China’s new Jin-class ballistic missile submarine is noisier than the Russian Delta III-class submarines built more than 30 years ago, according to a report produced by the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).

[snip]

The ONI report concludes that the Jin SSBN with the JL-2 SLBM gives the PLA Navy its first credible second-strike nuclear capability. The authors must mean in principle, because in a war such noisy submarines would presumably be highly vulnerable to U.S. or Japanese anti-submarine warfare forces.

[snip]

That does raise an interesting question about the Chinese SSBN program: if Chinese leaders are so concerned about the vulnerability of their nuclear deterrent, why base a significant portion of it on a few noisy platforms and send them out to sea where they can be sunk by U.S. attack submarines in a war? And if Chinese planners know that the sea-based deterrent is much more vulnerable than its land-based deterrent, why do they waste money on the SSBN program?

The answer is probably a combination of national prestige and scenarios involving India or Russia that have less capable anti-submarine forces.

Beyond prestige and potential regional adversaries, we might also add “practice makes perfect.” As this year’s Chinese military power report noted:

…the PLA has only a limited capacity to communicate with submarines at sea and the PLA Navy has no experience in managing a SSBN fleet that performs strategic patrols.

[snip]

China operates a vibrant and globally competitive shipbuilding industry…Shipyard expansion and modernization have increased China’s shipbuilding capacity and capability, generating benefits for all types of military projects, including…submarines.

To improve its operational and industrial capacities and thus its overall naval power, China is building assets and then putting them in the drink. With no near-term prospect of its noisy Jin SSBNs coming under attack, China feels comfortable deploying them and gaining valuable information. Trial and error will probably prove more instructive at this juncture than a flurry of white papers.

This “fly while you buy” logic also undergirded the Bush administration’s decision to deploy ground-based midcourse missile defense (GMD) in Alaska and California before the system had demonstrated its readiness. Without getting too far into it, I don’t think Chinese SSBNs vs. U.S. GMD is an apples-to-apples comparison. For one thing, at least China knows that, generally speaking, submarines are operationally and technologically feasible. The same cannot confidently be said for GMD today.

Nukes on a Blog, China, Acquisition, Navy (all tags)

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