China's acquisition of cruise-missile weapons systems from Russia poses a clear and present danger to U.S. naval forces—and to the American homeland as well
By Zoli Simon
Insight Magazine, 22 July 2002.
Here's a scenario: The rhetoric is heating up the Taiwan Strait as the People's Republic of China (PRC) accuses Taiwan of preparing to declare its independence. Analysts predict war. President George W. Bush dispatches two U.S. Navy carrier battle groups to the region in response to the crisis. The Chinese, just as they have been threatening in open publications of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), decide to go after the carriers, counting on delivering a devastating psychological blow. They initiate a saturation raid on the battle groups with cruise missiles launched from land, sea and the air--including the supersonic Russian-made Moskit, with a 120-kilometer (74-mile) range, and Yakhont, with a 300-kilometer (186-mile) range. Could the American fleet defend itself and survive? A top U.S. defense expert with naval experience has his doubts.
The effectiveness of the fleet's so-called "close-in" defenses against the Moskit and the Yakhont are "questionable," says the defense expert. All the more so since such missiles are capable of "endgame maneuvers" designed to thwart U.S. defenses.
Those trying to downplay the cruise-missile threat point to the option of pre-emption: taking out the cruise-missile platforms before they could launch their deadly payload. This would mean shooting down airborne jets, sinking the Sovremny-class destroyers that China bought from Russia and chasing road-mobile cruise-missile launchers across the Chinese mainland. Given that there was not one confirmed kill of such a platform during the Persian Gulf War, the latter is regarded by the Pentagon as the more difficult.
The expert notes that U.S. Los Angeles class attack submarines easily could take out the Sovremnys, and that it was a good idea for the Bush administration to allow the sale of less-advanced subs to Taiwan. As he adds, however, the problem with pre-emption is that "in a time period leading up to a crisis, Americans don't shoot first." He warns, "If [the enemy] throw[s] the first punch, that could be a roundhouse knockout. We would ultimately win, but it would hurt the battle group severely." As Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, pointed out, even if a cruise-missile attack scores only a "soft kill" such as fire on the flight deck of a U.S. carrier that might stop air operations for hours, that could be decisive in a battle situation.
According to a General Accounting Office (GAO) report on ship-based cruise-missile defenses: Although the Navy has made progress in improving surface ship self-defense capabilities, most ships continue to have only limited capabilities against cruise-missile threats." The report, issued at the end of the Clinton administration, says these self-defense capabilities will grow less effective with time as mid- and longer-term cruise-missile threats materialize.
What makes matters even worse, the GAO pointed out, is that "Research-and-development spending related to ship self-defense has declined about 9.4 percent over the last five years and is projected to decline more than 44 percent over the next six years."
Bill Triplett, a former aide to GOP Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Robert Bennett of Utah, is concerned about cruise-missile proliferation from China to rogue states such as Iran. Triplett tells INSIGHT the Clinton administration never enforced the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Act, even though one of its cosponsors in the Senate was vice president Al Gore. Triplett points out that China, meanwhile, has been selling air-, sea- and ground-launched cruise missiles to Iran.
Triplett's recommendations include going ahead with U.S. missile defense and "enforcing American law." As he puts it, the Bush administration should "look seriously at enforcing" the Gore/McCain sanctions.
It's not only the U.S. fleet that's at risk. According to defense expert Dennis Gormley in Senate testimony, "Even a large, bulky cruise missile like the Chinese Silkworm could readily fit inside a standard 12-meter (40-foot) shipping container equipped with a small internal erector for launching. Such a ship-launched cruise missile could be positioned just outside territorial waters to strike virtually any important capital or large industrial area anywhere on the globe. And, because a cruise missile is an ideal means for effectively delivering small but highly lethal quantities of a biological agent, a state or terrorist group could forgo acquiring or building a nuclear weapon without sacrificing the ability to cause catastrophic damage."
As for the threat faced by the fleet, Fisher warns about China's growing cruise-missile capabilities. As he points out, the Chinese air force's new strike aircraft (the Russian SU-30MKK and the Chinese Xian JH-7A) will by the end of this decade carry "long-range antiradar or antiship missiles, some of which will have supersonic speeds that can defeat U.S. close-in weapon systems." Also, the Chinese navy's new Russian Kilo-class submarines will be armed with Club antiship cruise missiles from Russia, at least one of which can be configured to attack targets on land. In addition, Fisher says, the Sovremny destroyers the PLA acquired from Russia carry the Moskit and Yakhont cruise missiles.
China is not the only problem. As Christopher Bolkcom from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has pointed out, "81 countries appear to have" cruise missiles from one source or another. Peter Huessy of the National Defense University Foundation sees proliferation of cruise missiles as "an attempt ... to stop the U.S. from defending its allies" by sending in the fleet.
According to a 1999 GAO report titled Cruise Missile Defense--Progress Made But Significant Challenges Remain, while an aircraft flying at 10,000 feet can be spotted by radar at a distance of 150 miles, a cruise missile can be detected only when it is 20 miles away. Even with the subsonic Exocet missile, British sailors in the Falklands War "saw it coming only four seconds before it hit" a 1993 Washington Post article pointed out. An earlier version of the Moskit (the SS-N-22 Sunburn) is four times faster than the Exocet, performs evasive S-turns and reportedly could defeat defensive U.S. electronic countermeasures, the Post noted.
While the SS-N-22 can be armed with a nuclear warhead, even when it is not, the energy of a supersonic cruise missile slamming into its target can be devastating. This missile, or one of its versions, has been sold by Russia to India, China and Iran, says CRS' Bolkcom.
According to Bolkcom, cruise missiles can be used to "level the playing field against more advanced militaries." They're cheaper than ballistic missiles, and even the older cruise missiles the rogue states tend to get "appear capable of attacking fixed-area targets from theater ranges. These include population centers, ports, airfields, military headquarters and logistics infrastructures."
Another problem is the necessity of distinguishing them from friendly aircraft, Bolkcom pointed out. Also, they are more survivable before launch than "manned aircraft and, perhaps, tactical ballistic missiles." They have "relatively benign infrastructure and handling requirements" compared to ballistic missiles, and it is not difficult to convert antiship cruise missiles into land-attack versions.
As a CRS report for Congress points out, the intelligence community estimates that by the end of the decade a cruise-missile attack on the American homeland might be possible. As Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, says, however, a cruise-missile attack on the American homeland could happen "at any time, even now." The same CRS report notes that all major cruise-missile components already can be purchased on the commercial market. This not only makes monitoring cruise-missile development next to impossible, it also makes getting cruise-missile technology cheaper for rogue states or terrorist groups.
The Missile Technology Control Regime and the Wassenaar Agreement have been ineffective in stopping cruise-missile proliferation, say defense experts. Currently, the Pentagon is working on better detection capabilities, integrating air- and missile-defense systems and providing a single air picture for warfighters. However, it will be some time before any full system is operational. According to defense expert Gormley, "Even a limited defense of the entire U.S. homeland against offshore cruise missiles would cost at least $30 billion to $40 billion." But a future cruise-missile defense system could build on such air/missile defense systems as THAAD, the Navy's Aegis and the multigenerational Patriot.
As the CRS report points out, "coordinating military and civilian airspace monitoring and control entities [North American Aerospace Defense Command and the Federal Aviation Administration, respectively] will likely be key" to successful cruise-missile defense of the homeland. Jamestown's Fisher suggests going ahead with rapidly deployable, compact, cruise-missile defenses, the most efficient of which in his view would be based on directed-energy technologies.
Citation: Zoli Simon. "PRC Arms Itself to Wage War on U.S.," Insight Magazine, 22 July 2002.
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