Five new weapon models, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, conventional cruise missiles and medium-range and short-range conventional ballistic missiles, will be shown officially for the first time in China's National Day parade in Beijing in October 1, according to Xinhua. The last such parade was ten years ago, on the 50th anniversary of Communist Party rule.
Quoting an expert from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Second Artillery Force, responsible for nuclear deterrence and conventional ballistic missiles, the news agency reported that the new weapons would be "second generation" types, already in service with the PLA.
The big potential revelations would be the Dongfeng 41 road-mobile ICBM and the Julang 2 sea-launched ballistic missile - widely discussed outside China, but never seen before.
Chinese Internet via
Armscontrolwonk
This month's DTI - to go live on the website later today - carries a report from a late-July conference on deterrence in Omaha and my op-ed on nuclear weapons. Former deputy defense secretary John Hamre's comment in Omaha that nuclear weapons have been "the subject of a successful campaign of stigmatization" in the West, but not elsewhere, is underscored by the report of the Beijing parade: it's literally impossible to conceive of a parade of nuclear missiles down Pennsylvania Avenue or Whitehall.
I reported some of the news from Omaha here at the time. PLA Col. Yao Yunzhu explained that China's nuclear policy is based on "no first use" and is strictly retaliatory, in response to a nuclear attack. "China differs in this respect from American strategists who talk about nuclear warfighting or escalation control", she added.
China, she said, works towards a "lean and effective" deterrent and will modernize its strategic forces to improve their survivability - hence the development of road- and rail-mobile weapons. Moreover, opaqueness - deliberately concealing its capabilities - is Chinese policy. "With no-first-use and a small arsenal, China depends on opaqueness to keep its deterrent credible, to induce uncertainty in an enemy's cost-benefit calculations."
As I reported a few weeks ago, Col Yunzhu cautioned that ballistic missile defense could represent a problem for China and could drive it to expand its force. Interestingly, a couple of weeks later - at the Space & Missile Defense conference in Huntsville - US STRATCOM leader Gen. Kevin Chilton echoed that comment in regard to US-Japan efforts to deter North Korean nuclear developments. "Our broader concern has to do with Chinese concern," Chilton said, "and the perception of who [BMD] is aimed against."
This is the "strategy" I have advocated for the US and can create global stability. Quite simply:
1) Stay at the Moscow Treaty limits of 2200 warheads
2) Modernize the nuclear infrastrucutre in order to insure the viability of the weapons in the reduced force including possible testing and warhead replacement
3) Have a robust "advanced concept development" program to explore new physical weapons concepts to avoid strategic surprise
4) Start long term development programs for all nuclear delivery systems starting with a MMIII replacement
5) Develop conventional "prompt global strike" to give strategic commanders a non-nuclear quick strike global option
6) Long term education programs to educate the next generation of weapons scientists
This, of course, is just a parial list of general modernization themes. But Gen Chilton is absolutely right "only in the West are nuclear weapons stigmatised to the extent you see in the US"
The US is on a dangerous path of neglect that will not make the US or the world a safer place.
- or Iran's, North Korea's, Pakistan's...
"...5) Develop conventional "prompt global strike"..."
I'm assuming you're referring to the conventional-warhead, packed with PGMs, ICBM/SLBM variant.
The danger of that ofcourse is that a launch can be mistaken for a surprise nuclear ICBM strike by countries that do not have advanced, discriminating BMEWS, triggering all kinds of Strangelove scenarios.
But I would vote for accelerating R&D and fielding BMD systems because those same conventional ballistic missiles will increase in number and importance. The ruckuss that North Korea causes by lobbing a stove-pipe in the Pacific now and then frayes enough nerves worldwide to attract the attention of similarly desperate "death before dishonor" regimes. Having the ability to stop said intercontinental stove-pipes is a potent (political) weapon all of itself.
I played a village kid in "The Music Man" play as a child.
The Russians and Chinese are "claiming" it will be a destabalizing weapon because they DON'T WANT the US to develop it, like SDI, MX, Trident II, etc., etc.
That said part of my modernization strategy would include "all" systems including RVs, guidance and "fourth stage" technologies.