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Carrier killer missile
The US has often used the superior firepower of its carriers against weak countries — for example, during operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). But China is not Iraq.
In August 2020, a day after an American U-2 spy plane allegedly entered a no-fly zone in SCS, Beijing fired the DF-21’s ‘carrier killer’ version DF-21D and the DF-26 as warnings to USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan and Guam, respectively.
CSIS’s Missile Defence Project estimates DF-21D’s range at 1,450 km-1,550 km. China tested the missile against a ship target which was roughly the same size as a contemporary US aircraft carrier. The DF-26 too has a ‘carrier killer’ version called the DF-26B.
“We know that China has the most advanced ballistic missile force in the world,” James Fanell, a retired US Navy captain and former senior intelligence officer with the US Pacific Fleet, told Reuters in 2019. “They have the capacity to overwhelm the defensive systems we are pursuing.”
Warning the US about sending an aircraft carrier to Chinese waters, Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, recently told CNN, “The US better be careful thinking about in any kind of war environment sending carrier battle groups close to China.” Besides, only around half of the US carriers are combat-ready at any one time.
Massive missile gap
The massive gap between the Chinese and the American missile arsenals, especially the range factor, was the reason then-US president Donald Trump pulled out from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia in 2019. The pact had banned nuclear and non-nuclear missiles with ranges of 500-5,500 km in 1987.
While the treaty bound the US, China accelerated the production of missiles with frightening ranges keeping in mind any future challenge posed by American aircraft carriers in the Indo-Pacific. In the last few decades, some Chinese anti-ship missiles outrange the jets on US carriers.
There is a considerable gap even between Chinese and US missiles that aren’t in the INF Treaty’s range restriction. Beijing has two supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles YJ-12 (400 km) and YJ-18 (540) km compared to the US Harpoon, which has a maximum range of only about 240 km.
“That is a very big gap. China’s anti-ship missile capability exceeds those of the United States in terms of range, speed and sensor performance,” Robert Haddick, visiting senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Arlington, Virginia, and former US Marine Corps officer, told the Reuters in 2019.
Chinese aircraft carriers and attack submarines are strategically positioned to strike US bases in SCS. The Northern Theatre Command Navy has one aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered attack submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines. The Southern Theatre Command Navy has one aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines.