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OPINION: The trouble with China's nuclear doctrine
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| 16 February 2006 |
By Larry Wortzel
Several aspects of nuclear doctrine in the People's Republic of China (PRC) raise troubling questions about how the People's Liberation Army (PLA) intends to employ its nuclear weapons in the event of an international crisis.
In texts from the PLA National Defence University and its Academy of Military Sciences, China's new military doctrine is one of "active defence". China's doctrine charges its armed forces to maintain the capability to conduct a "strategic counterattack", which includes a "nuclear counterattack capability".
The General Staff Department of the PLA envisages the PLA Second Artillery as the main component of any "nuclear counterattack campaign plan". Other components of the plan are naval nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines and air bombardment or cruise missiles.
In the light of history, the idea of 'nuclear counterattack' is troublesome. China's military doctrine has long stressed the importance of taking pre-emptive action to achieve a strategic advantage. Moreover, in such conflicts as the Korean War (1950-1953), the war against India (1962), the seizure of the Paracel Islands in 1974 and the attack on Vietnam in 1979, China has claimed that it was conducting a 'self-defensive counterattack'. The PRC's military history, therefore, leaves open the question of what level of provocation may provoke the need for such an "active defence" in the future.
Dr Larry M Wortzel is a retired US Army colonel who served as a military attaché at the US Embassy in China. He is the former director of the US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute
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