I was pleased to be quoted in a recent edition of The Economist (“Out of their silos,” June 8, 2006) saying “Chinese leaders are less worried about a pre-emptive strike by the Americans than about an accidental or unauthorised launch by a junior commander of the new missiles.”
I was a little baffled, however, by the splashy graphic that suggested China’s lone ICBM, the DF-5 (CSS-4), could reach only the West Coast of the United States (see above).
The Economist doesn’t usually make mistakes like that and, sure enough, the range depicted (8,460 km) is precisely the estimate in the two most recent editions of Chinese Military Power.
Every other official US document lists the range of the CSS-4 as around 12,000 km including all four editions of Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat (NASIC, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006), two editions of Proliferation: Threat and Response (DOD, 1997, 2001) and the Cox Report (1999).
Bob Walpole, NIO for Strategic Programs, testified that “China’s current force of about 20 CSS–4 ICBMs can reach targets in all of the United States.” [Emphasis added]
If I had to guess, somebody at DOD just forgot to convert from miles to kilometers.