U.S. Ends Cold War Missile Treaty, With Aim of Countering China

U.S. officials say that the treaty tied their hands on China and that Russia was not complying with it.
By David E. Sanger and Edward Wong

Military vehicles carrying ballistic missiles through Tiananmen Square during a military parade in Beijing in 2015. The first deployments of new American missiles would likely be intended to counter China.

WASHINGTON — The United States on Friday terminated a major treaty of the Cold War, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement, and it is already planning to start testing a new class of missiles later this summer.
But the new missiles are unlikely to be deployed to counter the treaty’s other nuclear power, Russia, which the United States has said for years was in violation of the accord. 

Instead, the first deployments are intended to counter China, which has amassed an imposing missile arsenal and is now seen as a much more formidable strategic rival than Russia.
The moves by Washington have elicited concern that the United States may be on the precipice of a new arms race, especially because the one major remaining arms control treaty with Russia, a far larger one called New START, appears on life support, unlikely to be renewed when it expires in less than two years.
At a moment when the potential for nuclear confrontations with North Korea and Iran is rising, the American decision to abandon the 32-year-old treaty has prompted new worries in China.

The resurgence of nuclear geopolitics was evident in the Democratic debate on Tuesday night, when presidential hopefuls grappled with whether the United States should renounce “first use” of nuclear weapons in any future conflict.

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On Feb 2nd, 2019 the U.S. gave Russia six months to return to compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Russia refused, so the treaty ends today. The U.S. will not remain party to a treaty when others violate it. Russia bears sole responsibility.
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Barack Obama considered terminating the treaty when Moscow was first accused of violating its terms. 

On Thursday, just as his aides were confirming the American withdrawal and blaming Russia for the breakdown, President Trump told reporters that Russia “would like to do something on a nuclear treaty” and added later, “So would I.” 

But he appeared to be discussing a broader treaty that would involve China — which has said it has no intention of negotiating a limit on its arsenal.
In fact, the administration has argued that China is one reason Mr. Trump decided to exit the I.N.F. treaty. 

Most experts now assess that China has the most advanced conventional missile arsenal in the world, based throughout the mainland. 

When the treaty went into effect in 1987, China’s missile fleet was judged so rudimentary that it was not even a consideration.
Today hundreds of missiles in southeast China are within range of Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island supported by the United States. 

Missiles at other sites can hit Japan and India, and there are Chinese missiles that can strike the United States territory of Guam and other potential targets in what American strategists call the second-island chain.
“Unilateral constraint was a losing proposition: China developed the world’s foremost force of missiles precisely within the ranges that I.N.F. would prohibit,” said Andrew Erickson, a professor of strategy at the United States Naval War College. 

“So this increasingly antiquated treaty had no future.”
Until now, the Trump administration has held off on testing new missiles that would violate the treaty; under its terms, even testing is prohibited. 

But that stricture lifts on Friday, and the first test of new American intermediate-range missiles is likely to begin within weeks, according to American officials familiar with the Pentagon’s plans.
The first, perhaps as early as this month, is expected to be a test of a version of a common, sea-launched cruise missile, the Tomahawk. 

It would be modified to be fired from the ground. (The treaty prohibited intermediate-range ground-launched missiles, but not missiles launched from ships or airplanes.) 

If successful, officials say, the first ground-launched cruise missiles could be deployed within 18 months or so — if the United States can find a country willing to house them.
That would be followed by a test of a new mobile, ground-launched ballistic missile with a range of 1,800 to 2,500 miles, before the end of the year. 

But that would be an entirely new missile, and it is not likely to be deployed for another five years or so — meaning the very end of the Trump presidency, if he is re-elected.
But the question is where to deploy them. 

“I don’t think the Europeans want to host them,” Gary Samore, the director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and the chief nuclear strategist at the National Security Council under Obama, said on Thursday. 

In Asia, he noted, the two countries where it would make most sense to deploy the missiles would be Japan and South Korea, though any move to put the missiles there could infuriate China.
“The real question is where and whether or not there would be pushback,” said Bonnie S. Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“The most obvious place is someplace in Japan.”
Mr. Samore noted that the fate of New START, which governs the strategic weapons the United States and Russia have deployed, “is much more important than I.N.F.” 

Senior military officials agree, but have added that once the I.N.F. treaty dies, it is hard to imagine a negotiation to renew New START, which expires in February 2021, right after the next presidential inauguration.
Even if it is renewed, Mr. Samore noted that in coming years, the source of strategic instability may not come just from nuclear weapons but also “from space weapons, artificial intelligence and cyber — and there we have no restraints.”
But it is China’s rocket forces that have focused the attention of the Pentagon and the Trump administration. 

In 2017, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., then the head of United States Pacific Command, said in congressional testimony that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force controls the “largest and most diverse missile force in the world, with an inventory of more than 2,000 ballistic and cruise missiles.” 

