Most informed U.S. military and intelligence analysts tell me they believe that Chinese President Xi Jinping will expedite his timetable for conquering Taiwan to the 2024-2027 period.
In turn, the successful test of a B-2 bomber-launched Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, or JASSM-ER, missile is good news. Northrop Grumman told Defense News that a B-2 successfully launched a JASSM-ER during a test last December.
This successful proof of concept means that the Air Force can now adopt the JASSM-ER into its development plans to strengthen the bomber force. Allowing the delivery of a 1,000-pound warhead onto a target at a range of up to 600 miles, the JASSM-ER will allow U.S. warplanes to launch against enemy ground targets from as far away as Okinawa, and thus with greater survivability and more efficient sortie times. This ranged capability will also allow the United States to deploy non-stealth bombers like the B-52 and B1-B and fighter jets like the F-15 and F-16 with these weapons. This will be especially valuable in any future conflict with China over Taiwan.
This is not to say that the U.S. should necessarily fight China over Taiwan, especially if Taiwan doesn’t urgently improve its own readiness to survive. But if the U.S. does help defend Taiwan, hopefully alongside Japan and Australia, it will need as many missiles associated with the JASSM-ER family and as many platforms able to launch those weapons as possible.
After all, China’s People’s Liberation Army has spent the past two decades deploying air defense warships, ballistic missiles, and other platforms specifically designed to deny access to the U.S. military. Some of these PLA platforms are the result of its own ingenuity, but many come from the theft of U.S. technology. Regardless, China’s saturated deployment of platforms like the Type-55 destroyer and weapons such as the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile will make it very difficult for U.S. carrier strike groups and non-stealth aircraft to survive in any fight close to Taiwan.
While the Taiwan Strait’s 80-plus miles length is a long way for the PLA Navy to travel, space-based platforms aside, China will have a clear geographic advantage over the U.S. in any war with Taiwan. The PLA will be able to utilize air, sea, and ground-based systems, while the U.S. is forced to rely predominantly on air and sea systems that are operating at a very long range from their home bases. Even if Japan joins the U.S. war effort, President Bongbong Marcos’s pro-Beijing Filipino government is far less likely to offer U.S. military basing access. Yes, the U.S. may deploy some ground-based systems to Taiwan in anticipation of war. Yes, the Marine Corps’s new maritime warfare vision is well-suited to supplement Taiwan’s defense. Still, the roughly 2-4 week warning time for any PLA attack means any such deployments will be limited in number and thus wartime utility.
Then, the challenge for the U.S. rests with forces that can survive and sustain operations near Taiwan until those forces have expended their munition payloads. The ability to maximize this force disposition will likely be instrumental in determining whether or not the PLA can establish strongholds on Taiwanese soil. Strongholds that can be used to conquer the island democracy quickly. Thus, the credible deployment of these U.S. forces is also crucial to deterring Xi Jinping in the first place.
What does this mean in practice?
The U.S. Navy’s destroyers and submarines, especially, are critical. Unfortunately, members of Congress, such as Rep. John Rutherford, put cronyism before Navy capabilities that might actually survive a China fight. At the same time, the Air Force doesn’t have nearly enough of the exceptional F-22 fighter jet and the Navy of its air defense destroyers and cruisers. Making matters worse, President Joe Biden keeps sending more of these assets to Europe.
That brings us back to the B-2s.
Unlike their woefully underarmed, poorly ranged, and overpriced F-35 fighter jet friends (which cannot carry the JASSM-ER without losing their stealth character), the B-2 bombers are priceless assets against China. Near invisible to at least the current generation of PLA radar systems, the B-2s could strike against the highest value PLA command and control and targeting assets deep inside China. The U.S. has deployed B-2s to the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia in recent years, but B-2s operating out of Guam could get to the Taiwan Strait in around three and a half hours.
The problem?
The Air Force only has 20 B-2 bombers in total. That’s not nearly enough to affect the outcome of a war in which the PLA would hold the strategic mass of high-end capabilities. Moreover, the Air Force is prioritizing JASSM-ER purchases over LRASM anti-ship missile purchases (range of approximately 300 miles). This only makes sense if the Air Force believes its sustaining wartime mission will be to strike PLA targets on the Chinese mainland rather than in the Taiwan Strait. Again, however, considering that the Navy’s carrier strike groups and F-35s/F-18s are going to struggle to get near the Taiwan Strait, the Air Force will have to pick up the anti-ship-fight slack.
The key, then, is to maximize the number of JASSM-ER missiles and LRASM, SLAM-ER (range of approximately 150 nautical miles) anti-ship/surface missiles that can be brought to bear against the PLA in short order. Put another way, the U.S. munitions industry needs a crash development program. While Xi could always saturate Taiwan with ballistic missile fire in a punitive effort to secure its surrender without relying on airborne and amphibious forces, that brutal effort would risk significant damage to China’s other foreign policy interests. Xi’s great preference would be to get his forces ashore quickly and at scale to overthrow the Taiwanese government rapidly and mitigate international rebuke. The U.S. needs capabilities that make Xi’s ideal a much less credible prospect.
