Incoming: Chinese Conventional Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

While the Pentagon deserves credit for spotlighting China’s development of conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and the recent deployment of the DF-27 missile, which has an estimated range of up to 8,000 kilometers, it’s all too silent as to what the military implications are of these developments.

This game was designed to tease out what those implications might be. Although the game was one of the most complicated games NPEC has yet played, one thing was clear: to deal with the uncertainties China’s conventional intercontinental systems pose, it is almost certain the United States will have to emphasize the development and deployment of its own long-range conventional strike weapons. America will, in turn, be forced to think about how it might use them and how best to defend itself and its allies against these systems.

The game was held in early November 2025. It consisted of three moves and five briefs conducted over several weeks. The participants included former and current U.S. and allied government officials, military officers, congressional staff, policy researchers, academic experts, and analysts with experience studying nuclear deterrence, regional security, and emerging military technologies.

Move 1 opened in 2032 with the United States, China, and key Pacific partners engaged in diplomatic talks on limits and norms for conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (C-ICBMs) amid growing concerns about escalation and misinterpretation.

Move 2 began after a sharp deterioration in cross-Strait stability, marked by heightened Chinese military pressure on Taiwan and Taiwan’s subsequent decision to conduct a missile strike against a Chinese amphibious naval staging base, triggering rapid regional escalation.

Move 3 opened with the conflict expanding beyond Taiwan, as China conducted additional long-range conventional strikes on Guam and the United States and its allies prepared for direct confrontation, including impacts on the U.S. homeland and wider Pacific theater.

To help clarify the threat that conventional, hypersonic Chinese ICBMs may present, the game consciously put off the deployment of robust U.S. space-based missile defenses until sometime after the war scenarios played out. The implications of such missile defenses are discussed in the findings below.

I. America must clarify how it will defend its Pacific allies in new ways once China deploys conventional ICBMs.

One contentious issue raised in the game was whether or not the United States should prioritize saving Taiwan or, instead, its formal security allies against Chinese military assaults. Another was what would a proportionate U.S.-allied response be to a Chinese strike against the Lower 48 with conventional ICBMs? Yet another was can the United States credibly assure its Western Pacific allies’ security if it lets China military absorb Taiwan? In the game, America’s allies were ambivalent about lending support for America’s defense of Taiwan but also worried that – if America failed to prevent Taiwan’s military absorption – they would be next.

As for conventional long-range strike systems, the game demonstrated that they could not only serve China’s strategic purposes, but America’s. If Washington committed to militarily blocking China from assaulting Taiwan, American conventional long-range strike systems could help deter a Chinese assault on the island. One option highlighted in a pre-brief was the U.S. Navy’s conventional prompt strike system (~2875 km range), which the Navy plans to deploy on submarines and surface vessels later this decade. As the United States deploys more of these deep-strike, hypersonic systems, it may want to expend some diplomatic capital to promote talks with Beijing and Moscow on how best to distinguish nuclear long-range missiles from conventional ones.

In the game, the United States team did not initially commit to Taiwan’s defense. Instead, it insisted on being ambiguous. It also refused to negotiate with China to distinguish between conventional and nuclear ICBMs. The United States team hoped it could somehow convince its Western Pacific allies that – even if Taiwan fell – America would defend them. The Pacific Partners team was unpersuaded.

Today, the United States still clings to strategic ambiguity when it comes to Taiwan. The game play suggested this is unsustainable. Strategic ambiguity may have worked when America was a dominant military power in the Western Pacific. It no longer is and will not be, even if it increases its number of conventional strike systems in the Western Pacific.

Maintaining a policy of strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan’s defense also introduced other headaches. The China team did all they could to keep America out of the region. Meanwhile, the United States team had difficulty determining how much risk it was willing to take to counter China’s moves against Taiwan.

The China team consciously made all of its strikes against the United States and its allies as discriminate as possible in hopes it would deter further U.S. and allied engagement in the fight over Taiwan. It succeeded in this. In the game, America was unwilling to commit forces to Taiwan’s defense until the Pacific Partners team made it clear U.S. defense of Taiwan was critical to maintain their tight alliance relations with the team members. America delivered on this commitment, but perhaps too late to be effective.

