The End of the INF Treaty and New U.S. Missiles

Table of Contents

On August 18, 2019, U.S. Department of Defense officials gathered at the live munitions testing range San Nicolas Island off the coast of California to observe a missile test. At approximately 2:30 p.m., a cruise missile was ejected from an ordinary-looking rectangular canister. The missile flew out into the open ocean. A subsequent press release from the Department of Defense did not specify the total range covered but simply noted that the missile had “exited its ground mobile launcher and accurately impacted its target after more than 500 kilometers.”¹ Normally, such a test would pass with little of note, but this was not an ordinary missile test; it marked the first time in at least thirty-two years that the United States had launched a non-intercontinental missile from a ground-based launcher to a range of more than 500 kilometers. The test was a direct result of Washington’s decision, which had taken effect about two weeks prior, to leave the 1987 INF Treaty, giving it newfound freedom of maneuver with regard to missile capabilities.² With the launch, the United States made clear that the treaty’s erstwhile constraints no longer had bearing.

Although Washington maintained stocks of air- and sea-launched missiles that were outside of the INF Treaty’s scope through its life span, the arrival of new U.S. ground-launched, long-range precision strike systems to Asia will have implications for the country’s military strategy, warfighting plans, and escalation management. New U.S. deployments may have significant implications for the military balance in the Indo-Pacific—provided that Washington can find suitable territory for basing new missiles. As of 2023, no regional allies have acquiesced to basing new U.S. missiles or entered formal consultations.³ For U.S. adversaries such as China and North Korea, the end of the INF Treaty removes an important structural constraint on U.S. military power and a source of predictability. The prospect of new U.S. deployments against the backdrop of rapidly expanding allied and adversarial missile arsenals, as described in the previous chapter, deserves particular attention given the implications for regional stability. The central hinge point for regional stability and U.S. military planning, however, will continue to be the possibility of missile basing on allied territory.

The Rise and Fall of the INF Treaty

Negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union in the final years of the Cold War, the INF Treaty was a notable first in the history of arms control because it eliminated an entire category of delivery systems. The two states permanently abjured all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 kilometers and 5,500 kilometers, irrespective of whether their payloads were nuclear or conventional. The treaty was originally envisaged as a means to manage concerns over missile-specific escalation risks in Europe, west of the Ural Mountains. However, allied exhortations, including by Japanese prime minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, motivated the United States to eventually seek a global scope for the treaty’s proscriptions.⁴ Over the course of the treaty’s implementation through 1991, 2,692 ground-launched U.S. and Soviet missiles were destroyed.⁵ Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the treaty’s obligations were inherited by the Soviet successor states whose territories previously hosted proscribed missiles, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.⁶ By the early 1990s, U.S.-aligned states in East Asia, as well as China, generally viewed the INF Treaty in positive terms.⁷

The INF Treaty was, above all, concerned with the basing mode of regional ballistic and cruise missiles—specifically, the U.S. Pershing II and BGM-109G Gryphon GLCM and the Soviet SS-4, SS-5, and SS-20. The immutable geography of continental Europe meant that NATO and Warsaw Pact forces were not only contiguous but that such missiles could be credibly and widely deployed on ground-based launchers with a plausible case for their military utility. NATO’s dual-track decision in 1979 resolved both to seek to negotiate limits and to address the apparent gap that had emerged between its own deployments and the Soviet Union’s deployments of the modern, mobile, MIRVed SS-20 in the second half of the 1970s. The dual-track approach incorporated “two parallel and complementary approaches,” namely deploying U.S. missiles to Europe while seeking to use these same missiles as leverage in arms control diplomacy.⁸ NATO concerns over the challenge that Soviet intermediate-range missiles posed to the credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent, as well as Soviet concerns over the short flight times and precision of systems such as the Pershing II, over time allowed for the treaty to manifest (with no shortage of negotiating difficulties between the two sides throughout the 1980s). 

In 2014, the United States, under the Obama administration, first alleged that Russia was “in violation of its obligations under the INF Treaty not to possess, produce, or flight-test a GLCM with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km, or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles.”⁹ On March 8, 2017, less than two months after Trump’s inauguration, General Paul J. Selva, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before U.S. lawmakers that Russia had “deployed” a missile that he assessed “violates the spirit and intent” of the INF Treaty.¹⁰ Later that year, an official revealed that the missile in question was the 9M729 (NATO designation: SSC-8 Screwdriver).¹¹ Russian noncompliance with the treaty took on particular urgency for the Trump administration, which partly used the noncompliance to justify its decision to pursue a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile in its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.¹² The dispute festered between Moscow and Washington for more than two years, culminating in an announcement by Trump on October 20, 2018, that he would “terminate” the treaty. This announcement was made following a political rally in the U.S. state of Nevada,¹³ but the United States did not formally invoke the treaty’s six-month withdrawal period until February 2, 2019.¹⁴

The U.S. withdrawal from the treaty sparked concern in Europe, where the decision was not fully expected. It also raised questions about what role U.S. concern about Chinese capabilities might have played. During the initial announcement of withdrawal, Trump cited apparent concerns about China’s missiles, highlighting the country’s nonparticipation in the treaty.¹⁵ Long before that, senior U.S. military officials had expressed concerns about Beijing’s growing ground-launched missile capabilities. In 2017, the former commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry B. Harris, testified before U.S. lawmakers that the United States had “no comparable capability” to the PLARF’s “diverse missile force” in part “due to our adherence to” the INF Treaty.¹⁶ Harris added that “95% of the PLARF’s missiles would violate the INF [Treaty] if China was a signatory.”¹⁷ Harris’s public testimony reflected the U.S. Pacific Command’s growing sense at that time that the INF Treaty was not fit for purpose in the emerging geopolitical environment in East Asia, where military competition with China may require the United States to seek capabilities that had not previously been deployed to the region. In part, growing interest in archipelagic defense strategies that would seek to deny the PLA freedom of maneuver in and around the first island chain began to grow more prominent in U.S. strategic discourse during this period, increasing interest in new ground-launched missile capabilities.¹⁸

Unsurprisingly, China reacted sharply and negatively to the U.S. decision to “terminate” the INF Treaty. Shortly after a U.S. prototype intermediate-range ballistic missile test in December 2019, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said the United States was trying to “free itself to develop advanced missiles and seek unilateral military advantage.”¹⁹ Generally, the end of the treaty represented a sharply negative development in the eyes of Chinese officials and strategists. While China was able to advance its own ground-based missile capabilities without constraint over the treaty’s thirty-two years, the treaty’s end meant the evaporation of the assurance that Beijing would have to concern itself solely with air- and sea-launched U.S. long-range conventional strike platforms in the Indo-Pacific and the possible conclusion of China’s monopoly on ground-based land-attack intermediate-range missiles in East Asia. Indeed, the potential arrival of ground-launched U.S. missiles in Asia will add complexity to the PLA’s military planning and targeting. Official Chinese statements in the aftermath of the treaty’s demise warned U.S. allies against hosting possible new U.S. missiles capabilities; a Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesperson said that “if the U.S. forces its way through, it would severely sabotage regional countries’ security interests and harm peace and stability.”²⁰

The United States’ Post–INF Treaty Plans

The end of the INF Treaty immediately led the United States to initiate various research and development programs for new missile systems. It quickly moved in 2019, after its withdrawal from the treaty took effect, to carry out two significant missile demonstrations. The first, mentioned at the outset of this chapter, involved a GLCM fired from a land-based variant of the shipborne Mark 41 Vertical Launch System used for Tomahawk cruise and other missiles. A second test, in December 2019, showcased a ground-launched intermediate-range ballistic missile, which “terminated in the open ocean after more than 500 kilometers of flight,” according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Both tests were rapidly conceived and carried out by the department’s Strategic Capabilities Office. The office has remained involved with U.S. post–INF Treaty missile development efforts, including with the U.S. Marine Corps’ efforts to field a “ground-based, long-range, land attack cruise missile capability for employment by its rocket artillery units.”²¹

Since these demonstrations, practical U.S. plans for the deployment of new conventionally armed, ground-launched land-attack missiles in the post–INF Treaty Indo-Pacific remain limited. By the end of 2019, as many as six new missile programs, with varying levels of funding, took shape to potentially lead to deployable ground-launched missiles that previously would have been prohibited by the INF Treaty. These efforts were largely led by the U.S. Army. Starting with the 2018 National Defense Strategy and its Multi-Domain Operations concept,²² the army began to emphasize long-range precision fires as an essential capability for future warfighting against near-peer adversaries. However, some of these programs have seen their funding zeroed out or have otherwise been mothballed in favor of concentrating resources into other programs. For instance, the army terminated research and development efforts for a 1,500-kilometer-range Strategic Long-Range Cannon in 2022, citing redundancy with other planned capabilities.²³ A month after the Trump administration first stated its intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty, the army’s fiscal year 2020 budget request in February 2019 sought funding for a new “Mobile Medium Range Missile.” The notional purpose of this missile was to seek a “lower cost strategic capability that can attack specific threat vulnerabilities in order to penetrate, disintegrate, and exploit in the strategic and deep maneuver areas.”²⁴ Funding for this system was zeroed out in the army’s fiscal year 2021 budget request, citing a “realignment of funds to higher priority programs.”²⁵ Finally, in late 2019, reports suggested that the United States would seek to develop a ground-launched, intermediate-range ballistic missile with a 3,000-to-4,000-kilometer range,²⁶ but no such system currently is under development.

More recently, U.S. Army plans have broadly coalesced around three missile systems, each with differing qualitative and range-coverage characteristics. These new ground-launched capabilities are a direct result of the expiration of INF Treaty constraints, against the background of the increased and substantial utility of accurate ballistic and cruise missiles in conventional warfare and the resort to such systems by U.S. adversaries. The first of these, the PrSM, was under development as a treaty-compliant replacement for the 300-kilometer ATACMS. The PrSM has seen incremental range extensions from the prior, declared treaty-compliant range of 499 kilometers to around 1,000 kilometers.²⁷ Among U.S. post–INF Treaty capabilities, the PrSM was the furthest along in development as of late 2022 and may be fielded by the army as soon as 2023. Existing M142 HIMARS integrated road-mobile launchers that can carry a single ATACMS missile will be able to carry two PrSM missiles. As of the end of 2022, the first generation of the PrSM had entered the engineering and manufacturing development phase; a second generation PrSM missile will reach early operational capability by the 2027 fiscal year.²⁸ In August 2021, the U.S. Army and Australian Defence Force announced that Canberra would contribute $70 million to the PrSM development program—particularly to support the development of the so-called Increment 2 PrSM, which aims to field an advanced seeker and guidance system to enable the targeting of ships and other mobile targets.²⁹

A second army program, Dark Eagle (formerly Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, or LRHW), is under development. Dark Eagle seeks to mate the joint U.S. Army–Navy Common Hypersonic Glide Body with a two-stage booster in the form of “all up rounds,” or self-contained, integrated, canisterized firing containers. Dark Eagle launchers will feature transportable, towed erector-launcher systems, each equipped with two missiles. The U.S. Department of Defense’s initial budget request described the primary role of Dark Eagle as providing the “Army with a prototype strategic attack weapon system to defeat anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, suppress adversary Long Range Fires, and engage other high payoff/time sensitive targets.”³⁰ A prototype Dark Eagle battery was slated to be fielded by the end of the 2023 fiscal year but has since been delayed to the end of the calendar year.³¹ Following this, the capability will transition to a program of record.³² In December 2021, Christine Wormuth, the secretary of the army, stated that LRHWs “are much more likely to be fielded on United States territory,” but that the army would be “ready, when called upon, to be able to put those kinds of capabilities in the [Indo-Pacific] region.”³³ Dark Eagle is the longest range of the imminently deployable U.S. post­–INF Treaty ground-launched missile systems, with a stated range of “greater than 2,775 km,” according to an army spokesperson.³⁴ Depending on the upper bound to the system’s range, Dark Eagle may be able to strike targets within China and North Korea from Guam. For instance, many of the mainland China–based PLARF brigades with Base 61 are within 3,000–3,200 kilometers of Guam. While Beijing is substantially further, Pyongyang—a plausible target for Dark Eagle—is some 3,400 kilometers from Guam. With an ambiguous upper-bound range, Dark Eagle is likely to leave U.S. adversaries concerned about the prospects of deep strikes without any need for basing on allied soil.

A third notable ground-launched system is the Typhon Missile System, which seeks to meet the U.S. Army’s Strategic Mid-Range Fires (formerly Mid-Range Capability) requirement, slotting in between the PrSM and Dark Eagle in terms of range coverage.³⁵ Each Typhon launcher will be capable of launching multirole Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) surface-to-air missiles (240-kilometer range) and Tomahawk Block IV/V cruise missiles (2,500-kilometer range) combining anti-air, anti-missile, anti-ship, and land-attack capabilities. Typhon launchers will feature four reloadable Mark 41 Vertical Launch Systems, identical to those used on U.S. and allied warships to operate the SM-6 and Tomahawk, which may have accelerated the development of Typhon.³⁶ Three types of support vehicles—a battery operations center, a reloader, and a battery operations center support vehicle—will additionally be associated with the Typhon launcher. The Typhon will deploy to at least two U.S. Army Multi-Domain Task Forces assigned to the Indo-Pacific region.³⁷ Following a June 2023 test of the system, the army announced that the system had reached full operational capability.³⁸

Table 1. Select New U.S. Short-, Medium-, and Intermediate-Range Missile Programs (Post-2019)
Name	Service	Type	Basing	Range	Payload	Status	Notes
Precision Strike Missile (PrSM)	Army	Short-range ballistic missile	Road-mobile (M142 HIMARS and M270 MLRS)	400+ km	Conventional	Prototype and developmental testing (for newer increments)	Fielding anticipated in 2023. Future increments to feature range extension up to 1,000+ km, with the use of ramjets, and capability against moving land and maritime targets.
Dark Eagle (formerly Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon)	Army	Medium-range hypersonic glide vehicle	Mobile, towed erector launcher	2,775+ km	Conventional	Prototype testing	Fielding anticipated in 2023. Features unpowered Common Hypersonic Glide Body on a solid propellant rocket booster in the form of all up rounds.
Typhon Missile System (Strategic Mid-Range Fires)	Army	Multimode missile launcher (SM-6 and Tomahawk)	Towed Mark 41 vertical launch system	240-2,500+ km	Conventional	Initial operational capability	First prototype may be fielded by the end of2023. Typhon can launch both SM-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles from a common Mark 41 vertical launch system.
AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW)	Air Force	Hypersonic glide vehicle	Air-launched (B-1, B-52, and planned B-21)	1,000+ km	Conventional	Canceled	Canceled after three failed tests and one successful test.
Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM)	Air Force	Hypersonic cruise missile	F-15E and likely B-52, B-1, and B-21	Unknown (likely sub-1,000 km)	Conventional	Development	The air force shifted focus to HACM following the cancellation of ARRW in 2023.
MK 70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System	Navy	Short-range ballistic missile	Canisterized Mark 41 vertical launch system (land- or ship-based)	240+ km	Conventional	Development	May be capable of fielding Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Long Range Fires Launcher	Marine Corps	Ground-launched cruise missile	Remotely Operated Ground Unit Expeditionary (ROGUE) fires vehicle	2,500 km+	Conventional	Development	Features a single Mark 41 canister on an uncrewed, mobile launcher. May serve anti-ship and land-attack roles.
Source: Naval News, Congressional Research Service, Air & Space Forces Magazine, Arms Control Association, and The Drive.

Of the three post–INF Treaty ground-launched systems meant to support the army’s long-range precision fire efforts, the Typhon is the only one with a Cold War analog in the form of the BGM-109G Gryphon GLCM; both systems featured towed, trailer-mounted launchers capable of firing four cruise missiles. Unlike the Gryphon, however, the Typhon’s missiles are not intended to carry nuclear warheads, and the Tomahawk’s long-range strike capability will be complemented by the short-range strike capability of the multirole SM-6 missile. One army official involved with the Typhon program noted that the system is capable of firing “many more missiles than a Tomahawk and an SM-6.”³⁹ As a result, the Typhon program “will be very much proliferated across our service, probably with our allied and partner nations, because it can shoot so many [types of] weapons,” the official noted.⁴⁰ The program’s flexibility also positions it to play a missile defense role. The SM-6, for instance, is capable of engaging terminal ballistic missiles at greater ranges than the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 Multi-Segment Enhancement and is undergoing testing against hypersonic threats.⁴¹

Though the U.S. Army has the broadest array of new ground-launched missile capabilities, it is not alone (see table 1). The U.S. Navy has introduced a road-mobile ground launcher for short-range SM-6 missiles that features a containerized Mark 41 vertical launch system (conceptually similar to the Typhon); the system is known as the MK 70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System.⁴² The MK 70 Mod 1 may also deploy on U.S. Navy ships. One MK 70 launcher was seen on board an Independence-class littoral combat ship in 2023.⁴³ Another notable planned Tomahawk ground launcher is the U.S. Marine Corps’ uncrewed Long Range Fires Launcher, which features a single canisterized Tomahawk missile per launcher. Like the NMESIS, the Long Range Fires Launcher uses a variant of the Remotely Operated Ground Unit Expeditionary (ROGUE) fires vehicle. The ROGUE system is designed to remain survivable through rapid mobility and, once deployed in substantial numbers, dispersal.⁴⁴ With the army’s Typhon, the navy’s MK 70 Mod 1, and the marines’ Long Range Fires Launcher, the United States is expected to increase its overall production of Tomahawk cruise missiles in the coming years. Budget projections for fiscal year 2024 account for the procurement of 242 Tomahawk cruise missiles by fiscal year 2028.⁴⁵

While U.S. lawmakers have authorized substantial funding for a range of missile research and development efforts that would otherwise have been proscribed by the treaty,⁴⁶ questions persist about the military role of many of these systems and their basing in the Indo-Pacific. All of the earlier-discussed systems remain non-nuclear, and no U.S. plans to change that are known to exist. Given the primarily maritime geography of the Indo-Pacific as viewed from a U.S. vantage point, no assured deployment sites are available west of the second island chain. The U.S. territory of Guam—the closest at some 3,000 kilometers from China’s eastern coast—is likely to host the longest range of the publicly declared U.S. systems in development (the U.S. Army’s 2,775-kilometer LRHW), but other shorter-range systems have no concrete peacetime basing options, although regional allies might decide to host them in wartime or in a serious crisis.⁴⁷

Other Conventional and Nuclear Capabilities

These new ground-launched capabilities are further supplemented by a qualitative and quantitative expansion to U.S. air- and sea-launched capabilities that were never treaty constrained in the Indo-Pacific and have long been a mainstay of U.S. power projection capabilities in the post–Cold War era. A wide array of such capabilities is currently deployed in the Indo-Pacific, and new planned systems will further buttress U.S. strike capabilities by the end of the decade. Ship-based Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and air-launched cruise missiles (particularly the 370-to-925-kilometer AGM-158 JASSM and its variants) confer a substantial deep-strike capability. Recent indicators further suggest that the U.S. Department of Defense is seeking to substantially increase production of JASSM/LRSAM (the 370-kilometer LRASM variant) missiles for the U.S. Air Force to as many as 1,100 per year.⁴⁸ This could indicate a planned increase in the current maximum of 10,000 JASSM/LRASM units, which was itself an increase from an earlier maximum of 4,900 units that the air force had planned to procure.⁴⁹ The U.S. Navy’s fiscal year 2024 budget request also indicates that production of new Tomahawk units will increase substantially, in part to support foreign sales.⁵⁰

New capabilities, such as the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), were set to further supplement the ground-launched capabilities described earlier. The ARRW was a hypersonic air-to-surface, standoff weapon under development for the air force. The missile was expected to feature a maximum range of 1,600 kilometers with average glide speeds between Mach 6.5 and Mach 8.⁵¹ Despite a planned early operational capability date of September 2022, successive failed flight-tests delayed the program’s transition into production. A December 2022 success appeared to move the program closer to operational capability status,⁵² however, the U.S. Air Force ultimately announced the program’s cancellation in 2023.⁵³ The air force is instead focusing on a hypersonic cruise missile program, known as the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile. This program remains in the development, test, and evaluation phase.⁵⁴ The navy is additionally seeking to deploy a Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile—a version of the army’s 2,775+ kilometer LRHW equipped with the Common Hypersonic Glide Body—on Zumwalt-class destroyers and Virginia-class submarines by the mid-2020s.⁵⁵

Nuclear-capable nonstrategic missiles, meanwhile, have a diminished role for the United States in the Indo-Pacific and generally in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. U.S. theater-range nuclear capabilities have been limited since the end of the Cold War, particularly since the removal of U.S. deployed nonstrategic nuclear weapons in Asia pursuant to the U.S.-Soviet Presidential Nuclear Initiatives.⁵⁶ Post–Cold War adjustments to U.S. nuclear posture in the course of several Nuclear Posture Reviews have not reversed this trend; instead, some post–Cold War capabilities that remained in central storage, such as the nuclear-armed Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile, were retired.⁵⁷

The primary set of long-range strike capabilities based in the region continues to be conventional. These are set to potentially diversify as new ground-launched systems are developed and deployed in the aftermath of the INF Treaty’s expiration in 2019.

