China's only realistic strategy to defeat the United States in the looming war over the South China Sea is to launch a Pearl Harbor-type surprise attack with ballistic missiles on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers patrolling Asian waters.

It might also involve missile strikes on Guam and Hawaii -- attacks which will certainly ignite World War III.

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China will rely on its medium-range ballistic missiles (those with a range from over 1,000 km to 3,000 km) and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (those that can reach over 3,000 km to 5,000 km) based on the Chinese mainland to destroy the three U.S. Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carriers now in Asia.

Destroying all three carriers in a first strike, however, is considered an impossibility given the vulnerability of the "kill chain" necessary to secure fatal strikes on these fast moving warships, which are all protected by destroyers and cruisers armed with anti-missile systems.

It's not even certain if Chinese long-range reconnaissance can locate the carriers since China has no operational high-altitude, long endurance (HALE) aerial drones that will be needed to provide targeting data for Chinese missiles. Chinese spy satellites can't do this job.

This means the best option available to China will be to attack the American carriers while they're moored at Pearl Harbor. It will be 1941 all over again.

Some western military analysts believe a pre-emptive strike, or an attack without a declaration of war, is the only viable option for China given her qualitative and quantitative military inferiority versus the United States. Japan was in the same situation before the Dec. 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

A preemptive strike does appear consistent with what's known about the doctrine pervading the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), the service branch that controls all of China's ballistic missiles. Troubling new data and images also confirm that China might now be practicing this surprise attack.

Out of sight of the Chinese public, PLARF conducted a series of training exercises involving SRBMs and MRBMs during the Chinese New Year last Jan. 28. The drills were supposed to be directed against Taiwan, but are now suspected to be part of an overall training program aimed at finding and sinking U.S. Navy carriers on short notice.

On Jan. 28, separate PLARF brigades conducted combat drills involving deploying and practice firing the DF-11, an SRBM with a range of 300 km and an 800 kg high-explosive warhead; the DF-15 SRBM with a range of 600 km and a 500 kg high explosive warhead; the DF-16 MRBM with a range of 1,600 km and a 1,500 high explosive warhead and the DF-21C MRBM with a range of 2,500 km and a 500 kiloton nuclear warhead.

The brigades practiced different combat scenarios, including countering satellite reconnaissance and electronic jamming. The missile crews also practiced multiple maneuvers such as rapid loading; redeployment and launch sequence.

TagsPearl Harbor, china, surprise attack, U.S. Navy, aircraft carriers, medium range ballistic missiles, intermediate-range ballistic missiles, Dec. 7, 1941