UK Defence Intelligence, RAF Wyton
DEEP IN THE BOWELS of the Pathfinder building, in the heart of the flat Cambridgeshire countryside, Emma Saye had almost forgotten about the two visitors from MI6 she had recently briefed on the intricacies of China’s latest weapon systems. As one of UK Defence Intelligence’s in-house specialists, her workload had speeded up dramatically since then. It was evening and well past Whitehall working hours but she was giving a detailed briefing to the Chief of Defence Intelligence, or ‘CDI’ as he was known.
‘Combat drones,’ she announced. ‘We all know they’re a game-changer – we saw that in Nagorno-Karabakh, and God knows we’ve seen it in Ukraine. While our friends in Beijing may have been a little late to the party in this sphere, they’ve been busy catching up. And one of the items of kit they’ve deployed in the Taiwan Strait is the Tengden TB-001. You may have heard it referred to as “the Two-tailed Scorpion”.’ She looked up and, yes, she had the CDI’s full attention. ‘That’s what the Chinese like to call it anyway. It can carry a variety of payloads, mostly Blue Arrow air-to-ground missiles, and it can loiter for up to thirty-five hours over a target. But …’ She held up a warning finger. ‘… what sets this beast apart from the rest of the pack is that it can operate at altitude. It can launch one of its AR4s – that’s another air-to-ground jobbie – from seven thousand metres up.’
The CDI wasn’t taking notes that evening – someone else was doing that for him – but he was listening attentively. ‘How does that compare with what the Americans and the Taiwanese have got?’ he asked, one silver eyebrow raised.
‘Annoyingly well is the answer, General. Take the standard NATO US Hellfire Longbow missile, for example. It has a range of eight thousand metres. Its Chinese competitor can deliver an eighty-kilo warhead to a target twenty kilometres away. They’ve been in production since 2017 and they’re only going to go further and faster. They’re working on new variants all the time. So, yes, when it comes to drones, Taiwan is outclassed and, to be honest, there’s not a lot we can give them to level the playing field.’
The CDI shifted in his chair, as if he’d just discovered he’d been sitting on something that wasn’t supposed to be there. ‘All right.’ He sounded tired. ‘What else? And for God’s sake, please give me some good news, Emma. Remember, I’ve got to brief a bunch of chippy journalists in Cabinet Office in the morning. If they get a whiff our allies are outmatched in the South China Sea it’ll be headline news the next day.’
‘Sooner, in fact,’ she corrected him. ‘We live in a digital world, I’m afraid, General.’ She threw him an apologetic smile and, for a moment his aide stopped writing to look from one to the other. ‘Right,’ she continued. ‘I’m not sure I can send you away with too much to write home about there. We do know the Chinese are having trouble with the guidance systems on one of their Dongfeng missiles but, again, they’re working on it and those coastal batteries are spooking the US Seventh Fleet. Ten years ago they’d be all over the Taiwan Strait. Not now, not with those hypersonic missiles. If this situation turns fully kinetic then a lot of the action is going to be with long-distance stand-off weapons. But it won’t just be here on Earth.’
The CDI’s chin rested in his hands as he considered all this. ‘You mean it will be fought in space?’
‘Very much so. We’re talking satellite jamming, even lasers aggressively trying to neutralize our own satellites. Beijing’s intention will be to “blind” us from Day One.’
The Chief of Defence Intelligence sat forward in his chair, eyes fixed on the young specialist who was briefing him. ‘So, if we lump everyone together for a moment,’ he said, ‘that’s us, the Americans, the Japanese, the Australians, South Korea and, of course, Taiwan, where would you say we stood, on balance?’
‘Just in terms of weapons?’
‘Yes.’
‘Conventional only?’
‘Christ, yes.’ The CDI winced at the thought of anything else. ‘Let’s leave nukes out of the equation.’
‘Right, well, discounting nukes,’ Emma chose her next words carefully, ‘I’d say we might still be ahead on quality, except when it comes to hypersonic glide vehicles. China definitely has the edge there. Their command and control is still very rigid, very Soviet era, just like the Russians in Ukraine. No room for initiative by junior ranks at all. But do you know what, General? I’m not sure that matters when it comes to Taiwan. This is a numbers game, and if Beijing really wants to do this thing and invade, the sad fact for us is that they have enough men and weapons to throw at it to eventually get the job done. They will have looked at what Putin achieved in Ukraine by mass alone and may just decide that’s the route they want to go down.’
The CDI rose wearily to his feet. ‘Well, thank you so much for that, Emma,’ he said. ‘You’ve cheered me up no end. I do look forward to explaining this to all those defence and security correspondents in Whitehall.’