US-China rivalry: America test-fires Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile
- Test shows the US nuclear deterrent is ‘safe, secure, reliable and effective to deter twenty-first century threats and reassure our allies’, USAF says
- ‘Operators delivered an on-time, on-target sortie and provided a reminder of the readiness of the Minuteman III weapon system,’ launch task force leader says
An LGM-30G Minuteman III missile was fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California late on Tuesday night and successfully hit its target 6,760km (4,200 miles) away on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the US Air Force said.
The test showed that the United States’ nuclear deterrent remained “safe, secure, reliable and effective to deter twenty-first century threats and reassure our allies”, it said.
“The operators delivered an on-time, on-target sortie and provided yet another reminder of the readiness and reliability of the Minuteman III weapon system,” Major Jesse Haskett, commander of the launch task force, said in a press release.
Although the statement said ICBM launches were planned years in advance and not in response to world events or regional tensions, the launch coincided with America’s review of its nuclear strategies.
The US Navy said earlier that on February 9 it test-fired an unarmed Trident ballistic missile over the Atlantic Ocean from an Ohio-class submarine off the coast of Florida.
Also this month, Admiral Charles Richard, chief of the US Strategic Command that manages America’s nuclear weapons, warned that a nuclear war with China or Russia was a “very real possibility” and that the US military must act to “deter that reality”.
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His assessment was based on China and Russia’s rapid expansion and modernisation of their arsenals, he said.
The US Congress on Tuesday held a hearing on “Near-Peer Advancements in Space and Nuclear Weapons”, which discussed the advancements being made by Russia and China regarding their nuclear weapons and space programmes.
The Minuteman III, which has been in use since the 1970s, is the US military’s only land-based ICBM in service.
A total of 450 Minuteman III missiles, each capable of carrying three nuclear warheads, represent one part of the United States’ “nuclear triad” for strategic deterrence. The other two are its Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and missile-carrying long-range strategic bombers like the B-2.
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The silo-launch ICBM has a range of 9,700km when equipped with multiple independent re-entry warheads. Both Russia and northern parts of China would be in range if they were fired from bases in Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana, while China’s east coast would be in range if the missiles were fired from California across the Pacific.
Before this week, the last test launch of a Minuteman III was in September, also from California to the Marshall Islands.
Beijing-based military commentator Zhou Chenming said test launches of ICBMs and SLBMs were part of routine procedures to make sure the weapons were still functioning as they should.
The tests were also intended to “send a message of deterrence to other nuclear powers”, he said.
