NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

U.S. air bases threatened by Chinese missile strikes

U.S. military airfields in Asia and elsewhere are threatened by Chinese missile attacks in a future conflict and more hardened bunkers and defenses are needed to protect aircraft, according to a new think tank report.

“The United States’ airfields face a threat of severe Chinese military attack,” the report published earlier this month by the Hudson Institute concludes. “The current [Defense Department] approach of largely ignoring this menace invites [Chinese] aggression and risks losing a war.”

The airfield vulnerabilities include potential strikes against airfields by aircraft, ground-based missile launchers, warships, submarines, and commandos. Airfields in Asia, including major hubs for warplanes in Japan and on Guam, would be main targets.

American aircraft and support systems at airfields globally also are at risk, including those in the continental United States, the report said.

The Pentagon has voiced concern about threats to airfields in the Indo-Pacific and war games involving China conflict scenarios showed most U.S. aircraft losses from attacks on the ground would be “ruinous.” Little, however, has been done by the military services and the Pentagon to mitigate the threats, with most funding instead dedicated to building advanced aircraft.

By contrast, the report states that the People’s Liberation Army made major investments in defending, expanding and fortifying its military airfields.

Beginning in the early 2010s, PLA air forces more than doubled the number of hardened aircraft shelters and unhardened aircraft shelters at military air bases. The PLA now boasts more than 3,000 total warplane shelters, both hardened and unhardened — enough to house most of its military aircraft. The large-scale expansion of concrete bunkers is estimated in the report to include enough concrete to pave a four-lane highway from Washington to Chicago.

“As a result, China now has 134 air bases within 1,000 nautical miles of the Taiwan Strait — airfields that boast more than 650 [hardened air shelters] and almost 2,000 non-hardened [individual aircraft shelters],” the report said.

The imbalance will allow the PLA to fire fewer missiles to damage or destroy U.S. and allied airfields.

“China could initiate a conflict if it sees an opportunity to nullify adversary airpower on the ramp,” the report said.

The report, by military experts Thomas H. Shugart and Timothy A. Walton, urged the U.S. military to increase hardening of airfields with defenses, and distributing forces geographically to complicate enemy targeting. Greater camouflage, concealment, and deception capabilities and active defenses should be added.

The Pacific Air Force said in a statement in response to the report that it is continually improving theater defenses, warfighting advantage and integration of forces with allies and partners.

“We continue to invest in infrastructure and technology to enhance the resilience and survivability of our bases and facilities across the theater including hardening airfields and buildings while investing in advanced security systems to protect our personnel and assets,” the statement said.

The report follows a letter sent in May to Air Force and Navy leaders in the Pentagon from a group of Republican lawmakers, who warned that China’s increased airfield hardening appears to be preparation for war.

“U.S. bases in the region have almost no hardened aircraft shelters compared to Chinese military bases,” states the letter organized by the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar, and then-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, now the secretary of state.

The letter warned that all U.S. bases in the region, including Okinawa and facilities on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, are vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes. China built over 400 hardened aircraft shelters in the past decade compared to 22 similar U.S. shelters in the region, the letter said.

China working on unique sub-launched drone

Two Chinese research institutes are developing drones launched from submarines capable of both underwater and aerial transit, according to a report in a Chinese scientific journal. The new submarine-launched drone is said to be part of Beijing’s plan to counter U.S. military drone strikes – both underwater and aerial – in the early phases of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Military commanders have said U.S. plans for defending Taiwan call for creating a “hellscape” for invading forces with large numbers of low-cost attack drones.

Researchers at the Northwestern Polytechnical University (NWPU) and the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre (CARDC) are reportedly working on a drone with foldable wings capable of traveling through water and air several times during a strike or reconnaissance mission. The dual air-sea design is said to be for concealment and survival in a conflict.

The drone, called “Feiyi” by Chinese researchers, will also be used for marine reconnaissance and surveillance operations in addition to attack operations. In Chinese, the character fei means “fly” and yi is a 3,000-year-old character describing a water bird spreading its wings and preparing to take off from the surface.

Details of the drone were outlined Dec. 31 in Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica, a journal published by the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a state-controlled organization. According to the report, the drone uses four pairs of rotating blades for aerial flight that can be retracted to the fuselage for travel in water. Tail-mounted propellers drive the drone during underwater operation.

The Fey is said to have the ability to surface, open its rotors and take off into the air.

Dong Changyin, leader of a team at the NWPU, told the journal that the drone is supported by artificial intelligence and can operate autonomously in completing special missions.

U.S. submarine-launched drones lack the capability of self-launching from the sea,d must be fired from a torpedo tube, and lack underwater capabilities, the report said. Without the ability to dive into water, U.S. drones are more vulnerable to attack.

The Navy is buying a submarine-launched unmanned aerial drone called Blackwing, derived from the unarmed Switchblade suicide attack drone. It could be armed in the future, however.

Adm. Sam Paparo, commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, stated in a naval journal article published earlier this month that his plans for deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan include deploying large numbers of drone weapons.

The military is rapidly procuring drones for use in both air and sea in what he called Project 33, he said. One drone planned for use is built by Avidrone Aerospace, a Canadian manufacturer. The company built four types of military drones with varying ranges and payload capacities.

“They can be built quickly, are difficult to detect and counter, and can carry a variety of payloads, both logistical and lethal,” Adm. Paparo said.

Pentagon board complete study on bombing hardened targets

The Pentagon’s Defense Science Board recently completed a study on how strategic nuclear forces will be used to blast deeply buried and hardened underground targets.

No details of the study were made public in an executive summary about the research on the board’s website, a sign that plans for strikes against the buried targets are secret.

Eric D. Evans, the board’s chairman, said the details were shared with senior Pentagon leaders. Contained in the undisclosed study are options to be used for “difficult target defeat” strikes or other missions for destroying deeply underground, hidden or hard-to-reach targets in a nuclear war, he stated. The goal is to assure U.S. military “operational dominance” in various wartime and crisis scenarios, he said.

Study participants considered recent intelligence on the threat and found additional intelligence is needed. Past studies and programs were also examined along with military “effects chain” options, and new systems architectures.

The study appears to be part of U.S. military strategic deterrence efforts against China’s large-scale nuclear military buildup and Russia’s exotic new nuclear arms.

China’s nuclear infrastructure — missiles, warheads and factories — has been built underground in hardened facilities spread out along a network of some 3,000 tunnels dubbed the “Great Underground Wall.” The sole nuclear penetrator in the U.S. arsenal is the B83 bomb, which the Biden administration tried to cancel.

Strategic nuclear force leaders told Congress the bomb is needed for holding at-risk underground targets in China, Russia and North Korea. All three nations have extensive hardened underground military facilities.

The B83 penetrated tens of feet into the ground before detonating, a feature designed, along with a floor-on bomb, to blast underground targets.

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.