While the Trump administration proposed a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile in its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review,⁵⁸ the Biden administration chose not to endorse this capability in its subsequent review.⁵⁹ The sole deployed nonstrategic U.S. nuclear-capable missiles that would be available for prompt use in the Indo-Pacific as of 2023 include a limited number of deployed Trident D5 SLBMs with lower-yield W76-2 warheads. The Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review claimed this system would “help counter any mistaken perception of an exploitable ‘gap’ in US regional deterrence capabilities.”⁶⁰ The Biden administration endorsed the W76-2 as contributing to the “flexibility” of U.S. deterrence strategy, including in the Indo-Pacific.⁶¹ Beyond the W76-2, U.S. nuclear-capable B-52H bombers can carry as many as twenty AGM-86B air-launched cruise missiles with variable-yield W80-1 nuclear warheads.⁶² B-2A Spirit bombers can further carry variable-yield B61 gravity bombs. No U.S. nuclear weapons are permanently forward-based at airfields in the Indo-Pacific. The primary set of long-range strike capabilities based in the region thus continues to be conventional. These are set to potentially diversify as new ground-launched systems are developed and deployed in the aftermath of the INF Treaty’s expiration in 2019.

The Role of New U.S. Capabilities

Despite surging interest in the pursuit of ground-launched systems with short, medium, and intermediate ranges, the military necessity or even benefits of these capabilities had been inconsistently appraised. For instance, in 2017, Selva said that the United States had no military requirements that could not be satisfied “due to [U.S.] compliance with the INF Treaty.”⁶³ Moreover, despite ongoing U.S. ambitions to hold at risk mobile targets—for instance, with successive planned increments of the PrSM—the army’s own examination of the advantages and drawbacks of long-range precision fires in its 2018 pamphlet on Multi-Domain Operations notes that these capabilities are “best suited for attacking stationary targets due to . . . long time of flight.”⁶⁴ The same document notes that “naval strikes and stand-off air strikes . . . have characteristics similar to” long-range precision fires.⁶⁵ Moreover, U.S. officials have offered divergent views on the appropriate numbers for new hypersonic capabilities in the post—INF Treaty period. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall offered the view that hypersonic weapons, due to their higher costs compared to ballistic or cruise missiles, will likely result in “relatively small inventories” for the United States.⁶⁶ During the Trump administration, by contrast, senior Pentagon research and development officials suggested that hypersonic weapons could be procured in much greater numbers, including in the “hundreds.”⁶⁷

Much of the theory of how new U.S. missile capabilities—particularly, U.S. Army ground-launched missiles—will contribute to weakening Chinese A2/AD capabilities in a conflict depends on the specifics of regional basing. Some proponents of withdrawing from the INF Treaty, for instance, suggested that new U.S. missile capabilities could deny China’s conventional forces the ability to “quickly overrun America’s most vulnerable allies.”⁶⁸ China’s substantial ground-based missile forces could inflict massive damage against U.S. allies and forward-deployed U.S. forces, but no new missile systems since developed by the United States could range the Chinese missiles’ launch points from currently available basing sites on U.S. territory. The U.S. Army notes, however, that its Multi-Domain Task Forces, which will be supported by new long-range missile capabilities, are designed to deliver “precision effects and precision fires . . . against adversary [A2/AD] networks in all domains, enabling forces to execute their operational plan (OPLAN)-directed roles” (emphasis added).⁶⁹ This all-domain role suggests that targeting ground launchers for Chinese missiles may not be an initial priority—or that other mission sets (including anti-ship and anti-air/missile) may be a greater focus. In general, research and development efforts have proceeded apace with little specificity on basing. Senior U.S. Army officials acknowledge that basing depends on diplomatic and political factors. “The politics of where [new missiles are] based, how they’re based, will be up to the policymakers and the diplomats,” General James C. McConville, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army, said in March 2021.⁷⁰ While these new missiles no doubt confer operational and tactical benefits that could contribute to the success of a future U.S. military campaign in the Indo-Pacific, the theory behind the utility of these capabilities must also contend with the political and strategic realities—and potential liabilities.

As the United States proceeds to develop and deploy these new missile capabilities, two particular issue areas will need further attention. First, as many of these capabilities qualitatively shift the nature of the non-nuclear threat to adversary nuclear forces (primarily in China but also in North Korea), new measures will be needed to mitigate the risk of unintended escalation. China is in the process of expanding the size of its nuclear forces partly out of long-standing concerns about U.S. conventional counterforce capabilities, for instance. With little clarity on the nature of the targets that may be assigned to these various new strike capabilities, Chinese decisionmakers may see no reason to believe that the United States would eschew using these long-range non-nuclear strike capabilities as part of a broader counterforce campaign. This alone could partly motivate and justify China’s ongoing nuclear stockpile expansion. Escalation concerns with North Korea, meanwhile, have rarely featured in U.S. debates on the post–INF Treaty missile force posture in the Indo-Pacific, but Pyongyang too is likely to bear similar concerns.⁷¹

A positive feature of the planned deployments of new ground-launched U.S. Army missiles is that they are all unlikely, initially, to have the capability to range deep within China, where they might otherwise hold nuclear weapons facilities, launchers, and other related infrastructure at risk.⁷² U.S. policymakers may seek to offer assurances to China along these lines while further underscoring that the United States would not otherwise seek to deliberately target nuclear forces with non-nuclear weapons. Though these sorts of assurances could be part of a strategic stability dialogue between the two countries, unilateral assurances can be valuable even in the absence of such a dialogue. These questions deserve particular urgency as the United States may move to devote greater value to non-nuclear weapons to cope more generally with China’s growing nuclear forces. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, has indicated that “cutting-edge non-nuclear capabilities,” including “conventionally armed hypersonic missiles that can reach heavily-defended, high-value targets,” may contribute to strategic nuclear deterrence as the United States faces, for the first time, two nuclear peers: China and Russia. Similar assessments concerning non-nuclear weapons of longer ranges had been offered by U.S. officials in earlier U.S. debates on global prompt strike systems prior to the U.S. INF Treaty exit.⁷³ Beijing and Moscow are likely to interpret Sullivan’s remarks as suggestive of a potential overt future nuclear counterforce role for new U.S. regional missile systems. While this logic appears to be primarily geared at domestic opponents of the Biden administration who might otherwise favor a quantitative expansion in the size of the deployed U.S. nuclear force, greater reliance on non-nuclear systems will need to contend with the new missile dynamics at play today in Asia.⁷⁴

A second matter for consideration is the potential role of arms control—or general risk reduction—in lowering the costs of peacetime military competition and the scope of a war, should deterrence fail. Unlike the background to NATO’s dual-track decision in 1979, the current theory of building up new missile capabilities rests almost entirely on buttressing deterrence of a general, regional, conventional war in the Indo-Pacific. As discussed earlier, China’s reaction to the United States’ withdrawal from the INF Treaty and its subsequent pursuit of new capabilities suggests that Beijing perceives these developments as negative for its own security interests. While China may not be eager to enter a process of formal, verified arms control initially—especially as long as it maintains a quantitative edge in theater-range missile forces—U.S. policymakers should begin to consider various arms control approaches that could bear fruit. They should simultaneously begin to explore allied perceptions concerning the role of missile forces in the region and consult on the parameters of possible arms control and risk reduction arrangements that would benefit U.S. and allied interests. Specific recommendations to this end are included in the final chapter of this report.

