Abraham M. Denmark

In early February 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed his intention to withdraw the United States from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, ostensibly because of ongoing Russian violation of the treaty’s limits. Some U.S. officials have pointed to China – which is not a party to the INF Treaty – and Beijing’s growing military capabilities as a motivating factor for the U.S. to walk away from its restrictions on the development of ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles with range capabilities between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Abraham M. Denmark, in the following interview, lays out what U.S. withdrawal actually means in practice and provides insight on what the implications for the security landscape in Asia.

What does the U.S. withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty mean in practical terms?

Once the U.S. has withdrawn from the INF Treaty, it will be free to develop and deploy ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. It’s important to note that this treaty is only an agreement between the U.S. and Russia – China has not been a party to the treaty, and the region’s military dynamics have evolved without it.

We should also keep in mind that the INF Treaty does not ban missiles of that range that are launched from planes, ships, or submarines; nor does it ban ground-launched missiles with inter-continental ranges. The U.S. has already deployed significant numbers of missiles not covered by the INF Treaty – withdrawal simply gives the U.S. more options to produce and deploy different kinds of missiles.

Given the INF Treaty’s pending expiration, what capabilities should Washington pursue in the near-term? 

The U.S. is reportedly preparing to test a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of about 1,000 kilometers and a ballistic missile with a range of between 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers. I expect these systems, at least in Asia, will be armed with conventional warheads only. The U.S. would gain no advantage by making them nuclear-capable, and doing so would inject significant strategic instability into the region.

To my mind, the launchers for these missiles will be just as important as the missiles themselves. I would expect that the U.S. would want these platforms to be highly mobile, rapidly deployable, and able to operate in rugged terrain. I would therefore expect these systems to be physically small enough to be deployed by air and easily distributed.

Basing new kinds of missiles in Asia will pose a challenge outside of the U.S. territory of Guam. Which allies do you think would be most open to hosting new U.S. intermediate-range missiles? 

There is currently very little interest among U.S. allies and partners to host these new systems. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, there is likely significant domestic political opposition to an expanded U.S. military footprint. Even among the closest U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, a U.S. military presence represents a significant political controversy even when relations with Washington are at their best.

Most significantly, however, allies and partners fear that agreeing to home base these missiles in their territory would raise Beijing’s ire. The region saw how China punished South Korea with billions of dollars of unofficial sanctions for agreeing to support the U.S. to deploy the THAAD missile defense system to its territory, and they would likely prefer to avoid a repeat. Moreover, I expect that these countries fear that hosting these missiles would make them a prime target for Chinese military strikes in the event of a war.

The U.S. has reportedly not engaged its European or Indo-Pacific allies about possible basing in their countries, apparently believing that the missiles can be based in Guam and deployed to any given area in the event of a crisis or conflict. This is a significant oversight, as the U.S. will need the cooperation of its allies and partners regardless of where the missiles are deployed. Moreover, the rapid deployment of these systems to an ally or partner in the event of a contingency would need to be practiced repeatedly – again highlighting the need for the Pentagon to engage U.S. allies on this issue early and often.

Asia-Pacific-oriented defense analysts in the United States have seen China’s short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missile forces as an acute threat. Can you briefly tell us how Beijing’s capabilities shift the strategic environment in Asia?

More than two decades of annual defense spending increases has made China a considerable military power in Asia, and the second-largest military spender in the world. From being self-described as “an army of millet and rifles” for most of its history, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) today fields some of the most modern weapon systems in the world. China seeks to employ these missiles as part of a layered capability to successfully attack the planes, ships, and bases of an enemy – nominally the United States and its allies and partners – to delay or deny their ability to conduct military operations against Chinese interests.

China’s rapid rise as a military power, as well as the related rise of China’s economic and political power, has dramatically altered the regional strategic environment. Every country across Asia must now contend with a more powerful and increasingly assertive China, and consider the possibility that China may use its newfound military capabilities to assert its interests. The most important strategic question for every leader across Asia today is how to balance its relations between China and the United States. As a result, several Asian countries are both enhancing their own military capabilities while also strengthening their relationship with the United States – which they see as the only credible potential balancer against China. The ultimate result of this dynamic is a region that is more tense, more contested, and better armed.

China hasn’t said too much about the treaty’s collapse, except that it opposes it. At the Munich Security Conference, we heard a more detailed view from State Councilor Yang Jiechi on the treaty and the prospect of multilateralizing it, which China rejects. Do you see any chance at all of China incorporating itself into either the INF itself or a successor treaty modeled on the original? 

There is zero chance that China will agree to join anything resembling the INF Treaty, primarily because such missiles have become a critical aspect of its military capability. According to the former commander of U.S. Pacific Command, roughly 95 percent of China’s overall missile force are IRBMs, which would not be consistent with the INF Treaty. With so much invested, and due to the raw geographic distances between the Chinese mainland and several potential contingency areas, it is highly unlikely that China would ever consider incorporating itself into anything resembling the INF Treaty.

This actually represents a broader challenge with China’s military – there is no foundation for broader discussions with Beijing on arms control or nuclear dynamics. Unlike the U.S. relationship with Russia, which includes decades of such talks, there is no history of frank and constructive discussions between Washington and Beijing. Instead, such discussions are largely left to outside academics. This is not due to a lack of interest from Washington, but rather an attitude from Beijing that involves a lack of high-level interest, a skepticism about the utility of such talks, and a fear that such discussions would drive the U.S.-China relationship toward a more confrontational and militarized dynamic similar to the Cold War.

How can Russia’s alleged treaty-violating missile – the SSC-8 – threaten American and allied security in Asia? Russia is rumored to have considered deployment of these systems in its far east. 

As is so often the case with Russian involvement in East Asia, the potential for Russia to deploy the SSC-8 to Asia would enable Russia to play a spoiler role but would not significantly enhance Russia’s geopolitical power in the region. Depending on where the missile would be deployed, it could threaten U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan and ships at sea in the area. Yet such a deployment would not significantly alter the regional security environment unless it was accompanied by other Russian military deployments to enhance its ability to project power – something that Russia has lacked for some time.