Transcript
Transcribed automatically: it certainly contains errors. It’s pretty good, just not perfect. We provide it here because, for accessibility, it’s better than nothing.
Anne Pellegrino
0:01
Plarf, plarf, plarf, plarf, plarf, plarf, plarf, plarf.
Jeffrey Lewis
0:05
Plarfity, plarf! To the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. And I'm Anne Pellegrino, a Baker. And I'm Scott LaFoy, producer on the Arms Control Wonk Podcast. We have so many things to talk about.
Aaron Stein is not here because we are going to talk about the PLARF, and he does not care. As a result, instead we have Scott, Super Producer Scott, joining us to talk about his lovely PLA rocket force. And before we get into that, Anne, you're a baker. I'm not a butcher. And as far as I know, Scott's not a candlestick maker.
Scott LaFoy
0:57
I actually made a candle last week, so you need to start getting on your butchery game, Jeffrey.
Anne
1:05
Wait, you actually are making candles?
Scott
1:07
It's not quite up to the standard of the baking. Let's get back to the baking.
Anne
1:10
Well, day three of temporary unemployment, and I have already baked two loaves. So this is now the segment called What's Anne Baking This Week?
Jeffrey
1:25
I think we're going to do a weekly segment of What is Anne Baking? What is Anne Baking?
Anne
1:30
Oh, so this week I made a drunken fig and olive bread.
Jeffrey
1:38
So listeners, I have to say Anne quit her job because she had had enough. But we still love her on the podcast and she has not had enough of the podcast. So if you want your professional Anne fix, don't come to the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. She's not here. Drop by her house and beg for some bread.
Anne
1:58
Yeah, the pod doesn't cause my anxiety to spike. So happy to continue in my role.
Jeffrey
2:06
I am so pleased that we do not cause you misery.
Anne
2:10
No, Jeffrey, you really don't. You enrich my life. Scott, what did you call her? It was hilarious.
Anne
2:18
Gosh, oh, yes. I have to say that complicated feelings. But so far, I'm, I'm happy that I just have left more time for you to be on the podcast. Yeah, but anyways, we're talking about the PLARF. Yeah, the PLARF. PLARF, PLARF, PLARF, PLARF, PLARF, PLARF, PLARF. Nobody's gonna go PLARFity PLARF. No, oh, it sounded like the, the opening to the Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Jeffrey
2:49
There is so much PLARF news. For listeners, the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, which really is, that's how you and I know one another, isn't it, Scott?
Scott
3:00
That is, it's between the PLARF and originally there was like an obscure Hwasong-6 launch that I did imagery analysis for on a blog many years back.
Jeffrey
3:11
Yeah, so many, many years ago, I used to write books about China's nuclear weapons, which I don't really do anymore because I seem to be all North Korea all the time. You still follow the issue, and there has been so much news lately.
Scott
3:26
And unlike the Russian strategic forces, it's odd because the PLARF does not really do news the same way. They are a very quiet nuclear force unless they want to rattle around a bit. So when you get tons of news of them at once, a bunch of people start looking, including myself. And it's weird.
Jeffrey
3:46
So just as a kind of overarching introduction, the reason that we're doing this podcast is that really there have been two stories. One, which appeared in Kyoto News, sort of encapsulates something we've been seeing a lot, which is there has been a lot of Chinese missile testing. And we sometimes see the evidence of those tests in satellite photos.
Sometimes those tests are leaked to the media. Sometimes you see them in stock footage that gets released. But Kyoto News had a story that said Last year, China tested more than 100 ballistic missiles, which was more than the rest of the world combined. And then the second story, which appeared in Popular Science, picked up on a theme that has been...
Kicking around, lots and lots of us have orders of battle for the Plarf, trying to identify forces, and we'll talk a little bit about a particularly great Orbat that I think is coming, but Peter Singer and Ma Xu in Popular Science Said that the PLARF has introduced as many as 11 new missile brigades since May 2017. And everybody likes to talk about missiles and nuclear weapons, but militaries are structured things, and so 11 new brigades means a bunch more pointy things.
Scott
5:05
That's exactly right. And this is something that for listeners who mainly focus on the North Korea aspect of our coverage of missiles, we don't really talk about brigades and regiments and the North Korean forces because we know way less about them. There's a lot less public information where the PLARF and the 2nd Artillery Force before it have a lot more documentation available for them.
It's still limited, but it's a lot more.
Anne
5:29
So do we want to discuss missile tests or ORBAT first?
Scott
5:35
Let's start with the missile tests and start with the number of missiles and then what that means for the number of brigades. And then we're going to get into the other two stuff later.
Jeffrey
5:45
Yeah. So what'd you think about that?
Scott
5:48
You really think they did a hundred tests? That's a lot of missiles. So anytime we hear a number like a hundred, that does sound like, you know, an offhand reference. Like someone saying like, oh, it's a thousand. Like it's a rounded number, but a hundred's a lot. And they do have, compared to most other militaries, a lot more missiles to test.
They have more families of conventional ballistic missiles than any other country in the world. So a hundred tests is not totally... You know, that's not totally crazy. That's a very Cold War looking number though, from an American or a Russian perspective. And a lot of these are very like fancy things like the DF-21D and the DF, well, DF-21C and D and the DF-26 being, you know, having their anti-ship roles, have a lot of precision instruments on board that need to be tested extensively and have to integrate with, you know, all these sensors to make sure that they can see ships or precision targets.
So they need to be tested extensively. So at least like strategically, it makes sense.
Anne
6:51
So I have a question. So when I was doing kind of some pre-show research and I was reading this article, you know, one of the things that we, well, okay, so I'm going to have to change how I talk about my former work at CNS. But something that we used to do was, you know, put together all of these missile test databases.
And so it struck me, I was like, why didn't we do one For China. And obviously, I realized that our China missile test database would have been extremely difficult. So I kind of understand why we didn't do that.
Scott
7:26
So to pick up on that, so yeah, like when y'all at CNS have done your databases in the past, like for North Korea, one reason that a North Korea database is possible is Is because Indo-PACOM and Space Command and the various folks in the U.S. government typically report ballistic missile launches in North Korea. And then the KCNA and Rodong Sinmun and the North Korean state media usually carry some evidence of that test.
Not sometimes video, sometimes pictures, but there's usually some sort of correlating data between, you know, US and allied releases and North Korean releases. So you can kind of put pins.
Jeffrey
8:02
And screw you for saying Indo-PACOM. I refuse.
Scott
8:05
Oh my gosh. Sorry. Okay. PACOM Eternal.
Jeffrey
8:09
I'm going down with that ship. You know, you know, those Twitter things like pick the smallest hill to die on. PACOM is your hill. PACOM is my hill.
Anne
8:18
But really, you're picking up on, I think, what I was lacking, what I couldn't formulate in my thought was that there's no U.S. kind of announcements about Chinese missile tests. And if our kind of pivot to Asia and pivot to China and considering China a threat, that we don't see these just like little alerts when it's like, yes, China has tested
Jeffrey
8:47
Dismissal. Well, so here's what I don't understand about that though, which is that there is an announcement and it's whoever the f**k leaks to Bill Gertz, because Bill Gertz typically gets leaks on Chinese missile tests. But if this story is to believe it, I, like, I see no reason to doubt it. I will talk about the reporter in a second, who's pretty reliable..
Then Gertz is getting like a curated fraction of the actual number of tests. And that actually, I think, leads to some hypotheses about like what the distribution of those tests probably looks like.
Scott
9:25
Yes, because if memory serves, Goertz usually, Goertz has been a mainstay for sort of Chinese missile watching for many years. And he's gotten leaks of big systems when they test. Like the, you know, the last one I can recall offhand is he gets DF-41 tests occasionally.
Jeffrey
9:41
Which he had one on in November for the November 22nd flight test, which was the first test Since like May 2018, so it was the only test of 2019. And by the way, we use planet data because we can actually see how the shelters and the structures move around at those sites. So like, we're pretty sure we're not, I mean, we might be missing a few DF-41 tests, there might be one or two here, but like, we look and see when that damn shelter moves, right?
Anne
10:12
Oh, right, I remember this. We were talking on the phone.
Jeffrey
10:16
With them about this. And Planet actually has a three meter image, I think, of that tell out on the pad.
