In the sensitive news of the past few days, the United States has deployed a new land-based missile launch system in the Philippines. The system, known as the Typhon Weapons System, is a medium-range missile launch system. The main armament of the system at this stage is Tomahawk cruise missiles and Standard-6 anti-aircraft missiles
The United States deployed the missile system in the Philippines through its participation in the two-week joint exercise Salaknib 24. The move also fulfills the long-standing U.S. plan to deploy intermediate-range missiles in the first island chain to counter and suppress China.
This is a medium-range missile system deployed by the United States in the first island chain, and it may be deployed in South Korea, the Ryukyus, Japan and other places in the future.
The deployment of intermediate-range missile systems in the Philippines is a breakthrough for the US military, but it is a new threat to China.
The move by the US military has brought about several issues.
First, for the US military, of course, this is to deter China through the deployment of the intermediate-range missile system. But how effective can this be?
Second, China is a real medium-range ballistic missile power in the world, how will China counter the US military's move?
Third, does this mean that tensions in the South China Sea and the western Pacific have increased, and the chances of military conflict between China and the United States have increased?
1 The United States withdraws from the INF Treaty
In 2019, the Trump administration announced its withdrawal from the INF Treaty, which was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987. The treaty stipulates that the United States and the Soviet Union must completely destroy their intermediate-range missiles, as well as their launchers and auxiliary facilities. The United States and the Soviet Union are also not allowed to produce or test medium-range missiles in the future.
The U.S. narrative is that Russia has been violating the treaty, so there is no need for the U.S. to comply with it.
At the same time, the United States has also involved China, and Trump has called for arms control talks between China, the United States and Russia. On the one hand, the United States and Russia are restricted by the INF Treaty from producing or testing intermediate-range missiles, and therefore cannot (effectively) develop intermediate-range ballistics, with the exception of cruise missiles launched by the United States from ships. Second, since 2000, China's missile technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, and it has become the world's de facto largest medium-range missile power.
The reason why the United States withdrew from the INF Treaty was ostensibly aimed at Russia, but its real purpose was to deal with China.
The United States wants to deal with Russia, with South Korea and Japan to the east of Russia and NATO on the European continent to the west of Russia, and nuclear weapons aside, the United States has an advantage over Russia on both sides. NATO countries in Europe have direct land borders with Russia, and the United States does not have to worry about suppressing Russia's bargaining chips and armaments.
However, unlike China, most of the Southeast Asian countries bordering China on land south stand on a neutral standpoint, and their military strength is not strong. If the United States wants to deal with China, it has to use the island chain to contain China, from the South China Sea and the East China Sea to the Philippine Sea and the Sea of Japan.
However, as China's naval and air forces grow, the U.S. military deployment in these island chains lacks sufficient strength to pose a threat to China.
Does the United States want to suppress China just by relying on the F-22 and F-35 short-legged fighters? The F-16 fighters have a shorter combat radius of only 546 km.
These short-legged fighters can fight a dozen Chinese fighters in the first or second island chain, but they cannot threaten China's coast. If the U.S. military wants to have a certain deterrent force against China, it must deploy medium-range missiles in these island chains.
Of course, the US military can also rely on its powerful aircraft carrier fleet and use carrier-based aircraft on aircraft carriers to deter China. But for the same reason, whether it is the F-35 or the F-18 Hornet carrier-based aircraft, they are short-legged and cannot threaten the Chinese mainland.
What's more, China has anti-ship ballistic missiles that strike aircraft carriers, and US aircraft carriers entering the first and second island chains may be killed.
Therefore, the United States is trying by all means to find a medium-range missile base in the first island chain, which can launch missiles of more than 1,000 kilometers ~ 2,000 kilometers on China's land.
The United States has always been obsessed with and superstitious about military power, and will inevitably look for medium-range missile bases as much as possible.
However, the US-Russia INF Treaty limits US development in the field of intermediate-range missiles, so the United States needs to withdraw from this treaty. It was only when the US side made a nice remark at the time of withdrawal, blaming Russia for its frequent violations of the INF Treaty, that the United States withdrew.
In fact, as early as the time of former US President Barack Obama, we had already seen the power of China's medium-range missiles. China demonstrated in 2015 the Dongfeng-21-D and Dongfeng-26 medium-range ballistic missiles, which are anti-ship missiles that can attack land and large warships at sea.
The United States itself knows that it is lagging behind China in medium-range missile technology, so the United States wants to resume the development of medium-range missile technology on the one hand, and on the other hand, it wants to look for medium-range missile bases in the Asia-Pacific region.
It's just that at that time, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, allies of the United States, were unwilling to wade into this troubled water and did not agree to the United States' request.
Now that we have finally come across this Philippine President Marcos Jr., Marcos Jr., who is being held in the hands of the United States, the United States has finally seized this opportunity, and of course it has to actively operate and deploy medium-range missiles in the Philippines.
2 China is the world's largest medium-sized country
The point is, how much of a deterrent can the US intermediate-range missile base in the Philippines play?
Not to mention intercontinental missiles, China is the world's largest medium-range missile power, surpassing Russia and the United States. This is no exaggeration, not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quality.
China has many types of medium-range missiles, but only the two medium-range missiles, the Dongfeng-21-D and Dongfeng-26, will take a while for the United States to catch up. Not to mention that China also has the DF-17, YJ-21, and the DF-27 hypersonic missile revealed by the US military itself.
To put it mildly, the United States does not even have hypersonic missiles, so it wants to deploy medium-range missiles to deter China? To put it bluntly, this is a failure of the United States and a failure to do its own power.
