Tracing the Undersea Dragon

Chinese SSBN Programme and the Indo-Pacific

Amit Ray

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000422436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is a comprehensive study of the development of China's nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). It offers insights into the secretive world of nuclear submarines and ballistic missiles of the Chinese (PLA) Navy and studies how these are likely to grow in the next two decades.

The volume examines the technological origins of the design and development of Chinese nuclear submarines, ballistic missiles, and their naval construction capabilities. It provides an analysis of the underlying Chinese nuclear doctrine, China's maritime geographical constraints for submarine operations, and the credibility of its sea-based deterrence. It draws upon strategy, nuclear policy, technology, geography, and operational considerations to holistically predict the likely SSBN force levels of the PLA Navy for various scenarios. The book also assesses the spectrum of threats likely from the undersea domain for India and other nations in the Indo-Pacific region.

A key text on an obscure but vital facet of Chinese defence studies, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of strategic affairs, international relations and disarmament studies, peace and conflict studies, geopolitics, foreign policy, Indo-Pacific studies, and diplomacy.

Chapter 1

Introduction

In the middle of the ocean, the sea and sky appear empty, limitless. The waves are restless, as if in anticipation. Without warning, a missile shoots out of the sea surface, with a seemingly small splash of water. It appears to hesitate for a fraction of a moment, then a flame and puff of smoke flare out below it. The missile shoots almost vertically into the sky, and all you can see of it in a few seconds is the fast-expanding trail of smoke in the sky, reaching upwards almost endlessly. In seconds, through the trail of the first, another missile follows and then another, till the horizon is filled with clouds (CGTN 2018). The upward curving white streaks remain suspended, slowly widening. The sea and the sky no longer appear empty, no longer limitless. An undersea behemoth has just let loose the deadliest weapon known to man, towards targets thousands of miles away.

The behemoth

The nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) is the ultimate weapon platform in terms of destructive capability, as well as technological complexity. A single SSBN carries nuclear warheads powerful enough to devastate targets across continents, perhaps a dozen or more metropolises in one salvo. Even the world’s first SSBN alone carried more destructive power than all the bombs dropped in World War II. Nuclear propulsion enables a submarine to remain submerged in the opaque depths of the oceans throughout its patrol. The SSBN is the amalgamation of three technologies, each extremely challenging in itself: a stealthy and mobile underwater platform, a compact nuclear reactor, and a payload of intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.

Nuclear propulsion for submarines started in the US with the development of a compact nuclear reactor. The first nuclear-powered submarine (SSN), the USS Nautilus, was commissioned in 1954. The USSR followed closely with their first SSN in 1958. Ballistic missiles for submarine launch required development of not only the missile and warhead but also its launcher and navigation subsystems (Spinardi 1994). The Soviets started with diesel-electric submarines for launching ballistic missiles (designated as SSB). The first SSBN was the USS George Washington, armed with 16 Polaris missiles with 2,200 km range, which went on its first deterrent patrol in November 1960. The first Soviet SSBN was the K-19 (of Project 658 or Hotel class), commissioned in November 1960, which carried three missiles of 650 km range. Within just seven years, the US had commissioned 41 SSBNs (along with 24 SSNs). This rate of construction was outpaced by the USSR as the Cold War intensified. Between 1967 and 1977, 56 Soviet SSBNs were built of three different designs, along with about 33 SSNs/guided-missile nuclear submarines (SSGNs), also of three different designs (Polmar and Moore 2004). About five to ten SSNs/SSBNs were thus being produced every year, and about four to five designs were simultaneously under production.

The UK’s first SSN entered service in 1963, assisted by the US Navy’s reactor expertise, and its first SSBN was commissioned in 1966 (Brown and Moore 2003). France commissioned its first SSBN in 1971 and its first SSN in 1983 (400 Years of Naval Innovation 2017). After at least two decades of effort, as we shall see in Chapter 3, China’s first SSBN was launched in 1981. Thus, the five nations that are permanent members of the UN Security Council all have SSBNs. This was possibly the only common and exclusive feature shared by them for almost half a century.

The SSBN represents the pinnacle of technology and weapons development that very few nations can afford and is a material manifestation of ‘great power’ status. It is therefore a reflection of the present geopolitical scenario that India has become the sixth nation to design, build, and finally deploy an SSBN from 2018 (Som 2018).

The importance of the SSBN stems from its destructive capability and its stealth. Nuclear deterrence has been the keystone of the global balance of power since the end of World War II. While nuclear weapons capability has spread beyond the five initial powers, delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons vary in sophistication, reliability, and stealth. As compared to land-based missiles and aircraft-delivered munitions, the sea-based leg of the ‘nuclear triad’ is considered to be the most reliable due to its concealment and hence invulnerability to pre-emptive strikes. The SSBN emerged as the preferred seaborne launch platform since, unlike surface ships, it is not discernible by satellites while on patrol. Unlike the limitations of conventional (non-nuclear) submarines, SSBNs can remain submerged for ...