This came to a head last week when two arms-control advocacy groups together issued a 250-page report whose purpose in large part was to unmask these supposed shenanigans. “Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning,” by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in my opinion gives the impression of there being hard proof supporting the China Myth. But the China Myth itself is a myth; China is truly dangerous.

The most egregious aspect of the FAS/NRDC report is how it impugns the Department of Defense and all its minions, the U.S. intelligence community at large, lawmakers, the shipbuilding industry, think tanks, other private institutions, and even “certain news organizations” (page 199). It’s as if the FAS and NRDC are trying to create a monopoly for themselves on China-related defense commentary. They also continually castigate those multiple named or unnamed offending parties for having in the past repeatedly underestimated the timing by which China would achieve military technology development benchmarks. I feel the need to point out that this is part and parcel of defense work anywhere. The U.S. military-industrial complex has frequently missed deadlines by years –- but the majority of those new weapon systems eventually come on line, doing what they’re meant to do and reasonably satisfying most end users.

Some of the validity of the report starts to fall apart early, in the press release, which may be as far as many readers get. The press release, like the report, states that People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) sub patrols have declined from single digits at the turn of this century to zero in 2005. The recent Song/Kitty Hawk encounter is described as “the first reported Chinese submarine patrol in nearly two years.” The key word here is “reported.” This decline in patrols is apparent, not real; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence -- nor are American submariners and antisubmarine specialists publicly telling everything they know. The report itself (page 92) also erroneously downplays the strategic significance of a Ming-class diesel boat’s undetected outbound penetration of the First Island Chain in 2003. What’s actually happening, according to numerous reliable sources, is that China’s submarine force is gaining fast in practical experience, stealth, and seagoing professionalism. The Ming and Song could never have done what they did unless the PLAN conducts a classified but active program of constant training and forward deployment of a significant portion of their subs and crews.

The report also makes a mistake, I believe, by focusing on a static snapshot of what’s implicitly described as China’s only strategic nuclear deterrent sub, a Xia-class SSBN dating back to the early 1980s. Virtually ignored is the future impact of the much newer Type 094 SSBN submarines, whose rapid follow-on to the Type 093 fast-attack SSNs impressed U.S. intelligence services, by their own admission. Worse, the very existence of the 093s caught our intel experts by surprise. To me, claims that anybody is exaggerating the pace and potential of China’s progress on the submarine front seem to fly in the face of reality.

Another factual blooper occurs when the report downplays the significance of China’s move to next-generation ICBMs that are road mobile. The statement is made that “the majority of China’s ballistic missile force always has been mobile.” The problem here is that the FAS and NRDC miss or gloss over the distinction between conventional (high explosive) ballistic missiles and missiles tipped with hydrogen bombs. Yes, the majority of China’s ballistic missiles, which are conventionally armed, have been road mobile for years. (This includes, among others, a lot of the 800 or so positioned near the Chinese coast across the strait from Taiwan.) But only recently has China moved toward road-mobile thermonuclear ICBMs. Up to now, China’s ICBMs have been silo based, making them comparatively easy to target. Road mobile ICBMs are the natural next phase toward a survivable second-strike nuclear force, a step on a path where the ultimate goal -- in any country -- is quiet SSBNs with mechanically reliable submerged-launch missiles. Road mobile ICBMs can be tracked by space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR), but those SAR birds are vulnerable. (See more below.)

Any strike needs missiles that can reach whatever they’re aimed at. To say that China’s latest land-based ICBM design, the DF-31A, which has the intended range to hit anywhere in the U.S., has not yet had any test flights begs the question in two ways. The DF-31A is a variant on the proven shorter range DF-31, and test flights of the DF-31A are surely on China’s schedule –- maybe for after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Meanwhile, China’s commercial satellite launching industry continues to thrive, and her manned space exploration efforts advance in undeniable leaps and bounds. It’s a mistake to think that China is badly behind the curve in rocket science.

A systematic weakness throughout the whole FAS/NRDC report is its emphasis on first-strike capabilities; it’s not news that such a strike by either nation would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in the other. Anyone who’s studied Henry Kissinger and Herman Kahn and Barry Posner, for instance, would understand that deterrence depends on having an indestructable second strike always held in reserve. Yet on this essential topic the report is almost entirely mute.

Let’s step back and look at everything from a broader perspective. First, I urge those who need convincing that the future military threat from China is not just a Pentagon-fomented daydream to study two serious academic monographs, rife with footnotes to primary references and both with non-Americo-centric views. One was written by a Brit and the other by an Aussie, Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era by Christopher R. Hughes and China’s Rising Sea Power: the PLA Navy’s Submarine Challenge by Peter Howarth. Published in 2006, they’re up-to-date and timely.

Second, let’s talk more about subs, satellites, and nuclear weapons. China has made no secret of her constant investment in offensive cyber-warfare, an element of information warfare. Beijing recognizes that a crucial potential weakness in U.S. network-centric warfare doctrine is the integrity of the data involved and also the security of the hardware and software infrastructure needed to gather, interpret, and promulgate real-time battlespace knowledge. Beijing also knows that the American military, for its network-centric force coordination (including look-down synthetic aperture radar mentioned above), is heavily dependent on platforms based in space. So China is giving a priority to anti-satellite weaponry. Here’s where things get interesting, and scary.

