January 15, 2019

Ballistic and Cruise Missiles in East Asia-West Pacific Theater

Hi KQN

Following the latest article - looks like we're keeping this dialogue to ourselves, knowing that other potential commenters in the blogosphere don't want to be woken up during their Christmas snooze...:)

Re your January 14, 2019 comment "Ground launched MRBM and IRBM are of limited value to the US given the westernmost US territory is Guam, unless one counts some of the smaller islands. I do not see South Koreans nor Japanese ever agreeing to deployments on their soils."

1980s US/USSR/Euopean/UK MRBMs and IRBMs INF Treaty

The INF Treaty on short and intermediate range missiles was very much a Reagan US - Gorbachev USSR signed agreement, concentrating on ground launched missiles in Europe not Asia. This was within a huge political-public-strategic debate in NATO countries, on such missiles endangering citizens at nuclear blast ground zero in the USSR-European satellite countries-out to Britain. 

I experienced this debate as a university student living in London in 1981. "No Cruise" "Better Red than Dead" and Campaign for [Unilateral British] Nuclear Disarmament (CND) were the slogans of most thinking, humanist, UK students. 

For the more gullible UK students a quiet 1980s Russian agent of influence operation (eg) that Britain should Unilaterally Nuclear Disarm would be followed by a Russian moral realisation of niceness, ie: not to take advantage of the West's net weakening. 

I had a pretty good argument against the assumption Russia would be nice to the disarmed, but that is a future article. 

I unfortunately had to debate against nice students often, undercutting their arguments. Fellow students from India and Pakistan were very helpful as they were big supporters of nuclear weapons development to defend their own countries. Once the US won the Cold War in 1991 the students "Better Red Than Dead" slogan was proven misguided.

East Asia-Western Pacific MRBMs and IRBMs 2010s

So the 1980s INF was long before the 2010s development of mature Chinese MRBMs and IRBMs in East Asia and Western Pacific becoming an issue. In the 1980s (in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans) only the USSR and US had fully protected, mature IRBMs-ICBMs mainly mounted on SSBNs .

In the 2010s the US development of submarine launched missiles and B1, B2, F-22 and B-52s nuclear bombers means that ground launching from Guam or elsewhere is not a high priority for the US. Ground launching has all the public-host government shortcomings of whose ground?

I don't know the status of US and South Korea nuclear capable ATACM SRBMs in South Korea - see Reuters 2017?


September 2017 South Korea ballistic missile exercise - simulating attack on North Korea.
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For the time being the deterrent against Chinese and North Korean nuclear missiles is all US including, of course, Trident II SLBMs, but also the chances of again nuclear armed Tomahawk SLCMs. 

The advantage of US submarine mounted Tomahawk MRCMs (1,000-3,000 km) are that instead of the US having to build longer range cruise missiles and mounting them on land (eg. Guam) US SSNs and SSGNs can move in close just east of China's first island chain (or within it for firing) to hit Chinese and North Korean targets.

I see South Korea's Jang Bogo class 3,000 tonne submarines KSS-IIIs as only justifying their ballistic missile carrying main mission if the SRBM-MRBM missiles have nuclear warheads (also see). This is in the next 10 years or so. 

Meanwhile Japan is restricted by its pacifism and Australia to no-nuclear-apathy - just hoping Trump will sacrifice America for their countries in any standoff edging toward, major war, risking nuclear war.

Pete

9 comments:

  1. Taiwan (as well as Japan and South Korea) could produce nuclear weapons quickly if
    they chose to. If the U.S. presence in Asia does begin to wane, don't be surprised
    if it triggers nuclear proliferation in the region:

    "A secret program was revealed when Colonel Chang Hsien-yi, deputy director of nuclear
    research at INER, who was secretly working for the CIA, defected to the U.S. in
    December 1987 and produced a cache of incriminating documents. General Hau Pei-tsun
    claimed that scientists in Taiwan had already produced a controlled nuclear reaction.
    Under pressure from the U.S., the program was halted. A study into the secret program
    concluded that at the time of Chang's defection, Taiwan was one or two years away from
    being able to complete a nuclear bomb."

    See:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

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  2. "but also the chances of again nuclear armed Tomahawk SLCMs."

    One of the arguments against nuclear-armed tomahawks is their tendency to wander off
    course occasionally. No one wants to deal with a wandering nuke. Even if it doesn't
    detonate, there's no telling who might find/retrieve it:

    "During the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, approximately ten
    conventionally-armed Tomahawk missiles went astray, crashing in Turkey, Saudi Arabia
    and Iran. In response to the political fallout from these stray missiles, the Navy
    suspended launches of Tomahawk missiles from ships in the Mediterranean and Red Seas."


    "Navy officials are rightly concerned about the political consequences if a US
    nuclear weapon were to fall in a friendly country like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South
    Korea or Japan. The 1966 crash of a US B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons
    near Palomares, Spain – which strained relations with US allies and eventually
    resulted in changes to US Air Force operational practices – remains a potent
    memory."

    See:

    https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/202560/why-the-navy-should-retire-tlam-n/

    ReplyDelete
  3. In response to Anonymous 16/1/19 6:32 AM

    Not only that, few Tomahawks wandered off course and crashed in Pakistan in 1998. The Pakis generously handed over the missiles to the Chinese and reaped rewards when China helped them with the Babur and Ra'ad cruise missiles.

    China's CJ-10 LACM also benefited from the retrieved BGM-109s. This is the not the only time the US has been stupid enough to hand pakistan sensitive military tech (P-3Cs, F-16 Blk-52s etc.) with the Chinese enormously benefiting from being to 'study' and replicate.

