18 August 2010

U.S. Department of Defense: China Must Successfully Integrate ASBM with C4ISR to Achieve “Operational and Effective System”

DOD Background Briefing on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China

U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)

Presenter: Senior Defense Official, 16 August 2010

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL NO. 1: “…the PLA is also developing the capability to attack at long ranges military forces that might deploy or operate within the Western Pacific.”

“…we remain concerned about the lack of transparency from China into the force projection and anti-access, area denial capabilities it is acquiring, the intentions that underlie those acquisitions and the resources dedicated to that task. …”

“China’s developing an anti-ship ballistic missile that has a range in excess of 1,500 kilometers, which is intended to provide, we believe, the PLA with the capability to attack ships, including aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific.”

QUESTION FROM BLOOMBERG REPORTER: “Secretary Gates has brought up a few times the potential threat of the anti-ship ballistic missile. It doesn’t seem that your report has anything new to say there; you had the same sketch from last year, the same general warning.”

“A couple of weeks ago, there was a story re-hashing a lot of the — what’s been known about the missile. How close are they to operationalizing this anti-ship ballistic missile?

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL NO. 1: “We continue to be concerned about their efforts to development this — this particular system.  I would say the primary area — and Defense Official Number 2 can hop in here as he wants — where we see them still facing roadblocks is in integrating the missile system with the C4-ISR.  And they still have a ways to go before they manage to get that integrated so that they have an operational and effective system.

“But nonetheless, this is an area that, for all the obvious reasons, remains, you know, of great concern for us.”

QUESTION: “For the trans — (inaudible) — in layman’s language, C4-ISR.”

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL NO. 2:  “Command and Control, Communications, Computer, Surveillance, Intelligence and Reconnaissance.”

For key ASBM-related content from the 2010 Department of Defense report on China’s military, click here.

Click here for the latest analysis and sources on Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) development and testing.

A full-text copy of “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2010” is available here.