After the People's Liberation Army (PLA) completed major readjustments, established a separate military space force, and formed a new pattern of "four armed forces and four troops" and eight major branches of the armed forces, the United States on the other side of the Pacific immediately reacted.
The commander of the U.S. Space Force said China is developing its space forces at an "astonishing pace" to make the PLA's long-range strike capabilities more accurate and lethal. This change worries the Pentagon, because if China continues to maintain this development efficiency, the US advantage in the space domain will be neutralized in the foreseeable future.
[The new pattern of the PLA's "4 armies and 4 soldiers" and 8 major arms of the armed forces has been formed]
Recently, Air Force General Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Command, made a speech at a press conference that aroused the attention of the outside world about the current state of China's space power development.
Because at the press conference, General Whiting made it clear that the number of Chinese intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in service has increased about twice in the past six years. This growth rate is also unprecedented in the world, so much so that it is widely believed that with the current constellation size, the PLA's air and space reconnaissance system has the ability to conduct continuous visits to any location in the world for a period of 30-40 minutes.
[Air Force General Stephen Whiting, Commander of the U.S. Space Command]
More importantly, after the PLA set up a brand-new military space force and an information support force after military reform and readjustment some time ago, this move means that the relevant capabilities of the PLA will be further strengthened.
This has worried the Pentagon, because as the PLA continues to push forward the construction of an information-based system, it is not uncommon for the PLA to establish an efficient information exchange mechanism between its reconnaissance system and strike units.
Thanks to this, the PLA's long-range strike efficiency has improved so much compared to 10 years ago that even Admiral Samuel Paparo, the current commander of the US Navy's Pacific Fleet, admits that the PLA has the ability to hit an aircraft carrier 1,500 nautical miles from Chinese mainland, or about 2,778 kilometers.
[Paparo admits the PLA's strike capability in an interview]
In the face of the PLA, which is not what it used to be, the Pentagon obviously needs to consider whether there is an equally efficient information exchange mechanism between the PLA's long-range strike capability and the air-space reconnaissance system, so that it can guide the rocket force's medium-range missile unit, the Air Force's strategic bomber force, and the Navy's 055 destroyer to strike at targets thousands of kilometers away while discovering targets on satellites.
After all, the ability to continuously visit for 30-40 minutes is enough for the PLA to continuously track medium and large surface ships using satellites. With the terminal active guidance capability of domestic anti-ship ballistic missiles, it is completely possible to detect the traces of aircraft carriers on the front foot satellites and launch missiles to the general activity area of the target on the back foot, so that the missiles can independently complete terminal search and guidance, and strike targets such as aircraft carriers and even large destroyers sailing at high speeds.
Because although the maximum speed of the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier can reach more than 30 knots, it is only 55 km/h when converted into the kilometers we are more familiar with. In contrast, the PLA's DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile is widely believed to have a range of 1,500 kilometers and an average flight speed of Mach 4.
[PLA anti-ship ballistic missile strikes simulated aircraft carrier targets]
This means that when the satellite-guided DF-21D strikes an aircraft carrier target 1,500 kilometers away, it takes less than 20 minutes from launch to arrival over the target. Even if the Nimitz-class sails at full speed, it will only allow the aircraft carrier to sail about 16 kilometers during this time. This distance is not enough for the aircraft carrier to escape from the field of view of the missile's terminal guidance that falls from the sky, and it is a high probability that it will be hit.
And do not forget that the DF-21D is already an "old bomb" about 10 years ago. According to the Pentagon, the PLA's latest DF-27 hypersonic missile is already capable of flying 2,100 kilometers in 12 minutes, with an average speed of more than Mach 8.6. If this type of missile is used to strike a US aircraft carrier, the US military may not even have time to respond.
[Pentagon intelligence shows that the average speed of the DF-27 is as high as Mach 8.6]
It can be said that General Whiting will attach great importance to the number of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in China, which is closely related to the PLA's increasingly powerful long-range strike capability.
"Seeing far" and "fighting far" have always been two factors that complement each other, and today's China is not only merging them to enhance the comprehensive combat capability of the PLA's front-line combat units. It has also further expanded the scale of our satellites with investment in commercial satellites and strengthened the PLA's dominant position in this field.
An example is the Taijing-4 02 satellite, which was launched some time ago, and the satellite has already shown its excellent performance in the photograph of the Norfolk naval base in the United States, and there are several similar commercial constellations in China.
【Taijing 4 02 Star Shooting Norfolk Naval Base】
In addition to the improvement of the PLA's long-range strike capability brought about by the number of satellites, General Whiting also attaches great importance to the PLA's anti-satellite capabilities and satellite supplement capabilities.
Although the United States still has the world's largest military satellite constellation at this stage, it is similar to the problem faced by the Pentagon in the navy and air force, that is, in the face of the incremental superiority of the PLA, the stock superiority of the US military will be offset in the foreseeable future.
This is still peacetime, and once it enters a wartime state, the PLA can also use anti-satellite operations to further weaken the stock advantage of the US military. Although the U.S. military, which also has anti-satellite capabilities, can also do the same, it is debatable whether the U.S. military can take the lead in the PLA to complete the constellation repair work in the subsequent satellite replenishment process.
[Anti-satellite combat imagination map]
So taken together, although there is still a certain gap between China and the United States in the field of space, thanks to China's huge industrial system, this gap is narrowing as rapidly as the gap between China and the United States in other fields. Moreover, this speed will also be further improved as the military aerospace forces occupy a place in the new pattern of the PLA's "4 armies and 4 soldiers".
This is obviously not good news for the United States, because if this situation is allowed to continue to develop, it will be more difficult for the United States in the future to gain the upper hand in the strategic game with China than the United States is now.
At that time, even if the Washington leadership is willing to carry out military adventures against China in the direction of the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and even the East China Sea, the Pentagon may not be willing to be beaten by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as a leading bird.