    In principle, nuclear SLCMs are not a good bet imho.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Anonymous [at 16/1/19 6:22 AM]

    Yes Taiwan has intermittently developed parts of a nuclear capability for years. Taiwan's main problem is that China, on finding an almost mature capability, may pre-emptively invade or threaten overwhelming nuclear devastation of a level Taiwan couldn't much.

    South Korean development of a nuclear capability has also been documented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Previously_unreported_experiments.
    - Weapons grade HEU or Plutonium in sufficient quantity would be difficult to hide.
    - But Devices are easier (especially gun-type, not hot test required) With SKs peaceful nuclear experience SK would have little device problem.
    - Delivery system - ground and sea launched ballistic missiles are more openly in the works expecially on the 3,000 tonne, KSS-III Jang Bogo sub

    Japan also has a <2 years deliverable weapon capability. Japan has literally tonnes of Plutonium, oddly dormant reprocessing facilities, stocks tonnes of LEU, has tested the Epsilon rocket several times. Some Russian (read KGB) evidence of Japan's progress used to be on the Internet but I think its been removed.

    Australia and maybe Singapore also <2 years.

    South Korea tipping into actual nuclear capability will/may cascade into Japanese, Taiwanese (including belligerent China) and Aussie capabilities.

    All this could happen during Trump's second isolationist Administration.

    Regards

    Pete

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  5. Thanks Anonymous [at 16/1/19 6:32 AM]

    Up until your comment I didn't know the off-course-then-crashing Tomahawk problem was that major. The US mainly hid that problem.

    The US was certainly quick to itemise the Russian Kalibrs fired from the Caspian
    with 4 off-course crashing in Iran short of targets in Syria https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2015/10/russian-cruise-missile-fired-at-syrian.html

    A wayward nuclear armed cruise could of course be catastrophic.

    Also once even a small minority of cruise become nuclear armed (Pakistani Baburs?) then that becomes a suspicion about all cruise - risking an even quicker nuclear ballistic missile response from the targetted country or from that country's great power protector.

    Regards

    Pete

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  6. Hi GhalibKabir

    I think that 1998 event was Operation Infinite Reach when US Tomahawks were aimed at al-Qaeda bases in Khost, Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infinite_Reach

    Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infinite_Reach#Planning_the_strikes VERY DANGEROUSLY THE US RECOGNISED:

    "The missiles would pass into Pakistani airspace, overflying "a suspected Pakistani nuclear weapons site," according to [senior US General]

    "... U.S. officials feared Pakistan would mistake them for an INDIAN NUCLEAR ATTACK attack.[58] Clarke was concerned the Pakistanis would shoot down the cruise missiles or airplanes if they were not notified, but also feared the ISI would warn the Taliban or al-Qaeda if they were alerted.[59]

    In Islamabad on the evening of August 20, Ralston informed Pakistan Army Chief of Staff Jehangir Karamat of the incoming American strikes ten minutes before the missiles entered Pakistani airspace."

    These high level sensitive contacts may give a flavour of still unwritten aspects of who knew how much about bin Laden's years of de-facto imprisonment at Abbottabad...?

    I dare say the Russians also purchased from Pakistan an examination of the Tomahawks that crashed in Pakistan.

    Yes Kalibrs, Chinese cruise and Baburs all look like they owe much to the Tomahawk. And the Tomahawk's turbojet and guidance may be copied items that can't be seen.

    If Pakistan is nuclear arming its Baburs then as relatively inexperienced China begins to fight in South Asia a loose conventionally armed China fired cruise may be mistaken by India for a nuclear Babur.

    I'm guessing (hope) the US weighs up the political influence (and personal ties) that arms sold gives the US over Pakistan. The US doesn't want to give China a Carte blanche strategic alliance monopoly over Pakistan.

    Regards

    Pete

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  7. As a non nuclear aside, if the Tomahawks loose their way that often, does that give the French Naval SCALP missile a chance in relation to the new submarines & frigates / destroyers?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Anonymous [at 18/1/19 8:18 AM]

    On whether an unknown? percentage of Tomahawks losing their way gives the French Naval SCALP missile a chance in relation to the new submarines & frigates / destroyers?

    A. Have the SCALPs (same as Storm Shadow?) been used often enough in action to compare them with the 1,000s of Tomahawks successfully used?

    Noting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Shadow#History I see when "Italian aircraft had fired the missile in live combat, and it was reported the missile had a 97 per cent success rate." So 3% failed.

    B. What is the Tomahawk success rate?

    C. Do the European and Arab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Shadow#Operators countries using the SCALP/Storm Shadow transparently report when those missiles lose their way?

    Regards

    Pete

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  9. 16/1/19 5:10 PM

    Hi Pete, one hopes to providence that there is no second trump administration. one is punishment enough. what could be worse is that fundamentalist pestilence pence made POTUS.

    Also, I doubt if Japan, Aus. and Korea would go nuclear even under duress.

    16/1/19 6:14 PM

    The US has been worse than a gormless gargoyle when it comes to pakistan. The P-3C, F-16s, M-198 artillery etc.. all were studied in China and copied meticulously. The US spent 30 plus from the late 1980s onwards building in and hence building up China and now acts surprised it has new competition on the block having some serious capabilities...

    Lastly, I am afraid nuclear SLCMs are already a reality in South Asia with torpedo fired nuke SLCM solutions already available on pakistan's Agosta SSKs.

    Thanks to cultivated mass cretinry in a large segment of the global populace, we might face a rough time in the near future. the lack of critical thinking is proving lethal.

    ReplyDelete

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