China and U.S. Missile Defense

[Hafizzz]

The following question is the converse of the implications of a "PLA missile defense system." What about the American missile defense system? The points raised apply equally to the PLA missile defense system.

Should China worry about U.S. National Missile Defense (i.e. NMD)?

1) Firstly, NMD doesn't work. There was a recent test failure (see Despite Failed Test, Missile Defense Program Must Continue | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.).

2) Secondly, there is no way of knowing whether the entire system will work during an actual war. There is no real confidence in the NMD system because you can't conduct a real test of hundreds of incoming MIRVed missiles that release thousands of nuclear warheads.

3) Thirdly, if you detonate a nuclear weapon high above the atmosphere, it will create an EMP to permit the penetration of follow-up attack missiles.

4) Fourthly, China can use nuclear IRBMs to wipe out the American interceptor base in Alaska. Once the NMD missile base has been destroyed, the shield is gone.

5) Fifthly, unless the American interceptors can destroy the incoming missiles in the boost or mid-course phase, no current technology can stop incoming nuclear warheads traveling at Mach 10.

6) Sixthly, MIRVed ICBMs will overwhelm any realistic NMD. For example, twenty ICBMs with 10 MIRVs = 200 warheads. The defender is at a severe disadvantage. The attacker can always build more cheaper MIRVed ICBMs than the defender can build an interceptor rocket for each incoming warhead.

7) Seventhly, China is building her own NMD. You have a shield. I have a shield. Now, we're even.

"China advancing laser weapons program
Technology equals or surpasses U.S. capability
Posted: November 22, 1999
1:00 am Eastern

By Jon E. Dougherty
? 2010 WorldNetDaily.com

Not only is the Chinese military advancing rapidly in the field of anti-satellite, anti-missile laser weapon technology, but its technology equals or surpasses U.S. laser weapons capabilities currently under development, informed sources have told WorldNetDaily.

According to Mark Stokes, a military author specializing in Chinese weapons development, Beijing's efforts to harness laser weapons technology began in the 1960s, under a program called Project 640-3, sanctioned by Chairman Mao Zedong. The Chinese, he said, renamed the project the "863 Program" in 1979, after a Chinese researcher named Sun Wanlin convinced the Central Military Commission "to maintain the pace and even raise the priority of laser development" in 1979.

Today, Beijing's effort to develop laser technology encompasses over "10,000 personnel -- including 3,000 engineers in 300 scientific research organizations -- with nearly 40 percent of China's laser research and development (R & D) devoted to military applications," Stokes wrote in an analytical paper provided to WorldNetDaily.

China's "DEW (Directed Energy Weapons) research (is) part of a larger class of weapons known to the Chinese as 'new concept weapons' (xin gainian wuqi), which include high power lasers, high power microwaves, railguns, coil guns, (and) particle beam weapons," Stokes said. "The two most important organizations involved in R&D of DEW are the China Academy of Sciences and the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND)."

To underscore Beijing's fixation with laser weaponry, the Hong Kong Standard reported Nov. 15 that the Chinese have developed a laser-based anti-missile, anti-satellite system.

"China's system shoots a laser beam that destroys the [guidance systems] and causes the projectile to fall harmlessly to the ground," the paper said.

The report also noted that Beijing had "conducted tests of its new technology since August 1999," and said the system was 'similar to the laser defense system technology being developed by the U.S. Air Force.'"