Masters of the Air: strategic stability and conventional strikes

US global conventional firepower is underestimated, and has the potential to negate Russian and Chinese nuclear arms. 

This technical assessment by Prof. Dan Plesch and Manuel Galileo offers a global analysis of present day non-nuclear strike weapons and their potential targets in Russia and China. In contrast, existing studies look at local confrontations such as missiles in Germany or the South China sea, or the three-way nuclear confrontation. Formidable and increasing Russian and Chinese conventional forces do not have a comparable ability to reach into the continental US. The study fills this gap in strategic studies, detailing a quiet revolution in military affairs, where well-known weapons have transformed into strategic systems with increasing ranges, accuracy and power, including the latest deployed variants such as JASSM Rapid Dragon, stealth bombers, and Tomahawk and AMRAAM missiles.

Read the full report here
  • The US and its allies may threaten even the most buried and mobile strategic forces of Russia and China. 
  • Only Russian mobile and Chinese deeply-buried (i.e., underground “Great Wall”) strategic systems may be considered at all survivable in the face of conventional missile attacks. They appear far more vulnerable than usually considered given US and allies’ technological and numerical advantages in conventional missiles and delivery systems. 
  • The US and allies have the task of defeating or defending against some 70 Chinese and 150 Russian launchers in eastern central Asia. Against these, there are 4,400 Tomahawks and 3,500 JASSM missiles. Arithmetically, the numbers favour the US and allies.
  • Mobile and deeply-buried strategic systems face the challenge of reliable launch-under-attack. US and allied conventional missiles and missile-carrying aircraft are highly accurate, relatively hard to detect with radar systems, and have subsonic speeds close to 914 km/h. The furthest targets are at ranges of 2,400km for Russia and 2,500km for China from outside their borders. 
  • Formidable and increasing Russian and Chinese conventional land forces do not have a comparable ability to reach into the continental United States.
  • US global conventional firepower is underestimated, which threatens both the realities and the perceptions of strategic stability.
  • The considerations in this study serve as a baseline for studies of new technologies such as hypersonic missiles, AI, and the related issues of cyber, space and electronic warfare. This is not usual in present studies of such issues.
  • The global perspective presented here can be added to regional strategic studies, specifically in Europe, the Middle East, and the East and South China Seas to provide the necessary holistic approach required in a militarily-globalised world.
  • What are the implications of the capabilities described here for deterrence and Western policy? What are the implications for deterrence of leaving out such an important, large-scale conventional capacity? If no one knows, how can it deter? Would wider understanding encourage aggressive attitudes in Western publics? Can these capabilities, as Paul Nitze considered, allow substantial Western nuclear reductions? These are among the matters arising from this study.
  • The present study is only concerned with non-nuclear weapons; it clearly begs the question of the potential for integrated nuclear and non-nuclear weapons use. Does such a mix represent the US concept of “integrated deterrence” with the dimension of non- or “less nuclear” coercive diplomacy? Do Russia and China have comparable policy?
  • The risks of war from the arms race described here require a “soft landing” approach of arms control and disarmament as, for example, discussed in the SOAS project on the Strategic Concept for the Removal of Arms and Proliferation at www.scrapweapons.com. Particularly, the proposals for “Zero Missiles,” for annual extended meetings of the UN General Assembly on Disarmament like a Special Session on Disarmament (SSOD-IV), and for open source tools to boost multilateral confidence and verification. Such an SSOD-IV was recommended by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in July 2023’s New Agenda for Peace and in the Pact for the Future, Action 27 (a). 
  • Generally, ongoing deterrence studies would benefit from integrating strategic non-nuclear systems into their analyses.
  • Realistically, the unrecognised and unstable integration of strategic conventional and nuclear forces is unprecedented and provides a further imperative for nuclear weapons elimination and generalised weapons controls. To this end, an SSOD-IV at the UN General Assembly is a necessary—if insufficient—short term objective.
Read the full report here