Not So Fast, Navy Carriers

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/

• By David Axe
• 03.06.08
• 4:16 AM

"As part of its planning for a Taiwan contingency, China is prioritizing measures to deter or counter
third-party intervention in any future cross-Strait crisis," the Pentagon’s Congressionally-mandated 2008
China report (pdf!) says. "Third-party intervention" means U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, which in 1996 steamed into the Taiwan Strait to deter a potential Chinese invasion.
So how does China aim to keep our carriers out of its backyard? With anti-ship ballistic missiles, the report contends:

One area of investment involves combining conventionally-armed ASBMs based on the CSS-5 (DF-21) airframe, C4ISR for geo-location and tracking of targets, and on-board guidance systems for terminal homing to strike surface ships on the high seas or their onshore support infrastructure. This capability would have particular significance,as it would provide China with preemptive and coercive options in a regional crisis.

Note that the Pentagon believes these missiles might target "onshore support infrastructure" in the event of open warfare. That means Hawaii, Guam and Japan. Ouch.
China’s got only a few dozen CSS-5s, plus hundreds of shorter-ranged, less accurate missiles, but it’s adding more every month. So are U.S. carriers and their bases truly at risk? Well, even the somewhat-alarmist China report admits that China lacks satellites for spotting ships at sea, so these ballistic missiles would have to be cued to their targets by other, less reliable means, such as aerial reconnaissance and passive sensing. Assuming targeting is possible, the vulnerability question comes down to how much faith you place in the two systems that would defend American and allied forces from a ballistic missile attack: the Army’s Patriot missile, and the Navy’s Aegis-Standard radar-missile combo