Chinese researchers have recently unveiled a stealth camouflage veil that can disguise cruise missiles as passenger planes. Such technology could be helpful in a decapitation strike against Taiwan.
This month, the South China Morning Post reported that a gold-plated camouflage veil developed by China could change the face of war by making cruise missiles look like passenger planes on radar screens.
The SCMP notes that the technology could confuse expensive air defense systems and significantly reduce the time available for military commanders to respond.
The source notes that the technology was developed by a research team in northwestern China who published their work in the peer-reviewed Chinese Journal of Radio Science last month. It says the project is part of an ongoing effort by China to build up a wide range of ways to penetrate air defense systems in the First Island Chain, Guam, or even the US homeland.
The SCMP describes the veil as made of gold-plated fine metal threads that form a web of complex geometry to reflect radar signals. It notes that based on laboratory testing, it has been found that the device can significantly increase the radar cross-section of a flying target, making it comparable to that of a large airplane when viewed from specific angles.
The source says the US is already using radar reflectors on some of its missiles, such as the ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD), to make them appear as airplanes on radar screens. It also says that stealth military planes, such as the F-22 fighter and B-2 bomber, also carry removable reflectors known as Luneburg lenses most of the time so they can become visible to civilian air traffic control and hide their actual radar signature.
The SCMP notes that the veil’s potential as a countermeasure in future warfare is hindered by the challenge of achieving uniform performance in mass production, which can only be done if the manufacturing process is automated.
Potential threat to Taiwan
In line with that, stealthy cruise missiles may enable a Chinese decapitation attack on Taiwan, with missile strikes eliminating Taiwan’s critical military and political leadership and infrastructure while swiftly moving forces across the Taiwan Strait to occupy the self-governing island before the US and its allies could muster a response.
In the 2014 book A Low-Visibility Force Multiplier: Assessing China’s Cruise Missile Ambitions, Dennis Gormley and other writers say that cruise missiles do not produce strong infrared signatures on launch, which could make them undetectable by space-based launch-detection satellites, thereby reducing the possibility of a counterstrike.
According to Gormley and other experts, cruise missiles’ ability to fly at very low altitudes, with small radar signatures and potentially supersonic speeds, can put pressure on air defense systems and radars, making it more likely for them to go undetected. They note that in conjunction with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles can saturate air defenses and hit their targets quickly.
Assessing the potential of a decapitation strike against Taiwan, Michael Lostumbo and other writers note in a 2016 RAND report that China could aim to destroy Taiwan’s air defenses with extensive missile strikes, targeting missile defense radars, missile launchers, crater runways, and destroy aircraft on the ground.
If such strikes succeed, Lostumbo et al note that such could enable further strikes by crewed aircraft such as bombers and fighters.
Given China’s missile threat, Lostumbo et al note that Taiwan could preserve its air defenses as a “force in being” that imposes costs while avoiding attrition, seeking highly favorable engagement circumstances where it could shoot down enemy aircraft with little risk of loss.
Stealth tech on the ground
Beyond disguising cruise missiles as passenger planes, China’s other stealth technology developments could erode Taiwan’s irregular-warfare capabilities should the former’s reunification attempts come to a protracted guerrilla war.
Nilanthan Niruthan says in a 2020 Columbia Journal of International Affairs article that insurgents who could easily conceal themselves defeated large armies such as the Soviet Army in Afghanistan or the US Army in Vietnam. Niruthan says stealth technology could make the richer, larger army the stealthier one, eliminating the only military advantage an insurgent army has.
Such a dynamic could play out after a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan. In a December 2022 Modern War Institute article, Aidan Greer and Chris Bassler note that it is unlikely for the Taiwanese population to capitulate to China in the event of an invasion.
Greer and Bassler note that Taiwanese guerrillas would continue to wage irregular warfare from mountain and urban hideouts, employing a Fabian strategy, avoiding major force-on-force engagements while increasing the cost of occupation.
In conjunction with stealth technology, China could use other means to defeat a potential Taiwan insurgency, such as establishing intelligence superiority, eliminating civil-society institutions, and isolating insurgent bases of operations.
There are also significant implications should China’s stealth technology proliferate in the international arms trade and black markets.
Niruthan also says the proliferation of stealth technology might even lead to more proxy wars, as its very nature lends itself to plausible deniability.
Because of that, he notes that small states facing insurgencies backed by richer states could be in a lot of trouble, as insurgents could be supplied with advanced stealth technology by their backers, and even non-state actors could get stealth technologies on the illegal market.