How Threatening Are China's Missiles?

Last week, Evan Braden Montgomery, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, a breeding ground of Andy Marshall acolytes (see: “Is the Pentagon’s Andrew Marshall the Leo Strauss of Military Analysis”), testified in front of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on what they dubbed “managing China’s missile threat.”

Montgomery provided an insightful answer to the question of why China is pouring resources into the development of on ground-launched offensive missile forces to support its alleged “counter-intervention” – anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) – strategy in Asia, which somewhat corresponds with my thoughts on the subject (see: “What Can the Middle Ages Teach us About US Naval Strategy”).

In detail, he argues that ground launched offensive missiles are:

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