400 F-35s. This switch made the United States ‘less safe,’ in the words of Michael Goldfarb, a writer for the conservative Weekly Standard. ‘This is also a very good day for the ChiComs,’ Goldfarb wrote of the F-22’s termination, using a slang term for ‘Chinese Communist.’

Six months later, the T-50 flew for the first time. Once the plane is fully deployed in squadron strength, ‘the United States will no longer have the capability to rapidly impose air superiority, or possibly even achieve air superiority,’ Kopp and Goon wrote. Goldfarb, for his part, again declared the ‘end of air supremacy’ for the United States.

Yet a year later, the T-50 has flown only a few times and there are apparently no serious plans in place for mass production.”

Aside from the fact that there are plans for T-50 mass production in both Russia and India, with about 1000 aircraft to be ordered by those two countries alone, the fact is that the threat deniers have repeatedly been proven wrong, and they will likely be proven wrong again when the J-20 enters service; and the J-20 IS a gamechanger. The J-20 will, for the reasons stated here and here, be decisively superior to the F-35 and to all legacy aircraft, including the F-15, the F-16, the Bug, and the Super Bug.  So will the T-50. Thus, unless the US resumes the production of F-22s on a large scale, it WILL lose air superiority someday. So yes, killing the F-22 made the US less safe, and the day it happened was a good day for China and Russia. It’s no coincidence that the Kremlin’s propaganda network in the US, RussiaToday, hailed that decision and downplayed the J-20: the Russians gladly welcome everything that weakens America’s defense.

When you kill the weapon systems needed to win wars, that DOES weaken America’s defense, jeopardize US national security, and create the risk of losing wars – or, in fighters’ case, losing air superiority, which is the sine qua non of any successful war.

The fact is that Kopp, Goon, and Goldfarb were and are absolutely right, and the threat deniers are absolutely wrong. Instead of continuing to blather nonsense and further spout their ignorant garbage, they should stop pontificating on issues they know nothing about and admit they were wrong about the J-20 and the PAKFA.

This is a hotly-disputed issue today.

Liberal advocates of Western disarmament, such as Daryl Kimball, Tom Collina, Jeffrey Lewis and Hans Kristensen (a lifelong Danish pacifist who now lives in the US) and their organizations claim that China has only 240 warheads. US intelligence agencies still hold on to their obsolete estimate of 300-400 warheads (first made in 1984).

But there is a large and growing body of evidence that they’re dead wrong by a huge margin.

In addition to the study released earlier this year by Georgetown University’s Professor Philip Karber and his team of analysts, and a growing body of evidence that China has far more missiles of all classes than is usually estimated, retired Russian general Viktor Yesin, a former SMF Chief of Staff, estimated in his study several months ago that China has 1,800 nuclear warheads (with enough fissile material for another 1,800), of which 900 are deployed and ready for use anytime, and he gave specific estimates of how many warheads are attributed to how many delivery systems.

In total, he says, China has 50 tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium, half of it already used in warheads. General Yesin has recently completed a follow-on study that confirms his previous findings.

He says China has over 200 strategic warheads capable of reaching US soil, and almost 750 tactical (theater) warheads, deployed anytime, or about 950 warheads in total. He has now also given precise estimates of how many are deployed on what missiles, and what their yield (force) is. Yesin estimates China’s DF-11 and DF-15 SRBMs have warheads with a 5-20 kT yield, while DF-21 Medium Range Ballistic Missiles and DH-10 Land Attack Cruise Missiles have 350 kT warheads; JL-2 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles have 500 kT warheads, and its ICBMs have warheads of varied yields: 300 kT, 500 kT, and 2 MT.

China’s 440 strategic and theater bombers, Yesin says, carry B-4 and B-5 nuclear bombs.

Yesin also confirms that China has developed multiple independently retargetable vehicles (MIRVs) and is fielding MIRVable missiles. This is actually an understatement – China has had MIRVable DF-4 IRBMs since the 1970s, and MIRVable DF-5 ICBMs since 1981. What Yesin means are the DF-31A and DF-41A ICBMs, both now in service. He confirms that MIRVs have been deployed for DF-5s, DF-31As, DF-41As, and JL-2s.

Overall, he writes: “China’s nuclear arsenal is appreciably higher than many experts think. In all likelihood, the [People’s Republic of China] is already the third nuclear power today, after the U.S. and Russia, and it undoubtedly has technical and economic capabilities that will permit it to rapidly increase its nuclear might if necessary.”

Yesin understates the number of warheads deployed on China’s ICBMs (48) and MRBMs (99), though. The Washington Free Beacon quotes him thus:

“For missiles, the retired general said that “all told, 207 missile launchers are deployed within the Strategic Missile Forces—48 with ICBMs, 99 with [medium-range ballistic missiles] MRBMs, and 60 with [short-range] SRMs.” Total strategic warheads—those capable of reaching the United States—include 208 nuclear warheads, Yesin said.”

This is an understatement: China has 30-36 DF-5, at least 30 DF-31A, and an unknown number of DF-41 ICBMs, all of them MIRVable. Assuming that there are 72 warheads for DF-5s, 90 for DF-31As, and 10 for a single DF-41, that makes 172 warheads for ICBMs alone. China also has 80 DF-21, 20 DF-3, and 20 DF-4 MRBMs. Even if all of them are single-warhead missiles, that still means 120 MRBM warheads.

In total, this means 292 ICBM/MRBM warheads, not merely 147.

