The Chengdu J-20
The unveiling of the Chengdu J-20 has certainly provoked alarmist rhetoric is all the expected quarters. Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, for instance, writes of "shades of 1939" (predictably, in a piece for FOX News).
For the moment, though, set aside the dubiousness of Tom Clancy fantasies about high-tech, big power war (which I must admit I regard as extremely unlikely for now), without which the plane would not get so much attention. Set aside the questions about the J-20's real purpose, whether the rather large plane (the design of which appears to emphasize fuel capacity and payload) is not intended as a strike aircraft instead of a fighter--a replacement for the JH-7, for instance, rather than a match for the latest American fighters--or even, as, Lewis Page suggests in what is by far the most well-grounded assessment I have seen so far, a "demonstration/propaganda/industrial-subsidy project."1 Set aside also the fact that the plane's first test flight simply puts it where the U.S. was in 1990 with the F-22 program (twenty years ago), the unavoidable uncertainty about if and when the aircraft will actually go into production, and in what quantity (defense hawks being all too quick to forget that it's not just the Pentagon which has to cope with delays, cost overruns and underperforming, buggy hardware in its procurement programs).2
Instead consider the realities involved in building and operating a functioning air force, which involve much more than producing a prototype of a fighter aircraft, or even a couple of hundred of them. The makeup of China's overall air force is at issue, and the gap in capability between the U.S. and China remains wide today. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines collectively possess some 3,000 fighter planes today, compared with roughly 1,800 for the China's People's Liberation Army Air Force and Navy Air Force. Additionally, the U.S. fighter inventory consists entirely of fourth-generation or later aircraft (principally late-model F-15s, F-16s and F-18s, plus nearly 200 F-22s), whereas only 500 or so of China's inventory (very late-model J-8s, J-10s and J-11s) are comparable in capability, so that a 1.6-to-1 advantage in overall numbers becomes a 6-to-1 advantage in this key area. The U.S. armed forces also have a massive advantage in support assets, from tankers to command and control aircraft, greatly enhancing their other numerical and qualitative advantages.
It will be a long time before China can close that broader gap, with or without the J-20, especially as the U.S.'s fighter forces are themselves being modernized, with Super Hornets and F-35s replacing the earlier F-16s, F-18s and AV-8 Harriers.3 Indeed, it may be that the gap in numbers will increase in the U.S.'s favor as China continues to slough off vast quantities of older aircraft in favor of a smaller number of up-to-date models.
It is also simplistic to imagine such a war as a series of fighter duels. As David Axe notes in the Wired Danger Room,
in a major shooting war, the Navy and Air Force wouldn’t wait for J-20s or other Chinese fighters to even take off. Cruise-missile-armed submarines and bombers would pound Chinese airfields; the Air Forces would take down Chinese satellites and thus blind PLAAF planners; American cyberattackers could disable Beijing’s command networks.In the air, the planes would also be vulnerable to surface-to-air defenses on land, or aboard U.S. warships.
Finally, Chinese capabilities of all kinds are that much less overwhelming when the regional distribution of power is considered. Russia and India (with their own fifth-generation aircraft undergoing flight testing), as well as South Korea, and Taiwan and Japan offshore, all have their own, quite substantial air forces (and armies and navies as well). No matter how aggressive one is in their projections, no serious conflict scenario can overlook this fact, and taken with the others it is a reminder that while China is modernizing its armed forces, and developing new capabilities commensurate with its greater wealth, and its perceived requirements, a revolution in the military balance of power in the region is not at hand today, or even likely to be in the next decade--even if one takes the most alarmist claims made for the J-20 at face value.
NOTES
1. Making the opposite argument, Dr. Carlo Koop and Peter Goon of the Air Power Australia think tank, in acknowledging the plane's size and configuration, suggest in their analysis that it is a
a long range interceptor for anti-access operations in the Second Island Chain geography . . . with the capability to penetrate an opposing IADS to destroy assets like E-3 AWACS, RC-135V/W Rivet Joint, other ISR systems, and importantly, Air Force and Navy tankers,crippling U.S. Air Force or Navy operations within this area, and insist that the idea
that an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter or F/A-18E/F Super Hornet will be capable of competing against this Chengdu design in air combat, let alone penetrate airspace defended by this fighter . . . [is] simply absurd.It might be noted, however, that the two functions are not mutually exclusive. The F-111 program was originally intended to produce both the well-known strike aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, the F-111A, and a long-range carrier-based interceptor, the F-111B, for the U.S. Navy (which is comparable in its weight and its internal storage of weapons to the J-20). Of course, the F-111B eventually proved unsatisfactory and its niche was filled by the lighter F-14 Tomcat, a reminder of the difficulties involved in reconciling such missions in a single airframe. (More success has been attained by building an effective air-superiority fighter, which is then used as the base for a strike fighter, as with the F-15E Strike Eagle.)
