Cyber Command works closely with the National Security Agency and can draw heavily on the latter's sophisticated toolkit.Although China continues to lag behind the United States in terms of aggregate military hardware and operational skills, it has improved its capabilities relative to those of the U.S. in many critical areas. From a handful of conventionally armed ballistic missiles in 1996, China's inventory now numbers roughly 1,400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of cruise missiles.
They could relax their time requirement and prevail in a more extended campaign, but this would entail leaving ground and naval forces vulnerable to Chinese air operations for a correspondingly longer period. Moreover, China does not need to catch up fully in order to challenge U.S. ability to conduct effective military operations near the Chinese mainland.To prevail in either of the scenarios below, China’s offensive goals would require it to hold advantages in nearly all operational categories simultaneously. Overall, although the United States leads in the use of space to support terrestrial operations, its counterspace capabilities remain relatively underdeveloped.China has pursued an extensive range of counterspace capabilities. Virtually all of the iron bombs used by U.S. forces today are equipped with guidance packages, such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition, which have turned them into all-weather, precision weapons. aircraft and surface ships armed with cruise missiles would likely also participate in anti-surface warfare. Arguably more worrisome are the PLA's Russian-made jamming systems and high-powered dual-use radio transmitters, which might be used against U.S. communication and ISR satellites.
As a larger proportion of U.S. aircraft are forced to fly from bases that are either susceptible to attack or farther from the scene of conflict, basing issues will pose greater challenges for U.S. efforts to gain air superiority over the battlefield.Discussion about China's military modernization has included little comparative analysis of Chinese and U.S. military capabilities. Even by 2017, however, U.S. submarines alone would be able to destroy almost 40 percent of Chinese amphibious shipping during a seven-day campaign, losses that would likely wreak havoc on the organizational integrity of a landing force.The nuclear scorecard evaluates crisis stability in the bilateral nuclear relationship rather than the advantage enjoyed by one side or the other. Work speculates that these "black" capabilities might include "directed energy weapons, advanced space weapons, electromagnetic railguns, high-powered microwave weapons, or even more exotic arms."China's military power is quickly becoming the greatest threat to US military primacy. This brief focuses on improvements to China's ability to target U.S. surface ships, especially aircraft carriers.The United States, with 526 operational satellites, has a far more extensive orbital infrastructure than does China, with 132 satellites (as of January 2015). We found that the U.S. ability to destroy Chinese amphibious forces has declined since 1996 but nevertheless remains formidable. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.In virtually any East Asian scenario, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft would play a critical role in blunting Chinese attacks.