U.S. Geographic Constraints and Difficult Alliance Politics

The conditions driving post–INF Treaty missile development efforts in the United States today are largely incomparable to the dynamics that were at play in Europe in the 1980s, where concerns over nuclear instability and extended deterrence were paramount. A striking difference between the two cases is the role of geography. Cold War dynamics between NATO and the Warsaw Pact were centered on the continental landmass of Europe, while contemporary competitive dynamics between the United States and China are destined to play out in the vast maritime domain of the Indo-Pacific. Another difference is the fundamental asymmetry between the ground-based theater missile forces of the United States and China in Asia. This asymmetry manifested in the thirty-two years that the INF Treaty constrained the United States, a period that also saw guidance technology advances that gave theater ballistic and cruise missiles viable and substantial conventional battlefield missions that did not exist in the 1980s and were not envisioned in the treaty. As a traditionally continental military power, China invested heavily in mobile, land-based, theater-range missile forces initially for nuclear delivery, but it came to rely heavily on them (especially ballistic missiles) for conventional warfighting. The United States, meanwhile, has little territory available to base theater-range, ground-launched missiles in the Indo-Pacific—Guam is a notable exception—and its allies remain hesitant to host these missiles. As a result, U.S. naval surface warfare assets, submarines, and long-range bombers have served as the primary platforms for conventional long-range strike missions in Asia using manned aircraft and land-attack cruise missiles (not ballistic missiles).

However, for proponents of locating U.S. ground-launched missiles, both in anti-ship and land-attack roles, in Asia, the geographic realities of the region are a justification for pursuing such systems. Proponents emphasize the putative benefits of ground-launched systems, underscoring the limited missile-carrying capability of many air- and sea-based platforms and the lack of an at-sea reload capability for U.S. ship-based vertical launch systems.⁷⁵ They further add that the vast distances involved in projecting power across the Pacific Ocean may mean that U.S. air- and sea-based platforms may be otherwise unfavorably postured as a serious crisis escalates into a conflict, while forward-based ground-launched systems would provide a prompt strike capability if based appropriately. While these arguments contend with some of the inherent trade-offs involved in the long-standing U.S. reliance on air- and sea-based long-range strike systems, it remains likely that, whatever the military utility of ground-launched land-attack missiles, the United States will simply lack real estate on which to base these weapons in peacetime.

It remains possible that growing threat perceptions concerning China and possibly North Korea may prompt certain U.S. allies in Asia to reconsider the possibility of opening formal consultations with the United States on missile basing.

Of the five U.S. treaty allies in Asia—Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand—none are likely candidates for deployments of land-attack systems. Experts, analysts, and certain political decisionmakers in Australia and Japan are most positively disposed to such deployments, but they recognize the domestic political obstacles involved and have thus not publicly indicated that deployments are likely.⁷⁶ As discussed earlier, both countries have instead chosen to undertake substantial investments in their own missile capabilities; these could be supplemented by U.S. capabilities. South Korea, which hosted U.S. tactical nuclear weapons until December 1991, has also shown no interest in hosting such missiles now. Seoul is particularly aware of Chinese sensitivities, recalling the harsh unofficial economic sanctions South Korea endured after the 2016 decision with the United States to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense system on its territory.⁷⁷ Moreover, South Korean experts and officials see little to no role for new U.S. strike capabilities on the Korean Peninsula, emphasizing the country’s own substantial missile capabilities.⁷⁸ There is interest among some officials in the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to the peninsula, but Biden administration officials have ruled out that prospect.⁷⁹ Finally, the Philippines and Thailand are unlikely hosts for new U.S. missiles.⁸⁰ Bangkok has sought improved ties with Beijing, and although the Philippines’ approach to the United States has varied substantially with changes in its government—with a particular nadir for ties with the United States under the six-year presidency of Rodrigo Duterte—Manila has shown no openness to hosting U.S. missiles.⁸¹

It remains possible that growing threat perceptions concerning China and possibly North Korea may prompt certain U.S. allies in Asia to reconsider the possibility of opening formal consultations with the United States on missile basing. Public opinion—which, for instance, is commonly cited by Japanese officials and experts as a primary inhibitor of such basing on Japanese soil—has markedly changed on defense issues in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.⁸² Tokyo is seeking to increase defense spending to as much as 2 percent of GDP, a substantial departure from Japan’s generally limited post–World War II defense spending.⁸³ Even if permanent basing of long-range surface-attack missiles on Japanese soil will remain challenging, some U.S. proponents have raised the possibility that such capabilities could be deployed on a rotational basis to enhance immediate deterrence in a crisis.⁸⁴ Rotational deployments in a crisis, however, would be highly visible and could generate escalatory incentives for an attacker to act prior to the arrival and deployment of these capabilities in theater.⁸⁵ Rotational deployments may also concede one of the core benefits of forward-deployed ground-launched missiles over their air- and sea-launched counterparts: their responsiveness and promptness. Continual rotations could obviate this problem but would introduce logistical complexities and likely result in political costs comparable to permanent deployments.

Russian Post–INF Treaty Proposals and a Return to Restraint

From Asian vantage points, the INF Treaty may seem entirely like a relic of a bygone era, but the structural role once played by the treaty continues to bear relevance in Europe, particularly since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In 2020, following the INF Treaty’s end, Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered a missile deployment moratorium focused exclusively on Europe. Russia was prepared to “refrain from deploying in its European part the 9M729 missiles,” a 2020 report from state news agency TASS noted, implying that the once-treaty-violating dual-capable missiles would be drawn back to Russian territory east of the Ural Mountains.⁸⁶ At that time, the United States had assessed that four 9M729 battalions, featuring some one hundred missiles, had been deployed, including at least one battalion in Russia’s Eastern Military District.⁸⁷ While the Russian overtures were not reciprocated initially, NATO offered Moscow assurances about its plans following the treaty’s end. As the United States withdrew from the treaty in August 2019, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg publicly reiterated earlier NATO statements that the transatlantic alliance had “no intention to deploy new land-based nuclear missiles in Europe” (emphasis added).⁸⁸