2. It is worth noting, among other points, that China appears dependent on imported Russian engines to power the large, high-performance aircraft. Lewis Page has also raised questions (quite well-grounded in the available evidence) about the plane's stealthiness, maneuverability (due to its size, probable weight and lack of thrust-vectoring nozzles) and avionics (specifically the chances of the plane getting a Low Probability of Intercept radar) in comparison with the fifth-generation F-22.
3. The F-35 program is troubled, suffering from cost overruns and delays, but not dead. Additionally, while it is plausible that the U.S.'s economic woes and budgetary difficulties will undermine the acquisitions process such as to diminish its lead, it is far from clear that this would go far enough to make a fundamental difference in the picture described above (especially given the relationship between American consumption, investment and solvency, and Chinese prosperity).
The ASBM
Besides the J-20, the story which has attracted the most attention in the last couple of years has been the country's program to develop Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles, which have reportedly attained operational status.
As Andrew S. Erickson and David D. Yang note in their excellent article in the Naval War College Review, the paucity of actual detail about the system, and the vagueness of the literature, have resulted in an avalanche of conflicting speculations, but little real clarity. Still, there are grounds for reasonable guesses about some things. First and foremost, China's ASBM would appear to be a relatively cheap way of achieving sea denial, compared with the country's building the kind of navy it (and just about everyone else excepting the United States) cannot and will not build any time soon. This would be consistent with China's apparent focus on the acquisition of systems for neutralizing capabilities the country may deem threatening rather than on the acquisition of the muscle for long-range actions of its own (a capability China is clearly developing at a much more careful rate).
As might be guessed, technical feasibility's a much grayer area. Still, it's clear that building a working system of the kind described is a tall order. Implicit in such claims is China's possession of surveillance and communications capabilities advanced and robust enough to, under combat conditions, reliably locate a warship and call in timely, accurate fire on it. (This kind of thing goes off without a hitch in Tom Clancy novels, but the reality is much different, though China has reportedly made great strides in this area during the last decade.) That, in turn, would be meaningless without Chinese industry's resolving the problems in making the missile capable of tracking and maneuvering in response to a moving target in the course of its flight--the larger challenge, as it would involve a new technology nothing short of revolutionary. Ballistic missiles historically have been used to hit stationary targets, not moving ones, and an aircraft carrier can move a distance measurable in miles inside the missile's likely flight time. The intrinsic difficulty of developing an effective system of this kind aside, the fact remains that new weapons systems tend to have long teething processes, as the history of combat aircraft makes clear, and it is worth noting that the system has yet to actually be "test-fired over water at maneuvering targets."
Assuming China has succeeded in overcoming all this, actual use of the ASBM entails an additional, political problem, the same one facing American plans to use conventionally-armed ballistic missiles for quick strikes--the launches may be susceptible to misinterpretation as a different kind of strike, with potentially strategic consequences. (It is worth remembering that the 1995 Black Brant scare was started by the launch of a comparatively innocent weather rocket.) That by itself may inhibit their use in a crisis situation, as might the fact that the use of ballistic missiles by one great power against another (something that has not happened since Germany's V-2 attacks against Britain in World War II, a situation not at all comparable) would be worrisomely unprecedented. At the very least, the threat to use such missiles would increase the possibility of strikes against launch sites inside the Chinese mainland, escalating any crisis situation.
These technical and political complications do not make the existence of such a system impossible, and it should be conceded that even a system that's only partly functional would be a factor in any U.S. calculations (for instance, regarding the placement of its carrier groups in a repeat of the 1996 crisis over Taiwan). Still, they also suggest a strong likelihood the weapon is too problematic for China to get much use out of it, and perhaps simply a stopgap solution to the acquisition of a more robust conventional capability. Despite the highly publicized appearance of the J-20 fighter this month, and new talk about a carrier program, it remains to be seen that this will materialize anytime soon.
China as Global Military Power
Alongside its economic profile, China's military profile has also risen in recent years. Besides the modernization of the country's large armed forces (highlighted by the ASBM and J-20 programs, and renewed talk about a Chinese carrier), the country has engaged in strategic sales of arms (for instance, to Iran and Sudan), and even sent troops abroad on unprecedented missions, as in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's Peace Mission 2007 exercise (which saw Chinese troops training in the Urals in 2007), and more recently, the dispatch of warships to East Africa to fight pirates.
Some may take this as indicating China will be a global military power before long. Yet, it is not enough to have a large, modern army, navy and air force, or even to be capable of supplying arms and expertise to distant friends and send small forces briefly abroad on occasion. Rather a portfolio of very diverse, specific assets is required, namely:
* A blue-water navy (including sufficient auxiliary ships to sustain long-range operations, and aircraft carriers and amphibious assault vessels capable of projecting force landward from the sea).
* A long-range air force (including long-range bombers, and aerial refueling tankers, in quantities adequate to support major operations).
* Access to bases around the world capable of accommodating substantial air, land and sea forces engaged in actual combat operations for extended periods of time. Ideally some of these would host "forward-deployed" combat and support forces capable of not just providing a presence, but enabling a rapid response to crises.