Scott
10:23
Is this at Wuji?
Jeffrey
10:24
Yeah. I mean, it's hard to tell because it's three meters, so it's just a giant black blob. But, you know. So, I suspect, you know, it doesn't to me look like the bigger systems are being tested at any higher of a rate than they traditionally have. I suspect this is that Of short range ballistic missiles and fine, I'll do it close range ballistic missiles because there are so many systems that the Chinese are reporting.
Scott
10:56
That's my hill to die on.
Jeffrey
10:58
That there are no CRBMs, there are only SRBMs.
Scott
11:00
It stops at S. It stops at S. There are SRBMs and there is rocket artillery.
Scott
11:07
Change my mind. Do not at me, actually.
Anne
11:11
Just putting together all of the memes.
Scott
11:15
So I think that's an interesting point, though, because there are systems that fall in between. Because I wouldn't expect every single, you know, using the old term that I don't think it's used anymore, like DF-12s. I don't expect to get those reported ever. DF-11s, I certainly wouldn't. But like a DF-26 test is a still fairly big deal.
And that's an IRBM with important strategic and nuclear capabilities. Like I would expect leaks... I'm surprised we have never seen a leak, assuming this has happened, of an at-sea anti-ship ballistic missile test. That's something that I've commonly heard bandied around as sort of one of the... In the same way that for North Korean ICBMs, people talk about like, oh, maybe the lack of a...
Traditional nominal reentry test means they don't have a proven reentry vehicle and reentry shielding. The DF-21D and DF-26, I don't believe have ever had a publicly reported anti-ship at sea test. And so that's kind of one of those little like check boxes that's never been checked off.
Jeffrey
12:18
And surely that would show up in B-roll.
Scott
12:21
Surely wouldn't there be some Chinese ship out there? Yes, exactly though. There's a bunch of little things like that. And not to get too far off the plot, but it becomes confusing when you're getting these curated leaks. You're not sure when strategic... You may get a false impression that certain strategic milestones have or have not been
Scott
12:45
Like, I don't know. At this point, like I had someone ask me this the other day, which was, do you think there's been an at-sea test for the DF-26? And it just sort of obviated the question of the DF-21, which is a shorter range system for folks who these all have the same numbers and names. I'm sorry.
But I don't know if it's reasonable to assume anymore. If 100 missile tests in 2019 is an accurate number, I'm not sure it's safe to assume anymore that there have not been observed and unreported tests of these anti-ship ballistic missiles. Because we also know there's been missile tests in the Bohai Sea that have been publicly reported. There was just never details released.
Jeffrey
13:27
And I should just jump in here and say, you know, the English version of this story is not signed. The reporter is Tomo Inoue, who is a really good Japanese reporter who gets really good defense scoops. And I actually talked to him about the story before he published it. I clearly did not give him the quote he needed.
To end up with this story. That's fine. I adore Tomo. He is a solid dude. And what happened was General Ashley from DIA is the person who said that China launched more ballistic missiles for testing and training than the rest of the world combined in 2018. And then I think then Tomo kind of followed up and got the...
Confirmation that that was, you know, in 2019 was more than 100 and that it, you know, far exceeded the US and Russia. So like, right. I don't know. I mean, I don't see any reason not to believe him.
Scott
14:27
Yeah, well, and that's this is like the problem in Chinese missile analysis fields is there's a lot of I don't knows. We're constantly dealing with this. It's good reporters doing good journalistic efforts, and that's our single source of data frequently. And so it becomes this interesting patchwork of journalism and reporting, which is very helpful, but we don't get those official numbers.
It's helpful because the US quasi-publicizes all of its ICBM tests.
Jeffrey
14:55
It's a little weird about its SLBMs, but we test between- Yeah, but the ones that go out of Vandenberg are pretty easy to see.
Scott
15:03
Yeah, exactly. They're not hard to find. Various people on Twitter have gotten really good at tracking U.S. NOTAMs and the U.S. tests between three and nine ICBMs per year, if you include SLBMs. Russia does it too. They're pretty public about it. The U.S. and Russia have a unique public relationship when it comes to their ICBM tests. Does not exist publicly for, that I'm aware of, for Chinese tests.
