National Interest

by James Holmes

    There is much we still do not know about the DF-27 missile—but it is worth examining the consequences for the US Navy if the Pentagon’s claims are taken at face value.

    All respect to my colleague and friend Professor Andrew Erickson, but China’s DF-27 antiship ballistic missile does not represent “a new form of naval force,” as he wrote in USNI News last month. It is intimately familiar and more ominous for all that. It represents the latest in a centuries-old form of naval force approaching its apex potential thanks to advances in sensor, computer and weapons technology backed by the willpower and resources of a prosperous, ambitious and increasingly domineering maritime power. Everything old is new again.

    That being the case, it’s worth looking back in time to peer through the sea of fog that obscures the future of martial affairs.

• What We Know About China’s DF-27 Missile

    Prompting Andrew’s commentary is the Pentagon’s recently-released annual report to Congress detailing Chinese military progress. The DF-27, the latest in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) family of precision, ultra-long-range munitions for pummeling enemy warships, has put in an appearance in the past few China reports. But past references have been vague and are even more so this time around. In this report, the missile appears precisely once, on a map depicting the ranges of various missiles fired from Chinese territory. (Scroll down to page 85.) The Pentagon’s new map matter-of-factly shows the DF-27, with an estimated upper range of 8,000 kilometers, or just under 5,000 statute miles, overshadowing much of the Indo-Pacific theater—including much of the US West Coast. Judging from the imagery, the US Third Fleet hub at San Diego appears to lie out of reach. But other critical Navy installations, such as Everett, Washington and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, lie well within DF-27 range, if the report has things right.

    Three quick observations. First, the report’s framers may be deliberately softpedaling the missile’s capability. Why they would do so is a mystery, but a few plausible candidate explanations come to mind. Politics is one. Of late the Trump administration has swerved toward nurturing more cordial relations with Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party leadership. That being the case, Washington may not want to draw attention to PLA weaponry apt to alarm the American populace, their elected representatives, or allies, partners and friends, lest the new charm offensive founder on the rocky crags of popular opinion. The White House’s wishes shape what the Pentagon, a political implement, does—including setting the tone for official reports pertaining to martial and diplomatic affairs.

• The Optimistic View

    From a military standpoint, the Pentagon may also see grounds for confidence despite the DF-27’s debut. For one thing, there is a difference between the maximum firing range of a weapon and its maximum effective firing range. (Trust me.) The former typically exceeds the latter, sometimes by a considerable margin. It may be that US intelligence analysts judge that the DF-27 could prove deadly to shipping closer to China, but far less effective at the outermost ranges portrayed on the Pentagon’s map. If so, US naval bases in the Eastern Pacific may not have come under serious direct threat as of yet. If that is the case, the defense establishment may have ruled the new antiship ballistic missile nettlesome but not—yet—a game-changing weapon worthy of sounding the alarm over.

    For another, China is not exempt from the laws of defense economics. Military budgets are not boundless, even for a command economy like China’s. A weapon able to strike at moving ships riding the waves many thousands of miles away does not come cheap—especially when married with the sensors, related hardware and software needed to close the kill chain across intercontinental distances. Even if the DF-27 did prove effective across its maximum firing range, chances are the PLA Rocket Force would not be able to afford rounds in sufficient volume to pose a forbidding threat in the Eastern Pacific or in other expanses remote from Chinese shores, such as the Indian Ocean. Batting down a few missiles—no matter how potent—might not defy US defensive capabilities.

    Recent history suggests that might be the case. Starting late in 2023, Houthi rocketeers lofted anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at US and allied ships cruising the Red Sea. Despite an alarming string of close calls, none ultimately struck home. The Red Sea campaign seemed to vindicate US defenses against missile and air attack. The US Navy’s missile-defense capability is only set to improve with the advent of such platforms as the latest “Flight III” Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer. Arleigh Burke destroyers (DDG-51) have spearheaded air and missile defense in the fleet since 1991 and have undergone step increases in capability—known as “flights”—since then. The Flight III DDG-51 sports the state-of-the-art SPY-6 radar, a sensor many times more powerful and sensitive than the SPY-1 series that has underwritten the Aegis combat system since the 1980s. This boost in performance should translate into new efficacy against aircraft, missiles and drones. If tacticians judge that new defensive systems can cope with a tactical environment in flux, strategic and political leaders may see little need to trumpet newfangled PLA armaments.

    That was the upbeat take.

• The Pessimistic View

    Second, let’s pivot and accentuate the negative. Despite my quibbles about terminology, Andrew is not hyping the threat. Even though it does not represent a new mode of naval warfare, an effective DF-27 could change the terms of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific.

