Trevor wrote:
As for the DF-21D, we won't know for sure how effective it is until it's used on us, but at a minimum, we should be concerned about it, and not completely dismiss the threat. Just a few of them getting through would kill hundreds, maybe thousands.
A DF-21D war head would not only have to "get through" a defensive Anti Ballistic Missile system, but it would also have to have an extremely accurate terminal guidance system to actually hit a very fast moving and maneuvering ship.
The U.S. Military appears to be more concerned with the threat the DF-21D poses to stationary capital ships tied to a wharf, than they are with the threat of a ballistic missile attack on a very fast moving air craft carrier on the high seas, where such a ship is capable of extended high speed travel in any direction, or an attack on other ships capable of short periods of very fast speed in any direction. The theory here is that the ship would not be where the ballistic missile was launched toward by the time 15 to thirty minutes of ballistic ascent had been completed.
This appears to be what is behind the establishment of docking facilities at such places as North Western Australia, where payload of a ballistic missile is very limited, and the delay between launch and terminal descent of a ballistic missile launched from main land China is greater. All ballistic missiles have to travel up, high into outer space before dropping on their target and that takes time.
Both the DF-21D terminal guidance systems that China is planning on being able to make the DF-21D war head capable of hitting fast moving ships, and the launch detection and ballistic trajectory sensors that the U.S. is counting on to avoid ballistic missiles, are subject to destruction and jamming ( both optical jamming and other electromagnetic jamming ). It is important to note that all such sensors can be located on platforms other than in space. Drones, airplanes and ships may all support such sensors.
Then there is also the likely U.S. military planning assumption, based on a belief system held by many politicians in the west, that China would never use a very small, very light weight, tactical therm-o-nuclear war head to attack U.S. ships in port in a place like Australia or Hawaii, nor on the high seas.
Generally speaking, the best defense is a strong offense, so based on that, and given China is modernizing and testing their offensive weapons, and the United States has retired from active service it's most modern offensive systems ( such as the air launched advanced cruise missile and the ground launched advanced cruise missile ). It would appear that China, not the United States, is doing what is needed to win wars.
Russia, by contrast, has retained a massive inventory of tactical nuclear war heads which would likely deter China from using tactical nuclear weapons on Russian military forces.