Implications for India

CHINA'S MILITARY MIGHT : According to reports, the elevation may also see its sway enhanced to include control of China's emerging undersea nuclear de

On December 31, 2015, the People’s Liberation Army Second Artillery Force (PLASAF) that reports directly to the Central Military Commission (CMC) was rechristened the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) in an establishment ceremony attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The rechristening marked the elevation of the PLASAF, now PLARF, from an independent branch to a full ‘service’ at par with the army, air force and navy.

According to reports, the elevation may also see its sway enhanced to include control of China’s emerging undersea nuclear deterrent. This would be in keeping with Xi’s statement during the ceremony that the “PLARF is China’s core strategic deterrence power and PLARF should strengthen the trustworthy and reliable nuclear deterrence and nuclear counter-attack capabilities”. Beyond nuclear deterrence, the PLARF is also being fashioned into a major tool for prosecuting ‘limited campaigns under informationised conditions’.

This naturally has major implications for the India-China military balance and will require an Indian riposte to fend of strategic coercion. Indeed, during the establishment ceremony, Xi also called upon the PLARF to ‘intensify the construction of medium and long range precision strike power, and reinforce the strategic check-and-balance capability, so as to build a powerful and modern rocket force’.

This reflects the deep political support enjoyed by the PLARF for playing a key role in supporting China’s move for an ‘active defence’ strategy as emphasised in the military strategy white paper it released in 2015. Now, while the PLARF will serve as a counter-intervention asset in China’s strategic competition with the United States, it could well be used as a coercive instrument vis a vis India.

A recent official PLARF music video shows why the service seems increasingly confident of meeting its expanding brief. In the video, a new version of the DF-16 solid fuelled road mobile BM sporting a terminally guided manoeuvring biconic re-entry vehicle (RV) designed to evade anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defences is revealed. The base version of the DF-16 with a range of 800-1,000 km, publicly displayed for the first time during China’s September 3 Victory Day (V-day) Parade last year, is in itself an improvement over the legacy DF-15 family, given that it is faster and longer ranged.

That V-day parade also saw PLARF putting on display for the first time systems like the solid fuelled DF-26 BM with a range of 4000 km, that too has a manoeuvring re-entry vehicle (MaRV) and can be modified to become an anti-ship BM (ASBM), as well as the DF-21D, whi-ch is the much talked about ASBM member of the DF-21 family. Incidentally, the terminally guided DF-21C with a range of 1,750 km is being fielded in increasing numbers on the Tibetan plateau.

Further displayed during the V-day parade was the DF-10A land-attack cruise missiles  (LACM) with a range of 1,500 km, showing the other side of the PLARF’s diverse inventory. Simultaneous massed cruise and ballistic missile strikes greatly complicate things for defenders since the sensor and shooter requirements for countering either are different. And, the PLARF is certainly capable of backing qualitative improvements with a quantitative surge.

Growing capabilities

As a full-fledged service, the PLARF is entitled to having its own academies, research institutes and logistic support system. To be fair, it already has such elements but now it will be able to do even more. A critical factor for being able to launch dense missile raids is the availability of enough low signature launchers and not just missiles. Almost each type of missile in the PLARF inventory now may have at least 200 mobile launchers supporting it.

Steady growth in PLARF capabilities means that it is seen by the CMC as the tip of the spear for neutralising targets such as air defence sites, command and control nodes, early warning radars and airbases making it a key enabler of air operations. This is particularly true for PLAAF operations from the Tibetan plateau where sortie rates and payloads will continue to be constrained by altitude, the recent extension of runways notwithstanding. This is further indicated by the rising tempo of PLARF-PLAAF joint exercises.

Moreover, the PLARF has been given a significant role in planning integrated joint operations (IJOs) by the PLA due to its superior understanding of nodal analysis and strategic targeting. The fact that nearly 60 launch pads have been prepared in Tibet for DF-21 units alone shows clear intent to use the PLARF in a pre-emptive mode against India. It is important to note that newer missiles like the DF-26 do not even need pre-prepared launch pads and extend PLARF coverage to include centres of gravity deep inside Indian territory.

Nevertheless, whether the PLA has the inter-service cohesion required to pull off complex IJOs is a matter of debate. For instance, the recently created CMC national mobilisation department that will oversee provincial military commands has only six PLAAF officers out of a total of 58. This does not exactly bode well for effective IJOs. Also, while the integral C4ISR available to the PLARF may be adequate for attacking area targets, point strikes will require PLA wide C4ISR co-ordination, something that is always difficult to do.

Overall, the PLARF is a complex system in itself and has single points of failure. These points need to be identified and attacked with long range precision systems of India’s own such as the Nirbhay LACM, Brahmos derivatives and boost-glide systems such as the Shaurya.

While ABMs for protecting certain nodes are important, full-spectrum ABM defence to guard against the PLARF is neither feasible nor affordable. The Indian response has to be symmetric in nature so that the PLARF is unable to level the playing field for the PLAAF and the Indian Air Force can establish air superiority over Tibetan skies.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based commentator on security and energy issues)