Does the US really need land-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific?

The collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty could see the US strengthening land-based missile defences, forcing China into an arms race
But many observers question the need for such defences when the US already has a big advantage with its air and sea-launched missiles in the region

Emanuele Scimia

Published: 1:00am, 23 Aug 2019

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The United States’ withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty has raised fears of a new arms race among the world’s great powers.

Andrea L. Thompson, the US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, confirmed last week that Washington was consulting its mutual defence treaty allies Australia, South Korea and Japan as it moves forward with plans to position medium- and intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific.

The target of the deployment is China, which is outside the INF legal framework. Washington says Chinese medium- and intermediate-range missiles pose a threat to US forces in Asia. However, given US strike capabilities in the Western Pacific, it is debatable whether this concern is justified.

The INF treaty, which the US and the Soviet Union signed in 1987, prevented the two countries from manufacturing and deploying conventional and nuclear land-based missiles with a range of between 500km and 5,500km (805 and 8,851 miles).

The administration of US President Donald Trump pulled out of this bilateral arms control pact on August 2, citing Russia’s alleged violations. The US government says the Russians have been producing and installing the Novator 9M729 land-based cruise missile, which exceeds INF limitations, since 2016.

Moscow has denied such accusations, contending that the US breached the INF treaty by stationing Aegis Ashore anti-missile batteries in Romania. The Kremlin says this platform has a launcher that can fire both interceptors and Tomahawk missiles. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally suspended Russia’s participation in the INF agreement in early July.

Trump wants a new INF deal that includes China. His argument is that the Chinese have a large number of ground-based, medium- and intermediate-range cruise and ballistic missiles.

The Chinese leadership has made it clear it has no intention of reducing the country’s missile stockpile that falls within the INF range, as it would weaken its defences.

Freed from INF treaty, the US has one target in mind: China

China is a continental power and most of its strike capacity is land-based, while the US and Russia have an unrivalled advantage with their air and sea-launched platforms. So Chinese leaders believe that adherence to a multilateral INF treaty would create a big asymmetry in capabilities between China and its strategic rivals.

In addition, Beijing cannot accept the idea of reducing its arsenal of ground-based missiles as Taiwan has INF treaty-range assets aimed at the mainland. The island, which is considered a rebel province by the Communist Party, has deployed the Hsiung Feng IIE land-attack cruise missile.

This system has a range of 600km, but the Taiwanese have reportedly produced a medium-range variant capable of hitting targets as far as 1,500km away. Not least, Taipei is believed to be developing the Yun Feng, a surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile with a range between 1,200km and 2,000km.

China has said “it will not stand idly by” and would take countermeasures if the US were to station ground-based missiles in allied countries in the Pacific Rim or Guam. Significantly, many observers believe Washington does not need to deploy INF weaponry in East Asia because it already has in the region enough sea-based and airborne missiles to destroy Chinese defences.

After all, the 2018 US nuclear posture review emphasised the survivability of the US military’s retaliatory forces, such as submarine-launched ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles, even if it did not make any reference to the need for land-based systems.

In contrast, the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) said in a recent study that the serious threats to the US air and naval forces in the Western Pacific, paired with the difficulties of supporting operations from a distance in the region, “may reduce the responsiveness” of many US aircraft and warships.

To CSBA analysts, land-launched missiles may be more responsive, notably at the beginning of a campaign when “enemy defences have not yet been affected by US counterstrikes and are thus able to offer their stiffest resistance”.

The problem for the Trump administration is that allies and partners in Asia-Pacific, particularly Australia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, are apparently unwilling to host US land-attack missiles.

Not to mention that Democrats in Congress are quite reluctant to authorise funds for new ground-based medium- and intermediate-range missiles.

A tactical Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile on a controlled test flight in southern California in November 2002. Photo: US Navy

Some say reviving the old programme of placing nuclear warheads onto sea-based Tomahawk cruise missiles, especially aboard submarines, would be much more viable politically, diplomatically and financially.

The nuclear Tomahawk land-attack missile was retired by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, after the 2010 nuclear posture review.

The risk is that the restarting of the programme could encourage China to equip conventional and nuclear submarines with its own version of the missile, which would pose a major threat to US continental territory. According to the US military’s annual report to Congress on China’s military power, the Type 055 destroyer, which the US classifies as the Renhai-class cruiser, is likely to be able to launch land-attack cruise missiles once this weaponry is available.

China’s development of submarine-launched nuclear cruise missiles, in a vicious circle of action and counteraction between the two competing great powers, could be the next step.

Emanuele Scimia is an independent journalist and foreign affairs analyst

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