Actual tests around 1960, and theoretical research in recent years, have shown that the most terrible weapon for fighting information warfare and anti-satellite warfare simultaneously is a high-altitude nuclear explosion. (For more information on this, search Scientific American magazine’s Internet archives.) Were China to set off a single nuclear weapon in outer space above the mid Pacific Ocean, three things would happen. Instantly, all unshielded electronic circuitry, even if turned off, would be fried by a gigantic electromagnetic pulse in a “pancake” footprint below the explosion, a thousand or more miles across; unless meticulously and constantly maintained, which is a matter open to question upon the high seas in dirty weather, even the best milspec shields would be penetrated. Only submerged submarines, whether nuclear powered or diesel, would be safe. Next, all radio communications in the pancake zone would be blanked out for some 8 to 24 hours. Then, satellites would be bathed in extremely damaging radiation that would persist for many months in an Earth-enveloping and rather wide orbital band. Military satellites might survive, but only if they shut down into a dormant safe-mode for a lengthy period, rendering them operationally useless.

Launching an ICBM and detonating its warhead in outer space, as a “non-lethal” EMP generator above the Pacific, would be awfully risky because the launch signature could be mistaken for a first strike against the U.S. homeland, inviting massive nuclear retaliation. More shrewd would be to smuggle a nuclear weapon into space disguised as one of the PRC’s frequent launches of satellites. (That this violates international treaties doesn’t mean Beijing wouldn’t do it.) The nuke could then be set off at the appropriate place and time, as part of the dreaded “Pearl Harbor in space” that could open outright conflict for hegemony. It would be problematic for the U.S. to launch any sort of retaliatory nuclear strike against China after such a surprise info-warfare attack –- discussion board fans of the macho “glassing China” approach left aside. With neither Beijing nor Washington being run by madmen, or so we hope, a conventional war could be fought beneath an unused umbrella of thermonuclear mutually assured destruction. And us having to fight a big war is already a form of defeat: We got dragged into World War II because our conventional deterrence failed, and that victory cost 400,000+ American lives.

An EMP over the Pacific would cripple coordinated action by U.S. surface and airborne forces. Old-fashioned ionosphere bounce radio would be the emergency fallback, iffy due to prolonged atmospheric disruption, and subject to direction finding, triangulating of source transmitter, and attack. The only energy still fully useable for stealthy theater weapons targeting would be undersea noise propogation –- sonar. Out in blue water, big surface ships can be detected by submerged submarines, immune to the EMP, via deep sound channel effects at ranges of a hundred-plus miles. One does have to wonder if this is one motivation for China building such a sub-heavy New Fleet.

The FAS/NRDC report’s conclusion that China’s military buildup is being forced by a corresponding American buildup, making it seem as if it’s somehow all our fault, is reasoning founded on quicksand. America’s sub fleet and its supporting industrial base are being allowed to dwindle to irrecoverably inadequate size through overly stingy Congressional budgets. There’s a de facto freeze on fresh approaches to nuclear weaponry R&D, too, and the existing inventory of warheads is gradually being drawn down.

Cash-rich China, using homegrown expertise and engineering help from Russia, meanwhile is hell-bent on acquiring a submarine force intended to be able to overwhelm ours around 2030ish. Here again the FAS and NRDC stumble, by arbitarily truncating the report’s timeframe at 2015 -- before PRC build rates will ramp up, before Los Angeles-class SSNs start retiring in droves due to age, and when the build rate of the new Virginias will rise to two a year if we’re lucky. The report writers additionally appear to be unaware of for-the-record comments made by active duty admirals at the Naval War College’s June 2005 Current Strategy Forum, predating Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation articles from early ’06 that the FAS/NRDC report unwarrantedly attacks (pages 77 and 78).

The impending PLAN force of some 180 submarines (on a horizon when our in commission subs will have declined toward barely 40) is much too big to be dismissed as a mere fleet-in-being, or white elephant trophy of global prestige. Common sense should be enough to make anyone grasp that those undersea warships are meant to be used, as soft power or as hard power, depending on which way volatile politics and geopolitics evolve. If China feels she has no choice, she’ll definitely fight, but China would prefer not to fight to achieve her eventual aim as preeminent superpower. To instead surround us from every dimension and side, make a cold war or hot war unwinnable by a shrunken American military, foment the China Myth in order to weaken our strength and resolve, and let the War on Terror wear us down and divide us by proxy, each fits neatly with directives of that classical genius Sun Tsu.

While suggesting mutual disarmament talks is noble, and trying to seek a defense partnership is wise, lack of transparency is a deep seated cultural imperative of China’s self governance. That’s a given which America has to somehow cope with, like it or not. It behooves us to debunk the China Myth of guaranteed PRC benign aspirations. Today’s Navy boot camp recruits and ensigns will be tomorrow’s master chiefs and flag officers, who’ll have to sustain world order and peace; the same thing goes for the other, “purple,” joint branches of America’s armed services. We should fund stronger conventional forces, not because some imagined Beltway Bandits and so-called hypsters want us to, but because all of us mustn’t deny the tools that the next generation of combat leaders will need to do their duty protecting us, our children, and our children’s children.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com