Based on open sources, China’s delivery system inventories and their warhead delivery capacities are as follows:

As you can see, China has at least 1,119 intercontinental and medium range nuclear delivery systems capable of delivering, collectively, 1,264 warheads. And that’s assuming, conservatively, that no LACMs or SRBMs are nuclear-armed, and that China has only 1 DF-41 ICBM on duty. If China has more, or if at least some of its LACMs and SRBMs are nuclear-armed, China’s warhead delivery capacity is even greater.

For his part, Professor Karber says:

“The Russian specialists quoted in the report have credibility because of Moscow’s past and current role in China’s nuclear program. Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces also has good intelligence on China’s nuclear arsenal because it targeted China for three decades. This close proximity and long track record means that Russian ‘realism’ about Chinese nuclear force potential cannot be blithely ignored or discounted as ‘paranoia. Their warning against American ‘idealism’ [on China’s nuclear arms] needs to be taken seriously.”

The US -China Economic and Security Review Commission is now slowly (albeit too slowly) beginning to wake up, acknowledging that China may have more warheads than just 300, and saying that it may have as many as 500. It still, however, wrongly believes that 240 is the most likely size of China’s arsenal, despite a large and growing body of evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, it understates the threat from China’s sea-based nuclear arsenal, claiming that:

“China has had a symbolic ballistic missile submarine capability for decades but is only now on the cusp of establishing its first credible, ‘near-continuous at-sea strategic deterrent.’”

This is a huge understatement: China is not “only now on the cusp of establishing its first credible, near-continous at sea strategic deterrent” – it has already established a fully continous naval nuclear deterrent. It has 1 Xia class SSBN (with 12 single-warhead JL-1 missiles) and 5 Jin class SSBNs (with 12-24 multiple warhead JL-2 missiles each). Furthermore, while JL-1 has only a 2,400 km range, the JL-2′s range is 8,000 km, allowing the Jins to target the entire US West Coast from a position just slightly east of 150E longitude. (See the map below.) Six SSBNs, assuming 61 days of patrol per sub, give China a fully continous deterrence capability for 366 days/year.

 The Xia class boat is due to be replaced soon by a sixth Jin class boat. The Jins’ long-range missiles, as stated earlier, allow them to target the entire West Coast from places just east of Japan (and Houston from a position slightly east of Hawaii). That capability was not reached by the Soviet Union’s subs until the 1980s. So China has already accomplished what the USSR needed four decades to achieve.

Nonetheless, the Commission does warn against any further uni- or bilateral (with Russia) cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal, rightly admonishing the Obama government to:

“treat with caution any proposal to unilaterally, or in the context of a bilateral agreement with Russia, reduce the U.S.’s operational nuclear forces absent clearer information being made available to the public about China’s nuclear stockpile and force posture.”

Yet, disarmament advocacy groups and their spokesmen, such as those mentioned above, unrepentantly continue to falsely claim that China has only 240 warheads, and only 50 capable of reaching the US, and hasn’t expanded its arsenal since the 1980s; they furthermore deny that China will have 75 ICBMs capable of reaching the US by 2015 (when China already has more than that as of AD 2012). So why do they continue to minimize and downplay the Chinese threat?

Because they overtly advocate America’s unilateral disarmament, including deep unilateral cuts as a first step. They don’t care about the consequences; in fact, they believe (and falsely claim) that this would make the US more secure, even though disarmament and arms reduction have never made anyone who indulges in them more secure, only less.

They don’t care about Russia’s, China’s, and North Korea’s nuclear buildups and have no problems with that, or with these countries’ development of new strategic weapons such as Russia’s next generation bomber, the PAK DA, new RS-24 (SS-29) ICBM, or planned new heavy ICBM, the “Son of Satan”, planned for 2018. Meanwhile, they demand that the US cancel any plans to develop a next generation bomber or ICBM, dramatically cut its existing nuclear stockpile plus ICBM and ballistic missile submarine fleets, and cut orders for future SSBNs. They claim that if America makes these deep unilateral cuts, Russia will be nice enough to reciprocate, or at least stop the expansion or modernization of its own arsenal.

Similarly, during the Cold War, they had no problem with the Soviet Union developing new strategic weapons and producing them in large numbers – they objected only to America’s development and procurement of such weapons.

All they want is America’s total nuclear disarmament.

But in order to get the public to support such policy, they first have to mislead the public into thinking that this can be done safely, i.e. to lull the public into a false sense of security.

Thus, they shamelessly lie to mislead the public into thinking that the deep cuts they advocate can be done safely, because China supposedly has only 240 warheads. They claim this means that the US can safely cut its nuclear arsenal to the low hundreds.

And, predictably, they reacted furiously to facts-based, objective studies of China’s nuclear arsenal by Professor Karber and General Yesin, because these studies and the facts contained therein constitute a huge threat to their agenda of unilaterally disarming the US. (My own study, published on November 5th, hasn’t gotten much attention yet, but if it does, it will likely be attacked just as savagely. Which won’t change the fact that every statement made therein is true.)

These studies show that China’s nuclear arsenal is highly likely to be far larger than what these liberal pro-disarmament groups falsely claim, and by informing the public and presenting evidence to back these claims up – fissile material stockpile estimates, the length of secret tunnels for missiles, estimated numbers of missiles that China has – utterly refute the myth that China has only a few hundred warheads.

And US intelligence agencies? They continue to cling to their obsolete 1984 estimate of China’s arsenal for two reasons. Firstly, like other bureaucracies, they’re embarassed to admit being wrong. And secondly, they (like the rest of the US government) are run by pro-China officials who delude themselves that Beijing can be a great partner and thus don’t want to do anything to counter China, or even to tell the truth about its reali military capabilities.

But China is a foe of the US, and intellectual disarmament always precedes actual disarmament.

America cannot afford this.