Is the Republic of China better able to defend itself from—and to prevent—an attack by the People’s Republic of China because the Trump administration discarded a treaty with Russia that Russia had already discarded?
A weapon called the Typhon Strategic Mid-Range Fires (SMRF) System, which hides missiles in a modified shipping container, and similar small mobile launchers “would have been illegal just five years ago under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibited U.S. and Russian forces from having land-based cruise or ballistic missiles with ranges between about 300 miles and 3,400 miles,” reports John Ismay (“The Death of a Treaty Could Be a Lifesaver for Taiwan,” The New York Times, May 3, 2024). Ismay is a former Navy officer who covers the Pentagon for the Times.
In 2019, President Donald J. Trump abandoned the treaty, in part because the United States believed Russia had violated the terms of the pact for years. But U.S. officials said that China, with its growing long-range missile arsenal, was also a reason the Trump administration decided to withdraw.
The decision freed the Pentagon to build the weapons that are now poised to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. It also coincided with a rethinking of modern war by U.S. Marine Corps leaders. They recommended retiring certain heavyweight and cumbersome weapons like 155-millimeter howitzers and tanks—which they thought would be of little use against Chinese forces in the Pacific—and replacing them with lighter and more flexible arms like truck-mounted anti-ship missiles.
Not all military officers agree with the change in weapons and strategy. Among the dissenters are “a group of retired Marine generals publicly criticized the [plans of the Marine Corps] to prioritize similar weapons at the expense of more traditional arms. They said the service was focusing on China to the detriment of other potential threats, and that getting rid of tanks and some heavy artillery would leave Marines unprepared for a major conflict in other parts of the world.”
Without the legal restrictions of the I.N.F. Treaty, the Pentagon began experimenting with existing assets.
Sealed canisters containing Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles were mounted onto small trucks and hidden in shipping containers.
Publicly, the Navy says the missile has a maximum range of about 115 miles. But the SM-6 can in fact reach targets at ranges of 290 miles, officials confirmed to The New York Times, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive weapons capabilities.
Is this some kind of fog of pre-war thing? Why would some officials “publicly” say that the SM-6’s range is only 115 miles while other officials “privately” say that its range is 290 miles in a way that must soon become public by being in a New York Times report? Did some Navy official get the range wrong? Or do Navy officials disagree about whether it’s a good idea for bad guys to know the range?
The article also discusses the possibility of launching from military bases in the Philippines and Japan in the event of PRC-ROC conflict.
Also see:
StopTheChinazis.org: “The Spratly Agenda”
StopTheChinazis.org: “U.S. and China: Our Navy, Their Navy, and the Parity of Disparity”