Jeffrey
15:30
Oh, Trump will get that in his P5 disarmament agreement. Just you wait and see. Oh. No. I know, we're not there yet. We're not there yet. We'll save that for later. Oh. You know, one of the problems we have on the open source side is that there aren't open source, you know, warning satellites that detect missile launches.
And so we are spending a lot of time and effort looking at technologies and big data solutions that would, in fact, allow us to recreate something like that data, whether that is infrasound, which other people have done, or my favorite of the moment, traveling ionospheric disturbances when the missiles hit the ionosphere. I mean, I'm not saying that any of these things are going to work.
Right. But I'm saying that it's a huge hole in the open source community, which is that we don't have our own open database of launches. Right. I mean, occasionally, like we get that one in a million planet shot where there's the plume, you know, or that where the exhaust rather. But. We really do need to get to a point where on the open source side, you know, if they say 100 and we count 89 and think that we get like, you know, 70, 80% of them, we can go like, yeah, that's about right.
Anne
16:51
Oh, man. Oh, man. This is the stuff that...
Jeffrey
16:55
We have the tech, we have the tech partners, but we gotta make it all happen together, which I'm not sure we're gonna be able to do.
Scott
17:02
Even automated NOTAM and notice to airmen ingests. Scrapers. Yeah.
Jeffrey
17:10
This is where we can implore our listeners to help us.
Anne
17:15
Okay, well, so what's your wish? The Slack channel has good resources. Yeah, what's your wish list, Jeffrey?
Jeffrey
17:22
Well, my wish list is automated NOTAM announcements. Also on my wish list is really spending some time with infrasound to see what we can surface. You know, that's a little tricky.
Anne
17:42
How? Because how it's collected.
Jeffrey
17:44
Yeah. But then, and my third is, Traveling ionospheric disturbances. GPS satellites have to do microcorrections to deal with the ionospheric disturbances, which means, in principle, any missile traveling through the ionosphere can be found in the microcorrections of the GPS data. That's a huge data. People say big data. That's an actual big data application.
Anne
18:13
Yeah, how would you... But how would you wade through all of that?
Jeffrey
18:18
Because it's not... We need like a $50,000 workstation and six nerds. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard. I'm not sure we're going to be able to pull it off.
Scott
18:26
But that's... That would be incredible, though.
Jeffrey
18:27
That's the kind of thing we'd like to be able to do. Yeah. Maybe somebody smarter than us can come along and do it. But anyway, the point is, this is a huge diversion, much more than I want to do. I just wanted to say, maybe you could... All of that. I don't care. This is a big gap in the open source community.
We do not have a good database of missile tests that is not completely dependent on leaks and press releases. We have no technical ability to collect that data ourselves in anything other than a really haphazard way. And that's a thing we gotta fix.
Scott
19:04
That would totally change the game. I look forward to your civil technical means project.
Jeffrey
19:10
That's exactly what I call it.
Scott
19:13
So. 100 missile tests a year. And like we said, a myriad of systems. Unlike the U.S., they have a full gamut of CRBMs, SRBMs, MRBMs, IRBMs. And that leads us to this piece in Popular Science, where they have allegedly introduced 11 new missile brigades since May 2017. 11 brigades is a lot.
Jeffrey
19:39
You know when I'll believe it?
Jeffrey
19:42
When Decker tells me it's true.
Scott
19:47
Well, he is chewing through that list right now.
Jeffrey
19:50
I have never been so happy to become obsolete.
Scott
19:55
Yeah. I had like an identity crisis last night at dinner where I was like, I got on Twitter and there's nothing I add anymore.
Jeffrey
20:04
I'm like, he's better at this than I am. Okay. I'm going to go look at some other country for a while.
Scott
20:13
But it's great because he is bringing a ton of information to light. So for listeners, there is a Twitter user, friend of the pod, and co-author on Arms Control Wonk, Decker Eveleth, who has basically just been churning through the past decade's worth of PLA Rocket Force's open source data and rebuilding a new order of battle to see everything and is going through...
Years of China Central Television B-roll stock footage for ground truth imagery and evidence of missile launches and brigade locations, and is basically creating a new comprehensive open source resource for this.
