The Drive:

The U.S. Navy’s top intelligence officer has said that the Service is watching closely as China expands its anti-ship missile capabilities, particularly in and around the disputed South China Sea, to include the ongoing development of long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles. At the same time, he said he “hopes” that China’s People’s Liberation Army will continue to invest significant resources into these efforts, hinting that the U.S. Navy already has extensive measures to counter these threats, already in use now, or in development.

Navy Vice Admiral Jeffrey Trussler, the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, made his remarks about China’s anti-ship missile arsenal during an online event put on by the non-profit Intelligence and National Security Alliance on Jan. 27, 2021. His comments come just over two months after a report that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) had successfully struck a moving target ship near the Paracel Island chain, in the South China Sea, with at least one ballistic missile fired from the Chinese mainland, during an exercise earlier last year.

Following that report, Navy Admiral Philip Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), speaking at the 2020 Halifax International Security Forum, another virtual event, confirmed that Chinese forces had fired a ballistic missile at a moving target during the August 2020 exercise in the South China Sea. However, he would not say whether or not the test was successful. If it was, that would mean the Chinese are the first to have actually demonstrated a long-range anti-ship ballistic missile capability, which could have significant ramifications for the U.S. military, as well as those of other countries, when it comes to maritime operations in that region and elsewhere in the Pacific…

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