• China could destroy or neutralize US and allied airpower in a war with fewer shots than the other way around, a new report argues.
• China has prioritized hardening and expanding its airfields in the region at a faster rate than the US and its allies.
• The report's authors argue the US needs to prioritize defense, hardening airbases, and evolving its force.

In a war, China could suppress or destroy critical American airpower in the Indo-Pacific region with far fewer shots than it would take the US and its allies to do the same to Beijing's air forces, a new research report argues.

The report's authors note that China has been working faster than the US to harden its airbases and diversify its combat aircraft in the region, creating an imbalance in China's favor. American airfields are vulnerable to attack in a conflict, such as a fight over Taiwan.

A new Hudson Institute analysis from researchers Thomas Shugart and Timothy Walton highlights the serious threat facing US installations in the Pacific and echoes Department of Defense concerns about growing China's arsenal of missiles and those of US lawmakers about inadequate defenses.

In the report, Shugart and Walton write that China "has made major investments to defend, expand, and fortify" its airfields and more than doubled its hardened aircraft shelters and unhardened individual aircraft shelters over the past decade. China has also added to its taxiways and ramp areas. All of these efforts effectively give the Chinese military more places to protect and launch combat aircraft in a potential fight.

US efforts have been modest by comparison. And its military airfield capacity, including that of allies in the region, is roughly one-third of China's; without South Korea, that drops to one-quarter, and without the Philippines, it falls to just 15 percent.

The Air Force has been looking at dispersion and atypical runways as part of its Agile Combat Employment efforts, but there is still a notable shortfall that could be exploited.

This imbalance means it would take China far fewer missiles or airstrikes to neutralize US and allied airfields than it would the other way around, Shugart and Walton write. A preemptive strike, surprise being important in Chinese military doctrine, could catch the US and its allies off guard and give China an edge in air operations.

"Strategically, this destabilizing asymmetry risks incentivizing the PRC to exercise a first-mover advantage," the report says. "China could initiate a conflict if it sees an opportunity to nullify adversary airpower on the ramp."

Shugart wrote in 2017 that this is a real possibility, "particularly if China perceives that its attempts at deterrence of a major US intervention — say in a cross-strait Taiwan crisis or in a brewing dispute over the Senkaku Islands — have failed."

China has not been shy about its investments in being able to pull off such a strike, either. Beijing has invested heavily in its rocket force, with the Pentagon's annual report on Chinese military power documenting staggering growth in the number of stockpiled missiles and launchers, including the weapons it would need to hit US installations in the region. Satellite images have also documented mock American military assets, such as aircraft carriers, widely seen as missile targets.

For the conflicts and airpower operations in the Middle East, the US military enjoyed the ability to deploy to forward airfields uncontested, but the threat environment is different in the Pacific. A war with China would be very different.

But despite the significant concerns both within the Pentagon and Washington about vulnerabilities in US airbases, "the US military has devoted relatively little attention to countering these threats compared to its focus on developing modern aircraft," Shugart and Walton write. Older and newer aircraft differ in the air but are equally vulnerable on the ground.

The Ukraine war and ongoing fights in the Middle East have demonstrated that airfields are high-priority targets.

In order to counter the threat China poses, the Hudson report argues the US should invest further in active defenses for its air operations, harden its airfields to maintain resilience, and accelerate its efforts to field aircraft and unmanned systems that can operate from short or damaged runways or don't require runaways altogether, efforts fitting with ACE operations.

"Executing an effective campaign to enhance the resilience of US airfield operations will require informed decisions to prioritize projects — and sustained funding," Shugart and Walton write. "What is clear, however, is that US airfields do face the threat of attack, and the current DoD approach of largely ignoring this fact invites PRC aggression and risks losing a war." 

• Russia is considering deploying missiles in Asia if the US stations more systems there, a top official said.
• Sergei Ryabkov, a deputy foreign minister, said it was an option "discussed many times" by Russian leaders.
• The remark hints at a potential for Russia to enter the fray in a region fraught with US-China tensions.

Sergei Ryabkov, one of Russia's deputy foreign ministers, said on Monday that Moscow is considering deploying its short- to medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific.

Speaking to Russian state media, Ryabkov described the option as a potential response to reports that the US may deploy its own systems in the region.

"Of course, this is one of the options that has also been discussed many times," Ryabkov said, per the TASS state news agency.

He had been asked by a reporter if Russia might station its missiles in Asian countries, according to the agency.

"The appearance of corresponding American systems in any region of the world will predetermine our further steps, including in the sphere of organizing our military-technical response," he added, per TASS.

Ryabkov's remarks signal a potential for Russia to step into a region that's primarily been a hotbed for tensions between Washington and Beijing.

His comment comes as Japanese media outlet Kyodo News reported on Sunday that Washington and Tokyo are jointly drafting Taiwan contingency plans that would station US missile units in the Philippines and the Nansei Islands.

The latter is an island chain stretching from Japan's southwest coast to Taiwan, and temporary bases there would allow the US to establish a missile presence close to the self-governed island.

Citing unnamed Japanese sources, Kyodo News reported that in the event of a Taiwan crisis, the Japanese-American plan would send a US Marine Littoral Regiment to the Nansei Islands with its High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.

The 12th Marine Littoral Regiment is already based nearby in Okinawa, but Kyodo News did not cite any specific unit.

Meanwhile, the US Army would respond by deploying long-range units from its Multi-Domain Task Force to the Philippines, per Kyodo News.

The US has stationed a Mid-Range Capability "Typhon" system in the Philippines since April when it was first deployed for a joint military exercise with Manila. The ground-based system is one of Washington's newest and can fire both the Tomahawk cruise missile and the Standard Missile 6 interceptor.

In late September, the Associated Press reported that the US and the Philippines had agreed to keep the Typhon indefinitely in the archipelago.

The decision deeply angered China, which had for months demanded that the system be removed from the Philippines.

On early Monday morning Beijing time, Chinese state media agency Xinhua published Ryabkov's comments in a brief report.

All of this is openly happening in the shadow of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty's collapse.

The agreement, signed in 1987, was a pact between the Soviet Union and the US to ban nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

However, the treaty began to splinter two decades later as the US and its allies accused Russia of violating the agreement by building and deploying the Novator 9M729 cruise missile.

In 2019, the Trump administration announced the US's withdrawal from the treaty, saying Russia was no longer complying.

Moscow has, in response, repeatedly blamed the US for withdrawing from the agreement.