【英文】美国大西洋理事会报告：遏制中国战略进攻！应对中国战略力量集结的影响（29页）

英文研究报告 2021年11月22日 06:25 管理员

One major concern is China’s growing strategic capabilities and the possibility that China could conduct a nuclear or nonnuclear strategic attack against the United States or its allies. Such an attack could infict devastating damage, disrupt US warfghting capacity, sap US political will to continue a conventional military campaign, and constrain US military freedom of action. Despite China’s formal No First Use (NFU) policy, scholars have expressed concern that China could launch a nuclear attack on the United States in the event of a major war in the Indo-Pacifc. In addition, the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) states that China might conduct limited theater nuclear strikes. China may also use space and cyber capabilities to conduct “nonnuclear strategic attacks” against US space-based assets or US nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3).

Indeed, China has oriented many of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities to target critical nodes employed by the US Joint Force, including space-based assets. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) possesses an expanding and modernizing strategic force and is opaque about its intentions. It possesses a triad of strategic delivery vehicles, including mobile missiles, and will soon begin (or may have already begun) submarine deterrence patrols. The US intelligence community estimates that China’s nuclear arsenal will double within the decade, increasing US and allied vulnerability to nuclear attack. The PLA is rapidly testing and deploying nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicles, which can defeat US and allied missile defenses.

China enjoys a large imbalance in theater nuclear forces over the United States. Finally, the PLA possesses counter-space and cyber capabilities that could be employed in a nonnuclear strategic attack. The NPR articulates a “tailored and fexible” deterrence strategy for China that requires US strategy and capabilities to adapt to a changing threat environment. Indeed, developments as of 2021 present many new challenges to US defense strategy that were not addressed in the 2018 NPR.