Putin had also proposed “mutual verification measures” to address ongoing Russian and NATO concerns. These measures focused on verifying both that fixed Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense facilities in Europe could not launch offensive cruise missiles and that the Russian 9M729 missile remained nondeployed west of the Urals. The Russian proposal, however, did not accept the premise that the 9M729 was indeed a treaty-violating missile. In 2019, prior to the end of the INF Treaty, Russia had exhibited a missile it claimed was the 9M729, alleging that the missile was fully in compliance with the treaty. According to U.S. intelligence assessments at the time, the exhibited missile did not correspond to the missile that the United States had assessed as having been tested to ranges in violation of the treaty.⁸⁹ As a result of this discrepancy and broader mistrust between the two sides, the United States did not seriously reciprocate Russian interest in exploring these verification measures nor a post–INF Treaty missile moratorium until the crisis leading up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Prior to Russia’s invasion, Washington approached Moscow in early 2022 with written proposals concerning the military balance in Europe. This included broader arms control–related measures, including on missiles.⁹⁰ At least one of these measures appeared to respond to Russia’s overtures in 2019 concerning a post–INF Treaty missile moratorium.⁹¹ Washington’s offer also contended with intra-NATO divergences on acceptable reciprocity measures; Poland, for instance, was more interested in inspecting Russian missile deployments in the Kaliningrad exclave.⁹² Nevertheless, in the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials emphasized that they were “open to discussing” the “future of certain missile systems in Europe along the lines of the INF Treaty.”⁹³

The contours of what a new European security architecture might look like in the aftermath of Russia’s war in Ukraine are impossible to predict and, in any case, outside the scope of this report. However, it is not implausible that, either as part of immediate postwar negotiations or subsequent security talks, Russia and NATO may once again revisit missile-related matters. It is unlikely that an agreement resembling the INF Treaty would emerge out of such a process, particularly given the vast discrepancy in conventional precision strike capabilities between Russia and NATO that will likely be a lasting consequence of the former’s large-scale missile use on the battlefield in Ukraine. Nevertheless, any new arrangements to limit the deployment of conventional missiles in Europe could have reverberations in the Indo-Pacific, either due to Russian insistence that novel missile capabilities under development by U.S. allies in Asia be considered or the effect this might have on allowing the United States to devote additional resources to buttressing its Indo-Pacific military posture. In other words, missile dynamics in the Indo-Pacific will likely be affected by future European security arrangements.

Notes

¹ “DOD Conducts Ground Launch Cruise Missile Test,” U.S. Department of Defense, August 19, 2019, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/1937624/dod-conducts-ground-launch-cruise-missile-test.

² The complete title of the treaty is the “Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles.” See “Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles,” U.S. Department of State, accessed October 21, 2022, https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/trty/102360.htm#text.

³ Unconfirmed press reports have suggested that Washington may open consultations with Tokyo, but no such consultations have become public. “Washington Weighing Deploying Medium-Range Missiles to U.S. Forces in Japan, Sankei Reports,” Reuters, February 5, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/washington-weighing-deploying-medium-range-missiles-us-forces-japan-sankei-2023-02-05.

⁴ “Nakasone Persuaded Reagan on INF Elimination: Files,” Nippon.com, December 19, 2018, https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2018121905126.

⁵ Daryl Kimball, “The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at a Glance,” Arms Control Association, August 2019, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty.

⁶ In practice, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, owing to once having possessed a single INF Treaty facility each, did not participate in meetings of the treaty’s Special Verification Commission or inspections, with the consent of the other parties.

⁷ David T. Jones, “Post-INF Treaty Attitudes in East Asia,” Asian Survey 30, no. 5 (1990): 481–492, https://doi.org/10.2307/2644840.

⁸ “Special Meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers (The ‘Double-Track’ Decision on Theatre Nuclear Forces),” NATO, December 12, 1979, https://web.archive.org/web/20090227173641/http:/www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b791212a.htm.

⁹ “Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments,” U.S. Department of State, July 2014, https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/rpt/2014/230047.htm#inf2.

¹⁰ “House Hearing on Military Assessment of Nuclear Deterrence Requirements,” 115th U.S. Cong. (March 8, 2017), https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/features/2017/0917_nuclear-deterrence/docs/Transcript-HASC-Hearing-on-Nuclear-Deterrence-8-March-2017.pdf.

¹¹ Dave Majumdar, “Novator 9M729: The Russian Missile that Broke INF Treaty’s Back?,” National Interest, December 7, 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/novator-9m729-the-russian-missile-broke-inf-treatys-back-23547.

¹² Office of the Secretary of Defense, “2018 Nuclear Posture Review,” February 2018, XII, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF.

¹³ W. J. Hennigan, “Trump Plans to Tear Up a 31-Year-Old Nuclear Weapons Treaty. Now What?,” Time, October 20, 2018, https://time.com/5430388/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-treaty-inf-withdrawal.

¹⁴ “U.S. Withdrawal From the INF Treaty on August 2, 2019,” U.S. Department of State, August 2, 2019, https://2017-2021.state.gov/u-s-withdrawal-from-the-inf-treaty-on-august-2-2019.

¹⁵ Adam Taylor, “How China Plays Into Trump’s Decision to Pull Out of INF Treaty With Russia,” Washington Post, October 23, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/23/how-china-plays-into-trumps-decision-pull-out-inf-treaty-with-russia.

¹⁶ “Statement of Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., U.S. Navy Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee on U.S. Pacific Command Posture,” 115th U.S. Cong. (April 26, 2017), 7, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20170426/105870/HHRG-115-AS00-Wstate-HarrisH-20170426.PDF.

¹⁷ “Statement of Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr.,” 7.

¹⁸ See Andrew F. Krepinevich, “How to Deter China: The Case for Archipelagic Defense,” Foreign Affairs 94, no. 2 (2015): 78–86. Krepinevich did not recommend U.S. abrogation of the INF Treaty and instead suggested that ground forces be equipped with “inexpensive missiles that conform to the treaty’s range limitations.”

¹⁹ “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on December 13, 2019,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, December 13, 2019, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgmb/eng/fyrth/t1724378.htm.

²⁰ Zhen Liu, “China ‘Won’t Sit Back’ If US Deploys Intermediate Range Missiles,” South China Morning Post, October 31, 2019, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3035794/china-says-it-wont-sit-back-if-us-deploys-intermediate-range.

²¹ Kingston A. Reif, “U.S. Continues Intermediate-Range Missile Pursuit,” Arms Control Association, June 2020, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-06/news/us-continues-intermediate-range-missile-pursuit.

²² “The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1),” U.S. Army, December 6, 2018, https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2021/02/26/b45372c1/20181206-tp525-3-1-the-us-army-in-mdo-2028-final.pdf.

²³ Jen Judson, “US Army Terminates Science and Technology Effort for Strategic Long-Range Cannon,” Defense News, May 26, 2022, https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/05/23/us-army-terminates-strategic-long-range-cannon-science-and-technology-effort.

²⁴ “Exhibit R-2, RDT&E Budget Item Justification: PB 2020 Army,” U.S. Department of Defense, RDT&E, March 2019, https://www.dacis.com/budget/budget_pdf/FY20/RDTE/A/0604644A_104.pdf.

²⁵ Reif, “U.S. Continues Intermediate-Range Missile Pursuit.”

²⁶ Aaron Mehta, “Is the US About to Test a New Ballistic Missile?,” Defense News, November 14, 2019, https://www.defensenews.com/space/2019/11/13/is-the-us-about-to-test-a-new-ballistic-missile.

