Chief of US Naval Operations explains why he's not afraid of China's 'carrier killer' missile

Speaking at a Center for a New American Security conference on Monday, the US Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, explained why China's DF-21D "carrier killer" antiship ballistic missile isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The DF-21D, an indigenously created, precision-guided missile capable of sinking a US aircraft carrier with a single shot, has a phenomenal range of up to 810 nautical miles, while US carriers' longest-range missiles can travel only about 550 miles away.

Therefore, on paper, the Chinese can deny aircraft carriers the luxury of wading off of their shores and forcing them to operate outside of their effective range.

But Richardson contested that notion.

"I think there is this long-range precision-strike capability, certainly," Richardson acknowledged. But "A2/AD [anti-access/area-denial] is sort of an aspiration. In actual execution, it's much more difficult."

China's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities (ISR), bolstered by a massive modernization push and advanced radar installations on the reclaimed islands in the South China Sea, have theoretically given them the ability to project power for hundreds of miles.

"The combination of ubiquitous ISR, long-range precision-strike weapons takes that to another level and demands a response," said Richardson, adding that China's extension into the Pacific created a "suite of capabilities" that were of "pressing concern."

ut the US Navy won't be defeated or deterred by figures on paper.

Richardson said:

"In the cleanest form, the uninterrupted, frictionless plane, you have the ability to sense a target much more capably and quickly around the world, you've got the ability, then, to transmit that information back to a weapon system that can reach out at a fairly long range and it is precision-guided ... You're talking about hundreds of miles now, so that raises a challenge."

"Our response would be to inject a lot of friction into that system at every step of the way [and] look to make that much more difficult," he continued.

Richardson was clear that China's purported capabilities were only speculations.

"What you see often is a display of 'Here's this launcher, here's a circle with a radius of 700 miles, and it's solid-color black inside' ... And that's just not the reality of the situation," he said.

"You've got this highly maneuverable force that has a suite of capabilities that the force can bring to bear to inject uncertainty," Richardson continued.

Richardson also went on to address the dual aircraft-carrier deployments in the Pacific and theMediterranean, saying that the deployments afforded a rare opportunity for "high-end war fighting and training," as carrier groups rarely get to train with each other in realistic, not just theoretical, situations.