OPINION — The Trump administration is using the Pentagon’s 2020 Annual Report to Congress on China’s military and security developments to spin its current campaign to make Beijing a greater national security threat to the U.S. than Russia.
Last week, I wrote about the White House trying to sell the idea that China is a greater actor than Russia when it comes to attempting to influence American voters in the 2020 election. That just is not true, but it fits the President’s election campaign anti-China rhetoric.
The release on September 1 of the annual China military report followed an August 26, speech in Honolulu by Defense Secretary Mark Esper. There, he said that China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) “continues to pursue an aggressive modernization plan to achieve a world class military by the middle of the century…[that] will undoubtedly embolden the PLA's provocative behavior in the South and East China seas and anywhere else the Chinese government has deemed critical to its interests.”
Guess what: The Pentagon report five days later claimed, “the PLA’s objective is to become a ‘world-class’ military by the end of 2049—a goal first announced by General Secretary Xi Jinping in 2017.”
While admitting the CCP has not defined what “world class” would mean, the Pentagon authors took the leap by saying, “within the context of the PRC’s national strategy it is likely that Beijing will seek to develop a military by mid-century that is equal to—or in some cases superior to—the U.S. military, or that of any other great power that the PRC views as a threat.”
One area that drew American media attention was the Pentagon report’s claim: “Over the next decade, China’s nuclear warhead stockpile—currently estimated to be in the low-200s—is projected to at least double in size as China expands and modernizes its nuclear forces.”
Set aside for a moment that if China could double its nuclear warhead stockpile in ten years to 400, that total would hardly compare with the nearly 1,550 strategic warheads the U.S. today has currently deployed worldwide, with several thousand more in storage.
I should also point out that according to the Pentagon report, “The number of warheads on land-based [Chinese] ICBMs capable of threatening the United States is expected to grow to roughly 200 in the next five years.” That fairly small number comes from another fact in the report: “China’s fixed ICBM arsenal consists of 100 ICBMs,” most of which are liquid-fueled and take time to prepare for firing. They do have some 25 or more road-mobile, solid-fueled CSS-10 class ICBMs that could reach most of the U.S.
Meanwhile, the U.S. today has 400 Minuteman IIIs ICBMs in silos and on alert, plus another 50 empty silos with intercontinental missiles in nearby storage. In addition, the U.S. has at least two Ohio class strategic submarines on station in the Pacific (of the 14 overall), each with 20 D-5 Trident II missiles that can carry five or more warheads. Don’t forget our 60 strategic nuclear-capable bombers.
China has only four currently operational strategic missile submarines with two more now being outfitted, according to the report.
Another new Chinese threat, according to the report, is that China “is pursuing a ‘nuclear triad,’” meaning adding an air-refuelable, strategic bomber [that could reach the U.S and return to China], plus a nuclear-capable, air-launched ballistic missile. Needless to say, the U.S. has had a strategic nuclear triad for the past 50 years.
The Pentagon report also “suggests” that China’s nuclear forces are moving from a “no first use” readiness state to what it describes as “a launch-on-warning posture with an expanded silo-based force.” By that logic, the U.S. silo-based, 24-hour-alert, 400 Minuteman III ICBMs represent a much greater “launch-on-warning” threat to China and any other U.S. competitor nation.
There are other claims made for the China threat that are worth questioning.
The report claims, “The PRC has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines including over 130 major surface combatants.”
Brookings Institute’s military expert, Michael E. O’Hanlon has written, “I have big issues with this simplistic [Pentagon report] argument…The United States has much larger and more sophisticated ships than China… America’s Navy remains way ahead in tonnage — still by a factor of at least two-to-one over China’s. It is ahead by at least ten-to-one in carrier-based airpower. It is way ahead, too, in the quality and quantity of long-range attack submarines.”
The Pentagon report says, “China views AI {Artificial Intelligence] as critical to its future military and industrial power,” adding, “China’s goals [are] using commercial and military entities to gain parity with the world leaders in AI by 2020, achieving major breakthroughs in AI by 2025, and establishing China as the global leader in AI by 2030.”
On September 9, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John E. Hyten, told a Joint Artificial Intelligence Symposium that China’s military recognizes that “artificial intelligence is a key piece, and they’re moving incredibly quickly… and they’re moving unbelievably fast.”
But he added, “I remember five years ago, people said by 2020, China would be ahead of us in artificial intelligence. I don’t think they are. I don’t think they’re ahead of us here in 2020.” He added that “what’s keeping our advantage,” was involvement with American industry along with foreign allies and partners.
The day after release of the Pentagon’s China report, Dr. Robert Soofer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy directed his initial focus on Russia’s nuclear activities, rather than China’s, while speaking during a September 2, webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
“Russia is racing to grow its tactical nuclear weapons. We're just starting to tie our sneakers to get into this race, right?,” Soofer said referring to Russia’s roughly 2,000 non-strategic nuclear weapons where Moscow has a great advantage in numbers.
He said it was Russia’s “non-strategic nuclear weapons, or we call these unconstrained nuclear weapons, unconstrained by New START [the 2010 strategic arms control treaty]… that's the problem that we face and that — that — this is what kept us awake at night when we conducted the [2018] Nuclear Posture Review.”
“When it comes to strategic forces, there is no arms race; there's only recapitalization on both sides,” Soofer said. “Russia is racing to grow its tactical nuclear weapons.”
Soofer said “We're going to be unveiling the — the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, which is our response to — to Russia's tactical nuclear weapons.” He then added, “We don't need to match them weapon for weapon, but we do need to be able to — to give the president and our regional combatant commanders another option to address these Russian capabilities.”
Soofer, too, however, played the China card. He over did it saying China is “closing the gap with both Russia and the United States,” which is far from the case.
But he then made a remark that could be seen as threatening a new arms race.
“As they [China] increase their nuclear capabilities, we [the U.S.] will have to respond. If we respond, it's going to impact our relationship, our nuclear balance with Russia, and this is where you could actually see an arms race being precipitated by the growth of Chinese forces,” Soofer said.
It’s that kind of thinking that lays behind the Trump administration’s current position on extension of the New START treaty that runs out next February. The current U.S. position, as described by Soofer during the September 2 webinar, calls for constraining non-strategic nuclear weapons for short-range and medium-range systems; bringing China into future arms control agreements; and strengthening verification mechanisms under the current treaty.
That’s an ambitious agenda for American and Russian negotiators with a deadline that is little more than four-and-a–half months away — and the U.S. presidential election standing right in the middle of that time frame.
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