However, this time, the US side took advantage of the deployment site, because the INF base is in the Philippines, not in the United States. China has suffered in this regard.
If there is a real conflict between China and the United States, China will definitely strike at the US missile base in the Philippines, and it is the Philippines that is unlucky at this time. The United States has a completely beggar-thy-neighbor mentality.
Next, the Chinese side should pay attention to see if the United States will deploy medium-range missiles in Japan and South Korea.
3 U.S. Distributed Operations
The deployment of medium-range missiles by the US military in the Philippines is also the practice of distributed operations of the US military in recent years.
The so-called distributed operations are to disperse combat weapons and troops, and through operational intelligence and coordination, it is hoped that each will give full play to its maximum combat power and exert greater striking firepower.
In addition, the U.S. military also expects distributed operations to reduce the risk of intensive attacks by the adversary and avoid being annihilated by the enemy in one fell swoop.
Do you remember what we said after the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in October 2023?
Whether it is a general battle in the air or on the ground, it is necessary to take advantage of one's own territorial area and population, and use the new combat mode of rocket + missile + drone to consume the opponent.
At the time, we didn't say that this was an application of distributed warfare. Because the U.S. military has already proposed this method of warfare a few years ago, we will not adopt other people's arguments.
However, did you not think that the side that is usually militarily superior and powerful will want to adopt the method of general battle, so that it can quickly resolve the battle and quickly annihilate the enemy's main combat force.
Israel wants to adopt this mode of warfare, as did the five Middle East wars of the last century, and the conflict between the two sides was not very long. In addition to the first Middle East war, which lasted for a year and a half, the second, third, and fourth times were less than a month, and the fifth time was only more than three months.
Israel is very clear in military tactics that the first Middle East war was between 1947 and 1949, when Israel had just established its state, its foundation was unstable, and its military strength was too weak, so it fought for a year and a half. However, after that, Israel actively built up its army, and almost all of the next four wars in the Middle East were won by Israel with superior forces and decisive tactics.
Therefore, the general battle and the quick battle are the ways of the strong against the weak. But today's U.S. military has adopted this distributed combat method in the face of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. This is very "incommensurate" with the US military power with 11 aircraft carriers!
Since World War II, when the United States has participated in a war, it has always hoped to quickly strike at its opponent with superior forces? Now it has to adopt distributed operations, and this is a step short in momentum.
4 Distributed combat utility is limited
In my opinion, the distributed combat utility of the American side is not great. On the one hand, the adoption of distributed operations means that the deployment of military weapons and forces should be dispersed. This implies the dispersion of the entire military resource.
Although the US military budget accounts for 40 percent of the world's total, it seems very huge, and the high military expenditure is simply frightening! But the U.S. military is already stretched.
However, the US side always believes that in terms of intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, coordinated operations, and command, the US military is superstitious about having powerful satellite, electronic warfare, and communications command capabilities, so it believes that distributed operations are an effective mode of dealing with the PLA.
However, in terms of medium-range missiles, China has more medium-range missiles than the United States and has better performance.
Once a conflict breaks out, China will inevitably target US military bases on the island chain and bomb them indiscriminately (adjective, precision bombing). Will the United States have more medium-range missiles at these military bases than China?
The U.S. military is sacrificing the basics. No matter how many military bases the US military has, the decisive victory in medium-range missiles depends on the number of missiles and the comparison of performance. In terms of performance, does the US military have hypersonic missiles?
To take an extreme example, a unit of 5,000 soldiers, divided into five corps of 1,000 men each, can such a distributed battle win against an enemy army of 50,000 troops?
As another example, at the beginning of the 13th century, Genghis Khan led an army of 200,000 against Khorezm, which had a total army of 400,000. However, Khorezm was afraid of Genghis Khan's military might and a general battle, and did not dare to fight the Mongol army when Genghis Khan had crossed thousands of kilometers and had just arrived at the border, when he was in a state of exhaustion from the division's veterans.
As a result, they were individually crushed by Genghis Khan's army. This is also a way of playing distributed city defense and distributed warfare.
Actually, my assumption is that although Khorezm was a powerful empire in Central and West Asia at the time, the total territory at its height was 4 million square kilometers. But even if Khorezm dared to fight with the Mongol army, it was the same, "defeated". Because Khorezm just can't defeat the Mongol army, no matter what kind of distributed operations or concentrated forces, they can't beat it.
The point is that the US military will not be able to turn it into an advantage over China just because it adopts distributed operations. What's more, does the US military have to consider the ability of Chinese hypersonic missiles to strike this base?
So, is there any way for China to take countermeasures?
Since the Philippines is a sovereign and independent country, the Philippines does not consider China's feelings and is willing to let the United States deploy missiles within its territory, thus bringing the danger of being the first to be attacked by China in wartime.
However, China can take some economic and military measures to warn the Philippines to make it uncomfortable and pay the price.
For example, trade restrictions and even the expansion of Scarborough Shoal and the deployment of missiles on Scarborough Shoal.
Scarborough Shoal is about 126 nautical miles east of Subic Bay in the Philippines and about 300 nautical miles from Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The deployment of missiles on the expanded Scarborough Shoal is tantamount to a sharp blade hanging over the Philippines and ready to be inserted into the heart of the Philippines at any time.
Of course, there are many ways to deal with the Philippines. It's just that at this stage, China may not be in a hurry to solve the Philippine problem, but slowly exert pressure. It depends on whether China is in a hurry to solve the Philippine problem.
That's all for today's analysis and reasoning, we'll see you next time!