* Sealift and airlift assets capable of swiftly moving large ground and air forces (think divisions rather than brigades, wings rather than squadrons) outside its region, and sustaining them in place for an extended period (years rather than months).
* The command, control, communications and intelligence infrastructure to manage large ground, air and sea forces engaged in operations anywhere in the world.
China is today in only the earliest phases of developing such assets. The Chinese navy's first carrier is still years away, and as the situation stands, the auxiliary ships simply aren't there. Its air force has only a small fleet of strategic airlifters--its planned fleet of fifty or so Ilyushin-76 transports perhaps half complete now--and its bomber and tanker fleets (the latter quite small, a mere ten aircraft) consist solely of H-6s--China's version of the '50s-era Tupolev-16.1 Despite much speculation about China's presence in Myanmar from the 1990s on, and more recently mention of a possible Chinese base in the Gulf of Aden, the country lacks even a single overseas base. And so on and so forth.
Relatively little attention is paid to most of these items, which tend to be dull and unglamorous and of little interest to superficial observers. (Lumbering transport planes are less exciting than sleek new fighters, auxilliary ships not as cool as destroyers bristling with weaponry.) Nonetheless, acquiring them will not be cheap or quick, the same reason that the European Union (which collectively possesses far vaster resources and more modern and diverse capabilities, by any measure) remains a long way from being in such a position.2
There is the fact of China's geopolitical position to think of as well. While the U.S. is in a relatively secure position in its hemisphere, with virtually no direct threat to its territory from neighboring conventional forces, China is a large power surrounded by many other large powers (e.g. Russia, India, Japan). Along with the issue of Taiwan (so long as relations between the two governments entail military confrontation), this is unavoidably a factor in its military posture, and its freedom to both invest in long-range capabilities, and send large forces far from home. Combined with its economic position (large in the aggregate, but far less impressive when considered in per-capita terms), the likelihood of a shift in its economic strategy bound to have some impact on its expansion, and the prioritization of growth over military acquisition, serious observers are far more likely to think 2050 than 2015 when thinking of a date at which China might be a world-class power in these key respects.
NOTES
1. The U.S. Air Force, by contrast, has nearly three hundred C-5s and C-17s for long-range transport, over 200 B-1s, B-2s and B-52 serving in the long-range bomber role, and over 500 KC-10s and KC-135s in its tanker fleet--a significant difference in not only the quantity of the aircraft assigned to each mission, but the quality of the aircraft as well.
2. It is noteworthy, for instance, that EU members Britain and France both possess numerous bases around the world capable of facilitating global operations, while Britain, France, Italy and Spain all operate aircraft carriers.
China's Sub Fleet
Five years ago, one forecast had China amassing a submarine force of as many as 180 boats by the mid-2020s – enabling it to outnumber the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force by five to one according to a widely cited estimate published by John Tkacik. Developing such a force in this time frame required China to add six subs a year to their fleet, above replacement level – and virtually the whole current fleet would have to be replaced, given that the bulk of it is comprised by obsolete, aged Romeo, Ming and Han-class boats sure to be past their useful life by then.
In short, China would have had to launch eight boats every year for almost two decades to reach a force size of 180 subs. Such a rate of peacetime production seemed very unlikely to me. On the contrary, China's modernization of its modern forces has tended to produce smaller (though more up-to-date) forces.
A new analysis by David Axe in The Diplomat indicates that this is exactly what has happened. In the 2007-2010 period, China added a mere six subs to its fleet, a small fraction of the frantic rate of production needed to realize the higher estimates. As a result, China has some sixty submarines in 2011, its size remaining well below the aggressive estimates offered by analysts hyping the "China" threat (though modern Song and Kilo-class boats have replaced many of the older vessels in that time). It also seems likely that this force will shrink in the coming years, with Russia less willing to sell additional submarines (projections based on the Chinese Kilo purchase, in fact, seems to have contributed significantly to the overestimates of China's sub force increases).
Moreover, it is worth noting that boat-counting has its limits. There are significant differences between the relative handful of nuclear boats China seems likely to possess, and the diesel boats that seem likely to continue to comprise much of the country's fleet. The most important are submerged range and speed. The Kilo-class sub can sail six thousand miles while snorkeling at a speed of seven knots, while fully submerged, it can only do four hundred miles while crawling along at three knots (in comparison with a nuclear-powered Los Angeles-class submarine, which can sustain twenty knots while submerged, over a range limited only by the endurance of the crew).The upshot is that in today's threat environment, conventional submarines can be very effective in a coastal defense role, but are rather less suited to the kind of long-range operations undertaken by "blue-water" naval powers than the nuclear-powered vessels that make up the whole of the U.S. Navy's force. Additionally, as Axe notes, a straight comparison between the U.S. and China is simplistic given – as so many continually forget – China is itself surrounded by other countries with considerable naval establishments, and submarine forces, of their own, including Russia, Japan, India and South Korea.
The result, as Axe notes, is that "China isn’t building a world-class, globally-deploying submarine force. It’s building a mostly defensive, regional undersea force – and a smaller one than once predicted."
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