THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
Strategic challenges in the Indo Pacific Region
China’s counter measures against US Theatre Missile Defence by Debalina Ghoshal, Non Resident Fellow, Council on International Policy; Indian Correspondent of this magazine, Kolkata
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ualitative improvements in China’s nuclear forces are a result of its nuclear doctrine of ‘no first use’, coupled with a posture of ‘limited deterrence.’ The Russia-Ukraine war poses new security challenges to the global order making nuclear deterrence most vulnerable. In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, China took advantage of the international crisis that took two superpowers to the verge of nuclear brinkmanship. One of the major causes of the 1962 Indo-Chinese war was China’s confidence that the two superpowers, embroiled in a global crisis with potentially cataclysmic consequences, would not interfere.
India’s neutral stance towards Moscow India will therefore take developments in Ukraine very seriously and plan its defence modernisation programme accordingly. Missile defence modernisation will be an important step for India’s forces, which received their initial delivery of the Russian S-400 air and missile defence system in December 2021. Western countries have criticised New Delhi for maintaining a neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, but India has always been clear that it is unwilling to follow any sanctions other than those imposed by the United Nations. India observes that countries like Japan and Taiwan are also modernising their offensive and defensive capabilities. In 2022, Japan aspires to develop counter-strike capabilities.
Its missile defence system together with its advanced radar, like the ‘Aegis missile defence’, will be a concern for China as such radars will be capable of tracking China’s long range missile systems. Taiwan too is developing missiles that can reportedly attack enemy air bases and bring down cruise missiles.
Tussle for power in the Indo-Pacific region All these developments increase the scope for a power struggle in the Indo-Pacific region. This, coupled with the US Theatre Missile Defence (TMD), is major concern for China, which has time and again raised concerns over the US TMD, justifying its annoyance on the grounds that TMD jeopardises nuclear deterrence in the region. Unsurprisingly, China is therefore making efforts to modernise its nuclear forces to evade enemy defence systems, thereby enhancing the possibility of inflicting unacceptable damage on adversaries. In November 2021, the Pentagon reported that China “aims to modernise, diversify and expand its nuclear forces” in the next decade and further noted that China is “investing in, and expanding, the number of its land, sea and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces.” Thus, the modernisation of China’s nuclear forces to counter US ‘defence by denial’ is worth analysing, especially as it is a major component of China’s ‘Assassin’s Mace Strategy.’ The same Pentagon report suggests that China, despite its
defence “Missile modernisation will be an important step for India’s forces.”
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