Last August, China made objects in low space orbit glide to earth at supersonic speed. The US, taken by surprise, stated that it was an experiment in launching nuclear warheads placed in low orbit and destined to glide to hit targets on earth, maneuvered by retro rockets. China has denied this interpretation, stating that they were experiments – carried out as part of its civil space program – of recovering objects launched into space, in order to be able to recover and reuse them.
Doubts about the nature and purpose of the two experiments, which involved the heavy launchers “Long March-9”, remain. Despite the denials, the Pentagon thinks they are part of the major modernization of China’s nuclear arsenal. According to the US, Beijing would increase the number of its nuclear warheads from the current 250 to 700 by 2027 and 1,000 by 2030.
It would also improve the quality of the carriers: liquid fuel intercontinental missiles (ICBMs) would be completely replaced by solid fuel ones. ; they would then be protected from a surprise attack, placing them in armored silos, already under construction: the nuclear “triad” would finally be fully activated (missiles launched from the ground and by submarines and bombers).
Some believe that, once the program is complete, China will abandon the declaratory strategy based on the “minimum nuclear deterrent” and the “no first use”, decided in 1964, after the explosion of the first Chinese nuclear bomb.
It will have a nuclear deterrent based on a sure ability of “second strike”, therefore of credible deterrence towards the USA, even after having suffered a surprise attack (First Strike). It will be able to guarantee a “nuclear umbrella” to aggressive conventional operations, in Taiwan or in the South China Sea, making US intervention less likely, which Xi Jinping considers in inevitable decline.
Of the 250 warheads currently in China’s possession, about a hundred – including ICBMs and missiles aboard the Jin-class submarines – are capable of hitting the USA, after having overcome the anti-missile defenses of Alaska and California. The “minimum deterrent” is far from safe. With the current program it will become. Chinese modernization affects both the quantity of warheads and the quality of their carriers.
Incidentally, the number of strategic titles of both the US and Russia will remain fixed at 1,550, as required by the New START Treaty, which expires in 2026, even if the number of titles of each – including sub-strategic ones, those in storage and those awaiting demolition – exceeds 6,000 for each. This disparity in the number of warheads has been used by Beijing to reject any nuclear weapons control negotiations. However, China will not be able to acquire a first strike capability, that is, to destroy the American or Russian deterrent with a surprise attack.
Concern for China’s space-borne nuclear weapons experiments however remains, if only because they demonstrate the high technological level reached by China. This prompted the gen.Mark Milley , CJCS, to affirm that the US is facing a new “Sputnik moment”, that is the fear of being overtaken by China, as had happened in the late 1950s, when, after the launch of Sputnik, it believed it was been overtaken by the USSR. The claim seems exaggerated. Perhaps it was motivated by the request for more defense funds. It is also exaggerated because the one used by the Chinese is not a new technology. It had been developed by Moscow in the 1960s.
The unjustified fear of gliding bombs will in any case accelerate Washington’s grandiose nuclear modernization plan (1.2 – 1.8 trillion dollars in thirty years), decided by Barack Obamaafter having predicted, in Prague in 2009, a world free from nuclear power, a fact that made him award, among general applause, the Nobel Peace Prize. He will then make any negotiations on Control, Limitation and Reduction of nuclear weapons, both offensive and, above all, defensive, more difficult. The Arms Control of the Cold War will definitely enter into crisis. The US withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002 and from that on intermediate weapons or Euromissiles in 2018 (with a range from 500 to 5,500 km).
The technology used by the USSR was called FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardament System). The “fractional” was added to formally respect, while in reality it violated the Space Treaty which prohibits its militarization, especially the placing of nuclear weapons in orbit. The Kremlin claimed that its weapon orbits were not complete, which does not appear to be valid for Chinese experiments. However, Moscow set up 18 launch pads of FOBS systems in the Baikonur cosmodrome. They became operational in 1969 and were withdrawn in 1983, when the US Safegard anti-missile system, banned by SALT II, ​​was dismantled.
The advantages of deploying nuclear weapons in orbit and making them glide to hit land targets, consist, above all, in the fact that they allow to neutralize anti-missile defenses for three reasons. Meanwhile, the warning times of an attack are much shorter than with ICBMs.
Then, the gliding warheads are more maneuverable in all directions than those of missiles. Lastly, especially in the case of China, they allow the US to be hit from the South Pole, avoiding the anti-missile defenses of Alaska and California (which have cost as much as $ 70 billion so far). The US should build others in Australia and Colombia, with very reduced reliability, due to the aforementioned maneuverability of gliding bombs. The latter, on the other hand, require launchers of greater power and have a lower level of accuracy for the same payload (it seems that in the Chinese experiments, the materials recovered from space have missed their targets for 40 km).
In conclusion, the possible introduction of FOBS in nuclear arsenals will not produce significant changes in the power relations between the great powers. It is not in a position to destabilize the dissuasive systems in place. In this regard, it would have a lesser impact than that of conventional hyper-fast and cybernetic weapons.