    Think about it. In December 1941, the Kidō Butai, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft-carrier striking force, had to hazard a tortuous voyage across a storm-tossed Pacific Ocean to lash out at the US Pacific Fleet moored at Pearl Harbor. So distended were the Kidō Butai’s logistics that the force couldn’t sustain operations against the US fleet—its fuel supply in particular—long enough to put a lasting end to the American threat.

    But what if Japan’s navy had been able to attack Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, or the West Coast at the push of a button, without sending a ship to sea or a plane into the air  World War II would have taken a very different course if high-tech armaments had granted Tokyo time to accomplish its aims in China, Southeast Asia and perhaps beyond before the United States could summon the resolve and resources to intervene. We inhabit a brave new world if China’s PLA can stage a “Pearl Harbor” without incurring the logistical strains that bedeviled Japan’s navy in 1941.

    And third, there’s the middling case whereby China cannot land a knockout blow of Pearl Harbor magnitude against the US Navy and joint force in their home bases, but can nonetheless reach far out to sea to inflict damage on mobile US task forces. In this case, the DF-27 would only need an effective firing range around 5,000 kilometers (just over 3,000 statute miles), at the lower end of the Pentagon’s estimate. Such a weapon would produce a much-expanded version of the “fortress fleet” scenario sketched by Alfred Thayer Mahan in his commentary on the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Such a scenario would expand on what the People’s Liberation Army has pioneered with shorter-range DF-21D and DF-26 antiship ballistic missiles for years now. Beijing has harnessed fortress-fleet logic with zeal.

• Missiles Could Make a “Fortress-Fleet” Strategy Viable

    But back to history. Mahan was deeply critical of the Russian Navy’s habit of sheltering under the guns of Port Arthur, a critical battleground on the contested Liaotung Peninsula in north China, for protection against Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō’s well equipped, highly professional Imperial Japanese Navy Combined Fleet. The Russian fleet held its own, more or less, so long as it remained within reach of fire support from Port Arthur. The trouble was, that meant sticking close to shore. In those days, coastal gunnery could sweep only narrow sea areas clear of hostile fleets. Its effective firing range was too short to accomplish much. And the Russian fleet was woefully outmatched once out of range of the fort. As a result, the Imperial Japanese Navy ruled the sea beyond the minuscule geophysical space overshadowed by coastal gunnery.

    That was anathema for Mahan. The historian pronounced the Russian fortress-fleet strategy “radically erroneous” because a fleet thus confined could achieve little while huddling within reach of the fort’s cannons. Russian strategy reduced the fleet to a seaward appendage of the fortress. It was no longer a bluewater navy. For Mahan, blue-water navies were free-range navies, able to roam the high seas and vanquish likely foes without depending on firepower from land. A timid, defense-minded fortress fleet clinging to the coast for safety was just the opposite.

    Now, Mahan was not wrong. Far from it. His critique of the Russian fortress-fleet strategy was sound for 1904-1905, in his lifetime. But it was timebound and a function of technology. The decades following the Russo-Japanese War witnessed successive leaps in the range and precision of shore-based firepower. First came the debut of military aviation. Then followed the onset of the missile age.

    Now play what-if. What if the guns of Port Arthur had boasted range and precision sufficient to span the entire combat theater, pelting Japanese warships throughout the Yellow Sea, Tsushima Strait and Sea of Japan  That would have opened up vast operating grounds for a Russian fortress fleet to prowl while still tapping gunfire support from shore when need be. Not only would a fortress-fleet strategy have been a choice for Russia, it would have been the obvious choice—had technology permitted.

    After all, a fortress fleet relies on fire support from ashore—whether from an actual fortress or, today, from an airfield or mobile missile launcher—as its difference-maker against a stronger enemy force. It relies on support from land to offset weakness at sea. Is that such a disgrace  Of course not. Winning is what matters. Strategies of the weaker contestant make perfect sense if the state of military technology supports them. It matters little where a unit of combat power arrives from—ship, shore, air, or space—so long as a contender musters more combat power at the scene of battle at the time of battle. Ergo, savvy commanders deploy every weapon in their panoply to amass superior strength. Then they win.

• Bottom Line: The DF-27 Will Strengthen the PLAN

As the DF-27 and previous generations of antiship ballistic missiles attest, a latter-day fortress-fleet strategy would burnish the PLA Navy’s prospects in battle. These missiles are extended-range, precision-guided descendants of the guns of Port Arthur. It may well be that the PLA Navy remains inferior to the US Navy on a ship-for-ship, plane-for-plane, weapon-for-weapon basis. In fact, I believe that is true. But would the Chinese joint force—the massed PLA Navy fleet backed by the PLA Rocket Force and Air Force—be outmatched by the fraction of the US joint force likely to assemble at the decisive place and time, deep in the Western Pacific and far from North America

    That is another question entirely. Chinese strategists are betting the answer is No—and it’s hard to gainsay them.