Anne
20:55
His entire Twitter feed is extremely impressive. And also, so when he first came on Twitter, he didn't, he didn't have his, he has his name in his bio now, but he didn't, and it was just Tehrani Mokdam's head. And before Fabian was also, like, open on Twitter, I thought it was Fabian, because Fabian has a love of Tehrani Mokdam, may he rest in peace.
But he would never be so disrespectful to Mokdam. But I just think he's smart, but also he's f***ing funny. Yeah.
Jeffrey
21:34
He's funny.
Anne
21:35
That is Tehrani Mogdan's head. How do you... That is the best name on Twitter. Hands down.
Jeffrey
21:45
Careful for not calling in, Aaron. We might give away your spot. You know, I went through this. Catherine Dill and I built a PLA Orbat about the time I was writing Paper Tigers, my last book on China. And by last, I don't mean most recent. I mean, like, my last. Like, I don't need to do this ever again.
And Mark Stokes was so helpful. Yes. And Henry Boyd at IISS was so helpful. And I know that we all have our own Orbats. And it is such a pain to keep up. And, you know, occasionally we would find things and put it in. And just the idea that he will solve this task and create the Orbat to rule all Orbats.
I am so happy.
Scott
22:33
For listeners, the last time there was a... To my knowledge, a full comprehensive Google Earth, like easily accessible or bat released was 2009 with Sean O'Connor's back when it was before it was the rocket forces. It was the PLA Second Artillery, and he released a file on a blog that was highly influential for. Open source and think tank folks like it was passed around a lot, and he eventually took it down. I think he was meaning to update it and then either never did, or that's when I believe he got picked up by James. Right and everybody likes to get paid for what they do, and I don't blame him.
Oh, yeah. I don't blame him at all. He literally... Listen, if someone had sat down and been like, hey, you do really good Twitter, Google Earth, would you like to get paid for that?
Scott
23:22
Yeah. Thank you. So... It's been a while. Like you said, everyone kind of has their own orbats. I built my own a couple many a year ago and promptly failed to update them ever again. And so this is going to be like a new standard on it. But I think we're also getting a little aside from the numerical thing.
All of our orbats don't matter anymore because they're historical and obviated. Because since, so according to this Popular Science article, since the early 2010s, which is when I first made mine, there have been 14 new brigades added, with 11 of those in the last three years. And that's a lot of people. That's wild. I don't want to dive too much into the weeds of what defines a brigade in the PLARF, because Jeffrey, as you know, there's so many different combinations for what makes a brigade.
Anne
24:16
I think it's important that you do a little overview, though, because it's unclear to me.
Scott
24:23
So, and Jeffrey, you may want to jump in here, because I always get this fuzzy, because first off, brigades are several thousand people. They're large. They have multiple missile launchers associated with them, but all of those numbers change depending on the type. For example, like a short-range system is going to have potentially, what is it, up to 24 launchers?
Plus reloads, plus tons of supporting regiments to facilitate the launch. When you get to the bigger systems, you tend to get fewer launchers. And then when you get to the static ICBMs in silos, I think it drops down to, my memory is failing, I believe between five and six silos per brigade. And that's considered the smallest number you would ever have in one brigade is the silos.
Jeffrey
25:13
Yeah, that's right. Usually DoD rounds it to about 20 DF5s. But when they're specific, they say it's 18. And that's probably three brigades of six.
Scott
25:24
Yes. And again, probably is really important. Don't add us about this.
Jeffrey
25:28
Because it could be two brigades of nine. We know.
Scott
25:31
It could be several things. And of course, there's the other Lewis who wrote about Chinese nuclear weapons. A famous one. And Hua Di's book, China Builds the Bomb, talks about that there also are dummy silos. And tracking that down, I've never found a separate reference for that. Yeah. That dummy silo report. I don't know how I feel about that.
It's single-sourced. Yeah, it's single-sourced to Hwadi, essentially, as far as I know. And it has... Never been defined anywhere else. But it has become a rule of thumb and assumption amongst a lot of missile-related analysts. I know. So that 18 to 20 number is really important because we know DoD rounds and we know DoD doesn't always show their full hand.
So, eh.