²⁷ Sean Carberry, “Army Taking Incremental Approach to Fielding New Missile,” National Defense, September 20, 2022, https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2022/9/20/army-taking-incremental-approach-to-fielding-new-missile.

²⁸ Andrew Eversden, “The Army Could Get Its Next-Gen Precision Strike Missiles in FY27,” Breaking Defense, May 3, 2022, https://breakingdefense.sites.breakingmedia.com/2022/05/the-army-could-get-its-next-gen-precision-strike-missiles-in-fy27.

²⁹ “Australia and US Partner to Spearhead Precision Strike Missile Capability,” Australian Department of Defence, August 12, 2021, https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2021-08-12/australia-and-us-partner-spearhead-precision-strike-missile-capability.

³⁰ “Justification Book of Research, Development, Test & Evaluation, Army FY 2020 Budget Estimates,” U.S. Department of Defense, March 2019, 580, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/budget/fy2020/army/rdte_ba4.pdf.

³¹ Jen Judson, “US Army’s Dark Eagle Hypersonic Weapon Fielding Delayed to Year’s End,” Defense News, September 18, 2023, https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/09/18/us-armys-dark-eagle-hypersonic-weapon-fielding-delayed-to-years-end/.

³² Andrew Feickert, “The U.S. Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW),” Congerssional Research Service, May 23, 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11991.

³³ Ethan Sterenfield, “Wormuth: Long-Range Fires ‘Likely’ to Be Fielded on U.S. Soil,” Inside Defense, December 1, 2021, https://insidedefense.com/insider/wormuth-long-range-fires-likely-be-fielded-us-soil.

³⁴ Freedberg, “Army Discloses Hypersonic LRHW Range Of 1,725 Miles; Watch Out China.”

³⁵ Justin Katz, “Lockheed Delivers First Typhon Missile Launcher Prototype to Army,” Breaking Defense, December 5, 2022, https://breakingdefense.sites.breakingmedia.com/2022/12/lockheed-delivers-first-typhoon-missile-launcher-prototype-to-army.

³⁶ In this sense, the Typhon conceptually resembles the SCO-led one-off launcher used to carry out the first post–INF Treaty U.S. medium-range missile launch, which also featured a Mark 41 VLS on a transportable truck bed. Theresa Hitchens, “Army’s Mid-Range Capability Builds On Navy Missiles To Speed Fielding,” Breaking Defense, October 12, 2021, https://breakingdefense.sites.breakingmedia.com/2021/10/armys-mid-range-capability-builds-on-navy-missiles-to-speed-fielding.

³⁷ Andrew Feickert, “The Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF),” Congressional Research Service, August 22, 2023, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/IF11797.pdf.

³⁸ Darrell Ames, “RCCTO Successfully Demonstrates Launch From Mid-Range Capability System,” DVIDS, June 28, 2023, https://www.dvidshub.net/news/448180/rccto-successfully-demonstrates-launch-mid-range-capability-system.

³⁹ “Transcript: Emerging Technologies & Long-Range Strike: A Conversation with LTG Neil Thurgood,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 12, 2022, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/event/220122_Karako_Neil_Thurgood.pdf?JK1Za58eq2hQ6dGqMbYx3yukwWTeuq.F.

⁴⁰ “Emerging Technologies & Long-Range Strike,” Center for Strategic and International Studies.

⁴¹ Jason Sherman, “DOD Eyes SM-6 for Counter-Hypersonic Mission, Test Against Glide-Vehicle Target in FY-23,” Inside Defense, March 12, 2020, https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/dod-eyes-sm-6-counter-hypersonic-mission-test-against-glide-vehicle-target-fy-23.

⁴² Joseph Trevithick, “Navy Unveils Truck-Mounted SM-6 Missile Launcher in European Test (Updated),” War Zone, September 14, 2022, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/navy-unveils-truck-mounted-sm-6-missile-launcher-in-european-test.

⁴³ Zach Abdi, “US Navy And Army’s MK 70 Payload Delivery Systems Stretch Their Wings,” Naval News, September 25, 2023, https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/09/u-s-navy-and-army-mk-70-pds-stretch-their-wings/.

⁴⁴ Joseph Trevithick, “Marines’ Tomahawk Missile Launching Drone Truck Breaks Cover,” War Zone, July 25, 2023, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/marines-tomahawk-missile-launching-drone-truck-breaks-cover.

⁴⁵ “Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Budget Estimates,” U.S. Army Financial Management & Comptroller, March 2023, 1, https://www.asafm.army.mil/Portals/72/Documents/BudgetMaterial/2024/Base%20Budget/Procurement/Missile%20Procurement%20Army.pdf.

⁴⁶ Reif, “U.S. Aims to Add INF-Range Missiles.”

⁴⁷ Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Army Discloses Hypersonic LRHW Range Of 1,725 Miles; Watch Out China,” Breaking Defense, May 12, 2021, https://breakingdefense.com/2021/05/army-discloses-hypersonic-lrhw-range-of-1725-miles-watch-out-china.

⁴⁸ “Phase III: Tooling and Test Equipment for Increased Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) & Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) Production,” HigherGov, December 2, 2022, https://www.highergov.com/contract-opportunity/phase-iii-tooling-and-test-equipment-for-increase-fa8682-19-c-0008p00016-r-b3066.

⁴⁹ Garrett Reim, “USAF Aims to Double Long-Term JASSM Production up to 10,000 Units,” Flight Global, September 27, 2019, https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/usaf-aims-to-double-long-term-jassm-production-up-to-10000-units/134510.article.

⁵⁰ Aaron-Matthew Lariosa, “US Navy Looks to Drastically Increase Missile Production,” Naval News, April 5, 2023, https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/sea-air-space-2023/2023/04/navy-looks-to-drastically-increase-missile-production.

⁵¹ Thomas Newdick, “Air Force Says New Hypersonic Missile Will Hit Targets 1,000 Miles Away in Under 15 Minutes,” The Drive, October 13, 2020, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37045/air-force-says-new-hypersonic-missile-will-hit-targets-1000-miles-away-in-under-12-minutes.

⁵² Valerie Insinna, “Air Force Successfully Tests First Fully-Operational Air-Launched Hypersonic Missile,” Breaking Defense, December 12, 2022, https://breakingdefense.sites.breakingmedia.com/2022/12/air-force-successfully-tests-first-fully-operational-air-launched-hypersonic-missile.

⁵³ John A. Tirpak, “It’s Official: ARRW Is Done When All-Up Tests Conclude. What’s Next?,” Air and Space Forces, March 30, 2023, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/arrw-program-end-whats-next/.

⁵⁴ John A. Tirpak, “Kendall: Air Force ‘More Committed’ to HACM After Latest Unsuccessful ARRW Test,” Air and Space Forces, March 28, 2023, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/kendall-air-force-hacm-unsuccessful-arrw-test/.

⁵⁵ Megan Eckstein, “US Navy Touts Hypersonic Missile Progress Ahead of 2025 Fielding,” Defense News, November 2, 2022, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2022/11/02/us-navy-touts-hypersonic-missile-progress-ahead-of-2025-fielding.

