The strategic confrontation between the United States and China is also taking place on the technology front. Beijing's introduction of new weapons potentially reduces or even completely negates the leadership of the American aircraft carriers. This leadership was established at the end of World War II as a weapon system allowing global world control.
Alarm at the Pentagon. Admiral Robert Willard, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, has officially announced the new threat from China. In his speech to Congress on March 23 this year, he expressed concern over the fact that China is developing and testing a medium-range ballistic homing missile with a non-nuclear warhead ASBM (Attack Ballistic Missile) specifically designed to strike US aircraft carriers.
The radius of action is 2 thousand kilometers. It seems to be about version D of the Dong Feng-21 ballistic missile, which has a range of up to 2000 kilometers, which is enough to control the waters of the South China Sea, which, in principle, could become a theater of operations between Washington and Beijing, especially in the event of a conflict over control of Taiwan.
US Navy in the Asian Pacific. US aircraft carriers have so far constituted the most important strategic barrier against Chinese threats to Taipei and against the expansion of waters controlled by China, which has transformed its fleet from coastal to ocean-going in recent years. Increasingly, Chinese ships are approaching Japanese shores and reaching the Indian Ocean using the bases provided by Burma. And a new submarine base, built on the island of Hainan, which is being watched from a distance by American spy ships, has led to an arms race at sea in all Southeast Asian countries.
Beijing is thinking about aircraft carriers. China intends to have aircraft carriers in the future and has been studying the ship of this type "Varyag", acquired in Russia, for many years. But for many years to come, Beijing will not be able to withstand American superiority at sea. The United States has 11 aircraft carriers with a total displacement of 100 thousand tons, five of them are in the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the creation of ballistic missiles against ships equipped with conventional warheads of high explosive power instead of nuclear ones, undermines the existing balance of power, and in the future will reduce the importance of aircraft carriers.
Advanced technologies of China. According to Andrea Thani, who wrote a paper on the topic for the Defense Analysis web magazine, the Chinese have installed autopilot systems on Dong Feng D missiles that can hit moving targets, such as aircraft carriers, whose detection is guaranteed by surveillance satellites and coastal radars. which is very large. They already exist in the Chinese coastal zone. “Today there are already 38 of them, and in 2014 there will be 65, 11 of which will be used at sea. On March 5, three Yaogan IX satellites were launched from the Zhuchuan test site, which are directly related to the ASBM program. They seem to be an exact copy of the American White Cloud NOSS satellites, and perhaps they are. The satellites are equipped with general-purpose radars and infrared sensors for detecting ships, as well as electronic devices for intercepting and analyzing signals coming from them in order to more accurately determine their coordinates,”writes Tani.
Superfast rockets. The high speed of the missiles, 8 times the speed of sound, makes it difficult to intercept air and missile defense systems of aircraft carriers and their escort, and the launch of a large number of shells can block the defense system. An aircraft carrier hit by one or two ballistic missiles may not sink, but it will certainly lose its combat effectiveness. It would be premature to assess the real operational qualities of ASBM missiles, but the very news of their development confirms the seriousness of Beijing's strategic challenge. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Washington to maintain its military superiority in the world, let alone the risk of these technologies falling into the possession of other ballistic missile states such as Iran and North Korea.
