CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Page 14

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA
Now one should try to simulate what could happen in a limited re-
gional confl ict. Let us conditionally recognize that for some reason the
situation is tense and the confl icting sides are concentrating forces. Jap-
anese, two Korean states’ forces are brought into combat readiness, Tai-
wan and China are making combat preparations and meanwhile, the US
aircraft carrier groupings are arriving in the region. One of the sides in
accordance with the degree of readiness will attempt to use force, trying
to rapidly administer a surprise strike. Having regard to American expe-
rience and quality of its forces, probably the US Navy joint formation
will be one to carry out attack fi rst; but conceiving of China as being able
to administer the fi rst strike. At its fi rst strikes China can launch at most
2000 anti-ship and anti-ground ballistic and cruise missiles. This is the
maximum that Chinese Armed Forces are able to do today. Having regard
to US electronic-warfare capabilities, as well as regional ballistic-missile
defense and naval AMD (Anti-Missile Defense) systems capacities, Chi-
nese missiles may not have so high effi ciency. Results at best might make
30-40%, which means loss of about a dozen ships, and around the same
number of ground targets taken out of the battle space. Each target is hit
by several missiles.
Naturally, the counter strike in the fi rst phase can be delivered even
minutes later, and about 4000 cruise missiles will be launched at a time
from all types of platforms; and as the Chinese targets will mainly be of
ground nature and most of them might give their positions away just after
the fi rst strikes, then American strikes will defi nitely produce greater ef-
fect. Certainly, Chinese EW and AMD systems will become operational
either, suppression systems will also be brought to bear on satellites, but
in this regard, American forces again have a higher level of performance,
as well as valuable expertise. For comparison, the U.S. currently has
more than 570 satellites in space, while the number of Chinese satellites
does not reach 190. 28
To our estimates, Chinese Air Forces and Navy have about 150 an-
ti-aircraft missile systems, which can be used as AMD systems. 29 These
systems are able to hit six targets at a time. In ideal conditions all of them
can hit up to 900 air targets at a time, but not cruise missiles; abilities to
hit the latter get limited, not including the impact of EW. So, even the
counter strike by the U.S. has greater chances to be more eff ective. Amer-
ican allies in the region have about 50 “Patriot” SAM systems; about 100
similar missiles American Forces can deploy to protect their land bases
28
29
“How many satellites are orbiting the Earth in 2016?,” Pixalytics, August 24, 2016, http://
www.pixalytics.com/sats-orbiting-earth-2016/ (accessed November 7, 2018).
The International Institute For Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2017, (London: Rout-
ledge, 2017), 250-258.
14