US missiles fall short in long-range game with China

Asia Times

01-05-2025

The US is arming up for a Pacific missile race but China may already be playing on a larger board.
Last month, the US Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) unveiled legislation stating that the US Army will receive significant funding boosts for medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) programs under a new appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025.
The legislation allocates US$175 million to expand production capacity for next-generation US Army MRBMs, aiming to enhance output and strengthen supplier bases​. An additional $114 million is directed toward producing these next-generation systems, complementing the $300 million earmarked for the production of current Army MRBM platforms​.
Separately, $50 million has been set aside for the accelerated development of the US Army's next-generation medium-range anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM)​. The investments reflect a broad strategy to bolster the US Army's medium-range strike capabilities amid growing global missile threats.
Funding for these programs is part of a broader munitions and supply chain resiliency initiative. The targeted outlays underscore the US Department of Defense's (DOD) increasing prioritization of flexible, survivable missile systems capable of addressing emerging threats across multiple theaters.
Putting MRBM capabilities into perspective, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation describes the range of such weapons as falling between 1,000 and 3,000 kilometers, noting that these are 'theater-level' weapons.
Fielded in the Pacific, such a weapon would represent a significant leap in capability over existing US systems such as the Typhon and Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), which have ranges of about 500 to 2,000 kilometers for the former firing Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles, and 185 kilometers for the latter tactical anti-ship system.
Further, ballistic missiles may be much more effective against hardened targets, such as aircraft shelters and missile silos, as they travel at hypersonic speeds during their terminal phase, giving them tremendous kinetic energy that allows them to damage such targets or cause them to collapse.
Timothy Walton and Tom Shugart III mention in a January 2025 Hudson Institute report that since the early 2010s, China has doubled the number of its hardened aircraft shelters (HAS), of which it now has 3,000. Walton and Shugart say that China maintains 134 airbases within 1,800 kilometers of the Taiwan Strait, with 650 HAS and 2,000 non-hardened individual aircraft shelters (IAS).
Meanwhile, Newsweek reported in December 2024 that China has 368 known missile silos, with 30 silos in its central region, 18 in the south, 90 in the north and 230 in the west.
According to Ryan Snyder in a December 2024 article in the peer-reviewed Science & Global Security journal, those silos are estimated to be hardened to 1,500 pounds per square inch (psi), with older ones rated at 450 psi. Snyder says Chinese missile silos feature sophisticated shock isolation systems designed to attenuate horizontal missile movement within.
As for the advantages of ASBMs over other types of anti-ship missiles, Andrew Erickson mentions in the 2013 book 'Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) Development: Drivers, Trajectories, and Strategic Implications' that such weapons can bypass traditional carrier defenses by striking from above at high speeds, effectively removing the carrier's air group—the primary line of defense—from the defensive equation.
Erickson says this capability creates a severe targeting and interception challenge, as defending against missiles is inherently more difficult than defending against submarines or aircraft. He also notes that ASBMs exploit adversary naval vulnerabilities without requiring a direct match to those capabilities, offering potentially devastating, precise and hard-to-defend 'multi-axis' strikes.
Tying up these developments into a larger operational picture, Thomas Mahnken and others mention in a 2019 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) report that the US maritime pressure strategy aims to dissuade Chinese leaders from aggression in the Pacific.
The writers note the strategy entails establishing highly-survivable precision-strike networks in the First Island Chain spanning Japan's southern island of Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines, backed by naval, air, electronic warfare and other capabilities.
Mahnken and others say that these decentralized networks would function as an 'inside force' optimized to attack People's Liberation Army (PLA) forces from inside its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) bubble, while supported by 'outside forces' able to join the fight from further afield.
They note that land-based anti-ship, anti-air and electronic warfare units along the First Island Chain would serve as the backbone of the inside-out operational concept—both anchoring frontline defense and freeing up US ships and aircraft for higher-priority missions such as striking surveillance nodes, reinforcing gaps and exploiting opportunities created by ground-based strikes.
However, Grant Georgulis argues in a 2022 Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs article that the First Island Chain is neither a survivable nor a viable operating area due to Chinese military capabilities such as long-range bombers, cruise missiles and theater ballistic missiles.
Underscoring that threat, the US DOD 2024 China Military Power Report (CMPR) shows that the First and Second Island Chain spanning the Bonin Islands, Mariana Islands, Caroline Islands and Western New Guinea are entirely within the range of the PLA's long-range strike capabilities.
While Georgulis recommends strengthening the Second Island Chain, China has steadily expanded its regional influence, aiming to deny US access to potential island bases and emplace dual-use infrastructure to support power projection beyond the First Island Chain.
In line with that, Shijie Wang mentions in a March 2025 Jamestown Foundation article that China aims to overcome US-imposed containment in the Pacific, deepening ties with Pacific Island countries such as Nauru, Micronesia, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Samoa.
Wang says China's recently signed 'Deepening Blue Economy Cooperation' memorandum with the Cook Islands has raised concerns about the potential dual-use infrastructure that could offer logistical support for the PLA Navy (PLAN) and expand its presence in the Third Island Chain, which spans the Aleutian Islands, American Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii and New Zealand.
Underscoring China's increasing influence in the region, the Lowy Institute 2024 Pacific Aid Map mentions that while Australia remains the largest donor to Pacific Island countries, China has become the second-largest one, narrowly edging out the US while increasing its project commitments.
While the US's development of MRBMs signifies it is doubling down on military containment of China in the First Island Chain, considering China's long-range strike capabilities and increasing influence among Pacific Island nations, such military-centric views risk underestimating the broader geopolitical landscape and China's rising regional entrenchment.