Jeffrey
26:23
So let me say... And when I last did this, there was even a pretty healthy debate about whether – so first of all, you can't count missiles. You have to count launchers. That's a thing that we should like – like you did implicitly, but we should say absolutely out loud because – Oh, I have no idea how many missiles the PLARF has.
Right, because you can reload some systems. In theory, you could reload ICBMs, although that's the shit job in the nuclear war. Yeah.
Scott
26:49
The DF4s, to their credit, the silo-based DF4s allegedly were little cigarette cases. They kept a spare in the silo. Oh, my gosh. There were only two of those, according to the declassified stuff, but it existed.
Jeffrey
27:04
So we don't know. Yeah. But even the number of launch units, when I last did this, there was a real question about, particularly for the new conventional systems, how many launchers there would be per unit.
Jeffrey
27:21
And it changes, and they weren't sure. And, you know, when you take out the have to handle nuclear weapons and add the, you know, or make it only conventional, then there are... You have to reconfigure your structure anyway in terms of the humans that you have and the jobs that they do.
Scott
27:38
Yes. Nukes especially require things that conventionals don't, so you have extra regiments for that.
Jeffrey
27:43
And you're shifting from liquid to solid, and so that also changes the support jobs, and so... You can't talk missiles, you have to talk launchers, and it's actually, even once you identify a unit, and you can even see the launchers there so that you know what kind they have, you don't know how... You don't know whether you're getting...
It's like hot dogs and hot dog buns, right? You don't know if you're getting six buns in a pack or eight hot dogs in a pack, which is f***ing annoying with the way it is. You just don't know.
Scott
28:15
I think what you're suggesting is that China makes five launchers... But six missiles so that every time they go to war, you have to just switch it up and get the other one and you never have quite the amount you want.
Jeffrey
28:27
I mean, it would be the most human thing ever.
Scott
28:30
And there's also some of these, again, you talked about reloads are the big thing and reloads were like the hot word, like you said a while ago. And reloads got really weird because a lot of these are like hermetically sealed canistered missiles. Yeah. So like you have to do, there's ongoing still debate about like, do you reload the canister or do you reload the truck with the canister?
Like there's a bunch of minutiae to this.
Jeffrey
28:55
But I do have a hypothesis, which is if I look at the 2016 and the 2019 China military power report, you can see where the launcher growth occurred. Yes. So there's a modest growth in ICBM launchers. And so that's probably a couple of brigades.
Scott
29:17
And we know that, just for other reference, between that time, the DF-31AG and the DF-41 come online. Right. Come online in big quotes. I'm not going to define that. Those started existing at some point. Saw them in a parade.
Jeffrey
29:34
Yeah. Saw them in a parade, and then when you start getting B-roll, you're like, yeah, okay. The IRBMs appeared. Right, the DF-26. And there's a lot of those. 80 launchers, according to Chinese military power. So that's, whoa. That's a thing. That's some brigades. MRBMs more or less stayed the same. Maybe modest growth.
Scott
30:02
And that's going to be your 21s, maybe.
Jeffrey
30:05
SRBMs stayed the same. Yeah, sorry, the 21s. SRBMs stayed the same. And... Glickums jumped up a lot.
Scott
30:18
Yeah, Glickums aren't real, though. I don't do CRBMs. I don't do Glickums.
Jeffrey
30:25
Wait. I mean, they're cruise missiles. What do you call them?
Scott
30:28
Yeah, cruise missiles are stupid.
Jeffrey
30:30
Oh my gosh.
Anne
30:31
Cruise missiles are disposable airplanes. Yes. Well, just because they're stupid doesn't mean that they don't exist. Okay, fair. Don't erase their existence, Scott. Okay.
Scott
30:42
Glickum erasure is a serious problem.
Jeffrey
30:45
I can see 11 brigades, for sure. And I think it's, my guess is it's heavily driven by large DF-26 deployments. And a little bit of ICBMs and a healthy number of Glickums. Yes. And there may be one or two here or there, but I think it's... I mean, according to the last Chinese military power report, there are 80 DF-26s.
Scott
31:11
80 DF-26s for something like, I think, three identified brigades at most.
Jeffrey
31:17
Which is too many. Like, right? Not enough brigades. Not enough brigades, I don't think.