He pointed out that the United States capability lagged because of its adherence to the treaty with Russia, and that if China were a signatory, 95 percent of its missiles would be in violation.
But deploying a counterforce to Taiwan would be too provocative, officials say, and Japan may have hesitations: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would have to consider the blow that would result to relations between Beijing and Tokyo, which have been improving.
China’s fury at deployment of American ground-based missiles in an Asian nation probably would be even greater than its reaction in 2016 and 2017 to plans to install an American antimissile system in South Korea.
For more than a year after the announcement of the deployment, Beijing denounced the move and called for a wide boycott of products from South Korea, whose companies then suffered. 

The Americans began deploying the system, commonly known as THAAD, in March 2017, and Beijing did not relent on its actions against South Korea until that October. 

Communist Party leaders feared the United States was laying the groundwork for an expansive antimissile system across Asia.
Chinese officials have also balked at any attempt to limit their missiles with a new treaty, arguing that the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia are much larger and deadlier.
“The Trump idea of a trilateral arms control agreement is not realistic,” Mr. Samore said. 

“The Chinese are not going to codify an inferior number of weapons compared to the United States and Russia. And Russia and the U.S. won’t give China equal status.”

Sina Delenda Est

NEW CHINESE MISSILES COULD ATTACK U.S. MILITARY BASES OR JAPAN
BY ROBERT VALENCIA

The Chinese military has recently tested short- and medium-range missiles that could put a U.S. military base or Japan in harm’s way, according to local reports.
The People’s Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of China’s armed forces, revealed images and footage of missiles that appeared to be either DF-11 or DF-16, which could travel between 373 and nearly 625 miles. 

Although it did not specifically mention where or when the test was conducted, the publication pointed out that it was carried out in several locations, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday.

Unveiled during a military parade in 2015, the DF-16 could be as accurate as a cruise missile and is capable of carrying up to three nuclear warheads, Sputnik cited Chinese military observers. 

This type of arsenal can target Taiwan and the U.S. Marine Corps Base on Okinawa, as well as Japanese islands and the Philippines. 

The tests could prove even more challenging for Taiwan, following recent comments from Li Kexin, a top Chinese diplomat to the U.S., who said that China could activate the Anti-Secession Law if U.S. naval ships were deployed to the Taiwan Strait.
Military vehicles carrying missiles drive past the Tiananmen Gate during a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two on September 3, 2015 in Beijing, China.

Last week, Xi Jinping urged troops to be “always ready to fight” as the country continues to make strides in developing military technology.
“In the past, we had more spirit than steel. Now we have plenty of equipment, so we need an even tougher and stronger spirit to wield it,” Xi told soldiers.
A recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that China has one of the most active ballistic missile development programs across the globe, and it continues to upgrade its force. 
“Short and medium-range cruise and ballistic missiles form a critical part of its regional anti-access and area denial efforts,” the report reads.

Some of China's most powerful missiles include the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile—also known as the “Guam Killer” due to its capability of striking the U.S. territory from mainland China—and the DF-17 hypersonic ballistic missile, which can travel nearly 870 miles and is designed to fly fast and slow to avoid being detected.
China is considered a nuclear power and has the third most powerful army in the world, according to the Global Firepower Index.

"More missiles were needed to counter China's strategy"

McCain proposes $7.5 billion of new U.S. military funding for Asia-Pacific
By David Brunnstrom

Committee chairman U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivers an opening statement as retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Mattis sits before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to serve as defense secretary in Washington, U.S. January 12, 2017.

WASHINGTON -- The head of the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee, John McCain, has proposed $7.5 billion of new military funding for U.S. forces and their allies in the Asia-Pacific, where tensions have been rising over China's territorial ambitions.
The funds, $1.5 billion a year for five years to 2022, could be used to boost U.S. munitions stocks in the region, build new military infrastructure, such as runways, and to help allies and partner countries increase their capabilities, an aide to McCain and a U.S. military official said.
The funding proposal was contained in a White Paper issued by McCain last week entitled "Restoring American Power." 

His committee is expected to discuss it at a budget hearing on Tuesday.
“Senator McCain believes the United States must sustain its enduring commitment to the security and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region," a spokesman for McCain, Dustin Walker, said.
"The Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative ... would ... make U.S. regional posture more forward-learning, flexible, resilient, and formidable," he said. 

"These funds would boost operational military construction, increase munitions procurement, enhance capacity building with allies and partners, and expand military exercises and other training activities.”
An official in the administration of new U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office on Friday, said he believed McCain's proposal was "very much in general alignment with the administration's goals in the region."
Trump has vowed to take a tougher line with China and to build up the U.S. military, although it is unclear whether he will succeed in lifting caps on defense spending that have been part of "sequestration" legislation.
A U.S. military official, who did not want to be identified, said the funds could go to construct new military runways in countries such as Australia and the Philippines and to make up a shortfall of munitions that the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, complained of last year.
"There's a shortfall in the total number of munitions and also a quality gap," the official said, adding that more sophisticated missiles were needed in the region to counter China's "anti-access, area-denial" strategy.
On Monday, the new U.S. administration vowed to prevent Beijing from taking over territory in international waters in the South China Sea, something Chinese state media has warned would require Washington to "wage war."