Recommendations:

America does not need to build conventional ICBMs. Instead, its existing hypersonic conventional missile programs – ground-launched and sea-launched – should be sufficient to reach into China and Russia. Unlike ICBMs, these intermediate-range hypersonic systems have a distinctive flight pattern and a dedicated, conventional mission. They can be exercised at full range in peacetime and used to establish the norm of their non-nuclear character. This is not possible with an ICBM. In the hot wash, commentators also emphasized the desirability of complementing any sea- or ground-launched hypersonic ballistic systems with low-cost hypersonic cruise missiles that can be built in large numbers.
To optimize its deployment of long-range conventional strike systems in the Western Pacific, the United States should clarify its commitment to defend Taiwan or cut it loose. If America commits to Taiwan’s defense, it would want survivable conventional long-range strike options so that it could act more freely without allied help. In this case, the United States would need to convince Beijing that, in a conflict over Taiwan, the United States might use its conventional long-range strike systems against critical Chinese targets – including civilian infrastructure.
No matter what position Washington takes regarding Taiwan’s defense, America will want its own conventional long-range strike options to counter China’s. Towards this end, the United States should clarify how threatening the use of conventional long-range strike systems might deter Chinese aggression against other allies and friendly nations.

II. China’s deployment of conventional ICBMs initially will advantage Beijing in diplomatic negotiations to restrict these and related systems.

In the game, China was first to propose negotiations to distinguish conventional ICBM from nuclear ones in a verifiable fashion. China could demand a quid pro quo for any verification concessions China made. One reasonable demand would be to have the United States withdraw all or some of its forward-deployed conventional strike systems from the Western Pacific. Beijing also could exploit Washington’s cultural abhorrence of on-site inspections of American conventional and nuclear systems to keep any agreement from ever being reached.

In the game, the United States team understood all of these points and essentially decided not to negotiate. The Pacific Partners team supported U.S.-China talks and viewed the United States team’s decision to not negotiate as a mistake. The Pacific Partners team understood that if the United States refused to negotiate, China could pocket a psychological victory internationally. Beijing would not only be the first to deploy these systems but could assume the moral high ground of proposing reasonable restraints over their deployments. This would make America look weak.

Without survivable, conventional long-range strike options of its own, the United States will have little leverage to constrain China’s conventional ICBM deployments. Instead, China could use arms control to stall U.S. deployments of similar systems. In the game, the China team was willing to selectively discuss where it based its conventional ICBMs, but only if the United States was willing to make major concessions that would disadvantage the United States and divide it from its allies.

Although tempting, the United States should not counter China’s diplomatic advantages by developing a conventional ICBM force of its own. In fact, not doing so has clear diplomatic advantages. As already noted, the United States will have a number of survivable, sea-launched hypersonic prompt conventional strike systems later this decade. Russia has not yet deployed a conventional intercontinental ballistic missile. The United States should diplomatically spotlight the destabilizing character of China’s conventional ICBMs. Washington should argue that its conventional intermediate-range strike systems are much shorter in range, do not have a ballistic trajectory, and have already been exercised conducting their dedicated conventional missions.

Recommendations:

The buildup of U.S. and allied hypersonic conventional strike systems will take several years to complete but that’s no reason to delay negotiations, trusting that (in time) the buildup will constitute real diplomatic leverage. It would be useful to begin publicly discussing how the United States and its allies might exercise survivable, conventional long-range strike options against China and Russia. Trying to conduct diplomacy and military planning entirely in secret regarding these systems would be a mistake.
The United States needs to clarify now how it and its allies might use their own technical means to distinguish conventional Chinese ICBMs from nuclear ones and identify what new intelligence capabilities might help accomplish this. Washington also should clarify what forms of on-site inspection the United States and its allies could accept. This effort should include Track 2 conversations with our Western Pacific allies. Any serious negotiation about these conventional missiles will undoubtedly involve not just China, but Russia. As already noted, the United States should try to work with Russia to draw a line against conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles altogether.
In anticipation of Chinese demands that the United States and possibly its allies withdraw conventional ground-launched systems from the Western Pacific, Washington should determine which reductions might be tolerable and which ones would not. A major factor in making this determination will be how robust air and missile defenses – both for America and its regional allies – might be. Another key question is the extent to which the United States and other nations base long-range conventional, hypersonic systems on naval platforms (especially submarines). To get the answers, the Pentagon and State Department should game how strong America’s negotiating position would be if A) the United States decides it will only deploy robust air and missile defenses in the region if our allies pay for them (i.e. Golden Dome) or B) the United States subsidizes – or at least cost shares – any such deployments.

III. American diplomatic and military planning is currently behind the curve regarding the Chinese conventional ICBM threat. Public discussion of U.S. strategy and plans in dealing with this threat is needed.

