CHINA’S STRATEGIC ARSENAL: Worldview, Doctrine, and Systems | Edited by James M. Smith and Paul J. Bolt

A book about China’s strategic military ecosystem could hardly come at a more important point in time. Not only has General Secretary Xi Jinping recently overseen a purge of senior officials of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Rocket Force, China’s sustained build-up of nuclear warheads amidst Beijing’s growing prowess in adjacent strategic areas including cyber and AI have additionally strained an already tense US-China relationship.

Focusing on a wide range of issues pertaining to China’s strategic worldview, doctrine, and systems, the editors have brought together an excellent array of well-researched and argued chapters from leading experts that provide crucial insights into China’s past, present, and future as a strategic power. Collectively, the authors succeed in explaining China’s unique perspectives on strategic weapons that have set Beijing’s approach apart from the superpowers during the Cold War and thereafter. As James M. Smith and Paul J. Bolt’s introduction reminds readers, China has historically maintained a significantly smaller nuclear arsenal than the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia, and continuously emphasized a “no-first-use” (NFU) policy.

The remainder of the book can be separated into four informal parts. The first introduces the US-China relationship leading up to the early twenty-first century and China’s grand strategy. In the first chapter, Smith and Bolt review the development of US-China relations throughout the Cold War and post-Cold War era, demonstrating that strategic issues have long featured as an enduring element in the often difficult bilateral relationship. Andrew Scobell then provides a convincing account of China’s strategic worldview, characterized by the perpetual sense of insecurity of a Marxist-Leninist regime for which strategic assets represent a guarantor for regime survival.

The second section engages with China’s nuclear doctrine and its impact on regional strategic and conventional stability. Christopher P. Twomey analyzes the emergence and role of China’s NFU policy, rooted in Beijing’s conviction to differentiate China from the two superpowers during the Cold War. Yet, as Twomey notes, NFU “should not be assumed to play a highly constraining role within a crisis when other important Chinese goals are at stake” (52), reflecting the necessity to question what would constitute “use” of nuclear weapons for Beijing in a crisis scenario. As Sugio Takahashi suggests in the proceeding chapter, these doctrinal ambiguities might become exacerbated, because “the process of escalation is uncertain” (76). Takahashi argues the regional escalation ladder in the Asia-Pacific differs from the Euro-Atlantic theatre of the Cold War. Drawing on the stability-instability paradox, Takahashi sees China’s growing prowess on the strategic level as an enabler of more conventional risk taking.

Having laid out China’s worldview and strategic doctrine, the third section deals with China’s strategic systems and the PLA’s corresponding organizational ecosystem. Hans M. Kristensen reviews the size and composition of China’s missile force structure, including land- and sea-based missiles, the potential reassignment of a nuclear mission to the PLA Air Force, and command and control systems. Phillip C. Saunders and David C. Logan provide an assessment of China’s regional deterrence capabilities and non-nuclear strategic systems, which include conventional and anti-ship ballistic missiles, hypersonic and counterspace weapons, and emerging capabilities in cyberspace and AI. As Saunders and Logan suggest, Chinese planners have begun to draw on concepts including integrated strategic deterrence, joint fire strike campaigns, and conventional-nuclear entanglement to integrate nuclear, conventional, space, and cyber capabilities into PLA operations. Under Xi, these efforts have been supported by ambitious organizational reforms of the PLA, as pointed out by Bates Gill in the next chapter. Gill emphasizes the rebranding of the Second Artillery Force as Rocket Force, and the creation of the Strategic Support Force (SSF) to coordinate all aspects of electronic and information warfare. Despite Xi’s appetite for reform, however, Gill points to the persistent structural and organizational challenges that may hamper the PLA’s integration of an increasingly advanced and diversified set of strategic capabilities.

In the final section, Nancy W. Gallagher provides a welcome reminder that strategic arms control efforts between the US and China have not always been a one-way street, reflecting China’s overall posture of relative restraint in comparison to other major powers as well as a fundamentally different understanding of strategic stability, vulnerability, and security in Beijing and Washington. Most importantly, Gallagher points out that in contrast to the US and Russia, the US and China have no meaningful history of bilateral nuclear arms control talks to return to, making future progress in non-proliferation in the current context of strategic competition challenging. Finally, Brad Roberts offers a concluding glimpse into the future of China as a strategic power, emphasizing that the US and its allies need to envision a regional security environment that fosters regional stability and “win-win” outcomes (253).

As Twomey points out, studying Chinese strategic affairs is a challenging task given the inherent opacity of the Chinese military-industrial apparatus. By confronting these challenges head-on, the book makes a welcome addition to our understanding of China as a strategic power. Going beyond the nuclear domain to include conventional capabilities and emerging technologies such as AI avoids definitional pitfalls while embracing the complexity of the latest revolution in military affairs in China and elsewhere.

Though the editors are transparent in pointing out that “no attempt was made to normalize positions or present a uniform interpretation” (2), the introduction and conclusion could go further in highlighting important nuances. For instance, while Saunders and Logan reassure that “little evidence suggests China currently has tactical nuclear weapons deployed” (127), Kristensen notes that “the US military is planning as though it [China] does” (104). This point is important, especially considering Takahashi’s differentiation between China’s strategic and theatre-level ballistic missile forces, some of which are thought to be dual-capable and the ensuing implications for regional escalation dynamics. In the absence of pointing to such important debates, the editors may preclude the contributions—meticulously researched, well argued and insightful though they are—from having the impact they should.                      

Lukas Fiala

London School of Economics and Political Science, London