⁵⁶ Susan J. Koch, The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991–1992 (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical Information Center, September 1, 2012), https://ndupress.ndu.edu/portals/68/documents/casestudies/cswmd_casestudy-5.pdf.

⁵⁷ Hans M. Kristensen, “US Navy Instruction Confirms Retirement of Nuclear Tomahawk Cruise Missile,” Federation of American Scientists, March 18, 2013, https://fas.org/blogs/security/2013/03/tomahawk.

⁵⁸ Office of the Secretary of Defense, “2018 Nuclear Posture Review.”

⁵⁹ Office of the Secretary of Defense, “2018 Nuclear Posture Review,” 3.

⁶⁰ Office of the Secretary of Defense, “2018 Nuclear Posture Review,” XII.

⁶¹ Office of the Secretary of Defense, “2022 Nuclear Posture Review,” 2022, 11, https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.fas.org/2022/10/27113658/2022-Nuclear-Posture-Review.pdf.

⁶² Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, “United States Nuclear Weapons, 2022,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 78, no. 3 (May 4, 2022): 162–184, https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2022.2062943.

⁶³ “House Hearing on Military Assessment of Nuclear Deterrence Requirements,” 115th U.S. Cong.

⁶⁴ “The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1),” 40.

⁶⁵ “The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1),” 40.

⁶⁶ John Tirpak, “Only Small Inventories of Hypersonic Missiles in USAF’s Future, Due to Cost,” Air & Space Forces Magazine, February 15, 2022, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/only-small-inventories-of-hypersonic-missiles-in-usafs-future-due-to-cost.

⁶⁷ Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Hypersonics: DoD Wants ‘Hundreds of Weapons’ ASAP,” Breaking Defense, April 24, 2020, https://breakingdefense.sites.breakingmedia.com/2020/04/hypersonics-dod-wants-hundreds-of-weapons-asap.

⁶⁸ Elbridge Colby and Mike Gallagher, “INF Treaty Defenders Raise the Risk of Nuclear War,” Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/inf-treaty-defenders-raise-the-risk-of-nuclear-war-11561924759.

⁶⁹ James C. McConville, “Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict, Chief of Staff Paper #1,” Defense Technical Information Center, March 16, 2021, 12, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1143195.

⁷⁰ Ethan Sterenfield, “McConville: Stationing Long-Range Fires in Foreign Countries a ‘Political Decision,’” Inside Defense, March 30, 2021, https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/mcconville-stationing-long-range-fires-foreign-countries-political-decision.

⁷¹ Ankit Panda, “Sure, Deter China—but Manage Risk with North Korea, Too,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 78, no. 2 (March 4, 2022): 73–77, https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2022.2038884.

⁷² As discussed earlier in this chapter, the longest range of these capabilities, the Army LRHW, cannot range the Chinese mainland from Guam.

⁷³ Acton, Silver Bullet?, 29–31.

⁷⁴ Franklin C. Miller, “Outdated Nuclear Treaties Heighten the Risk of Nuclear War,” Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/outdated-nuclear-treaties-new-start-treaty-russia-putin-china-xi-heighten-risk-nuclear-war-missile-test-ukraine-deterrence-11650575490.

⁷⁵ Eric Sayers and Sugio Takahashi, “America and Japan in a Post-INF World,” War on the Rocks, March 8, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/03/america-and-japan-in-a-post-inf-world; and “U.S. Navy Tries Reloading VLS Missile Cells With a Commercial OSV,” Maritime Executive, October 7, 2022, https://maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-navy-tries-reloading-vls-missile-cells-with-a-commercial-osv.

⁷⁶ Panda, “The US and Japan After the INF Treaty.”

⁷⁷ Li Bin, “The Security Dilemma and THAAD Deployment in the ROK,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 3, 2016, http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/08/03/security-dilemma-and-thaad-deployment-in-rok-pub-64279.

⁷⁸ Author’s interview with South Korean experts and officials in July 2022.

⁷⁹ William Gallo, “US Rules Out Redeploying Tactical Nukes to South Korea,” Voice of America, September 24, 2021, https://www.voanews.com/a/us-rules-out-redeploying-tactical-nukes-to-south-korea/6243767.html.

⁸⁰ For a more detailed look at U.S. allies’ dispositions, see Jeffrey W. Hornung, “Ground-Based Intermediate-Range Missiles in the Indo-Pacific: Assessing the Positions of U.S. Allies,” RAND Corporation, April 28, 2022, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA393-3.html.

⁸¹ The Philippines has shown an interest in procuring the Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, though not a land-attack system. See Mike Yeo, “Philippines Signs Deal for BrahMos Supersonic Anti-Ship Missile,” Defense News, January 28, 2022, https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2022/01/28/philippines-signs-deal-for-brahmos-supersonic-anti-ship-missile.

⁸² Alastair Gale, “Ukraine War Boosts Support for Added Defense Spending in Japan,” Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-war-boosts-support-for-added-defense-spending-in-japan-11657196729.

⁸³ Mike Yeo, “Japan Seeks to Increase Defense Spending to 2% of GDP,” Defense News, December 1, 2022, https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2022/12/01/japan-seeks-to-increase-defense-spending-to-2-of-gdp.

⁸⁴ Abraham Denmark and Eric Sayers, “Exiting the Russia Nuclear Treaty Impacts Military Strategy in Asia,” The Hill, October 25, 2018, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/413183-exiting-the-russia-nuclear-treaty-impacts-military-strategy-in-asia.

⁸⁵ Japanese defense policymakers expressed a similar view to the author in interviews in late 2019.

⁸⁶ “Moscow Ready Not to Deploy 9M729 Missiles in European Russia, Putin Says,” TASS, October 26, 2020, https://tass.com/politics/1216411.

⁸⁷ Michael R. Gordon, “On Brink of Arms Treaty Exit, U.S. Finds More Offending Russian Missiles,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-brink-of-arms-treaty-exit-u-s-finds-more-offending-russian-missiles-11548980645.

⁸⁸ “Press Point by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on the INF Treaty,” NATO, August 2, 2019, http://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/opinions_168183.htm.

⁸⁹ Ankit Panda, “U.S. Intelligence: Russia Tried to Con the World With Bogus Missile,” Daily Beast, February 18, 2019, https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-intelligence-russia-tried-to-con-the-world-with-bogus-missile.

⁹⁰ William Mauldin and Michael R. Gordon, “U.S. Delivers Response to Russian Demands Amid Ukraine Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-delivers-response-to-russian-demands-amid-ukraine-crisis-11643220014.

⁹¹ Kingston A. Reif and Shannon Bugos, “Russia Expands Proposal for Moratorium on INF-Range Missiles,” Arms Control Today, November 2020, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-11/news-briefs/russia-expands-proposal-moratorium-inf-range-missiles.

⁹² Mauldin and Gordon, “U.S. Delivers Response to Russian Demands Amid Ukraine Crisis.”

⁹³ “Background Press Call by a Senior Administration Official on Russia,” White House, January 8, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/01/08/background-press-call-by-a-senior-administration-official-on-russia.