Scott
31:23
Unless they're running well. So there is a version of these brigades that have a 24 launcher set up. That's a thing that we've seen, but that's usually not something that big necessarily.
Jeffrey
31:38
Yeah, okay, fine.
Scott
31:39
So that could exist. But the other problem we're going to run into on those is, do we think the DF-26 nuclear brigades, it is a missile that has been repeatedly touted as having a nuclear mission and a conventional mission, much like the DF-21 family. And we don't see brigades typically mix nukes and conventional nukes. We see that at the base level, like that there's a structure above the brigade.
But the brigades themselves tend to stay segregated on one side of their platforms missions, at least from what I've seen. But I've never seen like what appears to be a DF-21 brigade that manages both nuclear and conventional strike options.
Jeffrey
32:25
Anne, I feel like we didn't let you talk very much.
Anne
32:27
No, I, it's okay because I'm like trying to skim the 2019 China military power report and keep up with y'all. So I'm learning a lot. So I'm just like letting you, I'm just, no.
Scott
32:40
The long and short of that was, I don't know where those 80 missiles go, but it may not be an equitable or equal distribution across all the brigades. They may not be even.
Jeffrey
32:51
Sure, but even if it's 24 missiles a brigade, That's three plus brigades.
Scott
32:59
That's a lot. And for listeners, again, the DF-26 is supposed to have an anti-ship role in the same way that the DF-21 for years was the carrier killer. Now the DF-21 is a carrier killer. And the DF-26 is the carrier sniper rifle at IRBM range. It's a Guam range missile that can take out the moving Guams as well, allegedly.
Jeffrey
33:22
So I got to go teach. I have to inspire young minds, which mostly means arguing with them because I don't believe anything I say, which is fine. That's their job. Do we have a happy note?
Scott
33:35
I think a happy note would be it's nice to be on the pod again. I always seem to be here for Chinese missiles, which essentially at this point in my life are a hobby. That's what you like.
Anne
33:45
It is what I like.
Jeffrey
33:46
It's your first love. You never forget your first time.
Anne
33:50
Well, we should have you on more.
Scott
33:54
We have a lot to talk about. I still got a big list of PLARF things that we didn't get to today. And I think at some point we need to talk about New Start and some somewhat asinine suggestions about China's role. We never got there. It'll just be its own. Oh, absolutely. I'm going to have to edit in the New Start thing.
Every time someone says it, I'm going to have to put the Rolling Stones under it.
Jeffrey
34:17
Yeah, that's a whole podcast.
Jeffrey
34:19
So in true Joe Dempsey guest fashion... We may need a second podcast. I think we can make that happen. Not today, Satan.
Scott
34:32
If you would like to support the Arms Control Wonk podcast, and much like PBS, we are supported by listeners like you, please head over to patreon.com slash acwpodcast, where you can support us for either $3 a month if you are a student or $5 a month if you are not a student, and you get access to our Slack channel, as recently described by friend of the pod, Patrick Kerley.
And see all the wonderful things that our Slack friends get up to and discussing recent episodes and stuff.
Anne
35:06
I still pay $3 a month.
Scott
35:08
If you do that and I pay you from it, it's just a tax inefficiency, Anne. Patreon takes a slice of that $3. I don't get $3 from everyone. Also, Anne, you're not a student. That's fraud. I was a student. No, you get grandfathered in.
Jeffrey
35:27
No, you don't. What? Let me tell you what. We're going to introduce a new tier. And for $100 a month, Anne will send you a boule of sourdough bread every week.
Anne
35:41
Oh my gosh. Every week? That's a lot of bread. That's a $25 loaf of bread. I'm going to need an industrial kitchen.
Jeffrey
35:55
You think you can have a lot of takers with $100 a month for loaves of bread? Probably not. Man, I'm hungry.
Anne
36:01
I mean, I love your bread. I'll give you loaves for free. I'm still in my beta testing phase.
Jeffrey
36:10
All right. Hey, Anne and Scott, it was so great talking to you.
Scott
36:16
Thanks for teaching me a bunch of stuff today. Thanks for talking with me. Thanks for having me on. This was a lot of fun. And everybody else, thanks for listening.