A China armed with conventional ICBMs was able to threaten American territories and the continental United States with strikes that fell short of any nuclear attack. America’s strategic forces currently, however, are geared to respond to nuclear – not conventional – attacks. In the game, key Cold War nuclear warfighting protocols – launch on warning or launch on alert of nuclear strategic forces against a missile attack on CONUS – were not credible options because it was unclear how much damage a limited Chinese conventional ICBM strike would inflict.

Meanwhile, China’s theater strike systems cast a heavy military shadow over the Western Pacific. In contrast, American and allied ground-based conventional strike systems were relatively thin and vulnerable. This allowed China to threaten U.S. and allied ground-based strike systems in theater, knowing that any similar American response would require allied consent and were relatively vulnerable to Chinese counterstrikes. The United States team did not utilize American naval conventional prompt strike systems – either from surface vessels or submarines. In an actual conflict, the United States would likely use such systems.

The game’s play reflected China’s relative advantages in the Western Pacific. In Move 2, the United States suffered unattributed attacks (cyber, drones, missiles) against its critical civilian infrastructure. Although these strikes were characteristic of previous Chinese probing, the United States team did not blame China or escalate. After China struck Guam with a C-ICBM in Move 3, the United States team still did not mount a response. Only after Chinese C-ICBMs struck a limited number of electrical substations serving CONUS military sites did the United States team react. The United States team then used forces in the region to mount massive strikes against a variety of targets on the Chinese mainland, including China’s C-ICBM fields.

In the hot wash, game participants contested the plausibility of the United States’ conventional strike against China. Would the United States have sufficient intelligence on the location of China’s conventional ICBMs to risk targeting them without also hitting nuclear missiles? Would America have enough precision deep strike ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles forward deployed to pull off such a strike? Unless it did and was able to suppress China’s air defenses with them, would America risk using bombers in follow-on attacks? Finally, would America’s Western Pacific friends permit U.S. troops to mount attacks from their soil?

In the game, Beijing not only had a reserve of conventional ICBMs it could fire against the United States, but it also retained its nuclear strategic forces and still had conventional dominance over the Western Pacific. The United States team had difficulty dealing with these disadvantages not only because it lacked the weapons to neutralize China’s advantages, but because it lacked clarity as to what targets it should retaliate against and how.

Recommendations:

As the United States deploys more sea-launched long-range conventional strike systems, it should consider moving some of its most vulnerable forward deployed, ground-launched conventional strike systems from the Pacific to the Middle East and Europe. Redeploying the ground-launched systems would not only get them out of harm’s way but help check Russian and Iranian regional adventurism and their direct and indirect support of China. At the same time, the United States should make ground- and sea-launched long-range conventional strike systems available to as many of its friends and allies in the region as possible for their own protection and for additional, redundant counters to China’s threat envelope in the Western Pacific. Washington should utilize the AUKUS program to encourage the deployment of these systems on Australian surface vessels and submersibles and encourage the South Koreans and Japanese to do the same.
The United States should also clarify and game how it might respond to limited Chinese conventional intercontinental strikes against the United States. In the game, the United States team also was unable to distinguish between Chinese conventional and nuclear ICBM incoming strikes. This uncertainty made a hash of the presumption the United States would launch its nuclear ICBMs on warning or under attack. It also forced the American team to consider retaliating against novel, non-military Chinese targets – police command and control nodes, energy systems, space systems, etc. U.S. war planners need to game out what that target set would look like both with and without American long-range conventional strike options. A separate analysis needs to be conducted to answer these questions, assuming America could distinguish between Chinese conventional and nuclear ICBMs.
U.S. military planners also need to determine now what the most desirable sword-to-shield ratio might be. The game presumed the United States had Next Generation Ground-Based Interceptors and additional THAAD systems, but nothing else. If America had robust Golden Dome missile defenses, it would likely reduce the demand for offensive strike forces generally. If the Dome was extremely robust, America could conceivably dispense with intercontinental strike forces altogether. Obviously, any attempt to make the Dome “leak proof” would make it extremely expensive. It may also be strategically unnecessary. To deter a large, first-strike knockout blow against the United States, being able to defeat a large percentage of the incoming missiles would be sufficient. In this case, the United States could employ long-range conventional and nuclear strike options alongside its robust missile defenses to maintain an effective strategic deterrent force. It is imperative that the Pentagon begin to calculate what this new balance might be and update its findings routinely. In addition, the Pentagon needs to take the lead in developing passive and active defenses for critical civilian infrastructure. A national critical infrastructure protection program and strategy also needs to be publicly articulated as soon as possible.

Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, was deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Department of Defense (1989-1993) and is author of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War (2024).