China strives conventional and nuclear missile capabilities despite Western Warnings.

Aug 2025 : Until the 1990s, China had a low level of entanglement between nuclear and conventional forces. But with the introduction of conventional missiles, China began shaping its force structure in a manner that increased entanglement and attracted the notice of Western observers. Since 2015, the Chinese military has undergone significant reforms that have moderately reduced some of that entanglement. For instance, the military established the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) as a separate service branch that oversees all Chinese missiles. It appears that there is now a greater separation of command-and-control systems between nuclear and conventional forces within the PLARF. But in other areas, such as dual-capable systems like the Dongfeng DF-26, entanglement is increasing.

However, China’s development of an entangled system was likely never intentional but emerged as a byproduct of expediency and bureaucratic dynamics. First, developing nuclear and conventional systems in tandem and within the PLARF created economies of scale that reduced technology and personnel costs. Second, the PLARF likely sought to retain operational control over its forces when the other armed services lost their operational authority in 2015 to newly created multi-service theatre commands organized by geographic region. The DF-26, with its dual nuclear and conventional missions, may have allowed the PLARF to retain greater operational autonomy as its conventional forces began to be integrated into theater commands.

The evidence for unintentional entanglement is supported by the fact that few in China’s nuclear community seemed to consider or discuss the risks of entanglement until long after Western thinkers voiced their concerns, according to Chinese nuclear analysts Tong Zhao and Li Bin, who have written extensively on Chinese nuclear weapons policy. While China is not the only country with nuclear-conventional entanglement—the United States and Russia have strategic bombers with dual missions, for instance—the sheer size of the DF-26 arsenal, and the expected utility that China would derive from using conventional DF-26s during a conflict, make the DF-26 an especially dangerous entangled system.

The DF-26 mission –

China began developing the DF-26 in 2003 as part of its “anti-access / area-denial” strategy to blunt the US military advantage in the Indo-Pacific. A swappable nuclear or conventional warhead can be loaded into the two-stage solid-fuelled intermediate-range ballistic missile by opening its hinged clamshell cover. In addition to its nuclear mission, the DF-26 is capable of hitting large, fixed targets—such as US bases on Guam as well as ships. It demonstrates that the DF-26 has a specific variant for the latter mission as an anti-ship ballistic missile.

The DF-26 was incorporated into an experimental unit in 2014 and made its public debut in a military parade in August 2015. In 2018, the DF-26 officially became operational with a public announcement that highlighted its ability to target US aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships. The US Defence Department estimates that China now possesses around 250 DF-26 mobile launchers, with two missiles available for each launcher, making China’s intermediate-range ballistic missile stockpile 500 missiles strong. Of these 500, Western analysts estimate that around 100 are nuclear warheads.

Most of China’s DF-26 launchers were delivered between 2015 and 2020, but recent satellite imagery shows that 72 additional launchers were assembled from 2023 to 2024. No evidence has emerged to suggest that China has removed the DF-26’s nuclear mission in response to the growing awareness of entanglement risks within China’s nuclear community.

Possible explanations for a continued nuclear mission –

China’s nuclear think tank does not deem necessary to disentangle its nuclear forces. Some Chinese experts have argued that, although entanglement creates the risk of nuclear escalation, that risk is extremely low. Because the DF-26 plays a smaller role in China’s nuclear deterrent than road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, Chinese military leaders may believe that losing DF-26s during a conflict would only make a small dent in their overall arsenal.

Moreover, key decision-makers, such as President Xi Jinping, may be unaware of the entanglement risk. According to analysts, the Chinese system has a “high degree of compartmentalisation”, and experts in the nuclear community usually focus on their specialties instead of communicating across different areas of expertise. Even when Chinese nuclear experts are included in conversations with military and government authorities, they are often sidelined in favour of focusing on directives from top leaders. It is possible that concerns over entanglement have never been elevated to Xi’s level or, if they have, they may have been conveyed in an unconcerned or dismissive way. Furthermore, the same forces that probably have driven Chinese entanglement in the first place, convenience and bureaucratic manoeuvring could now be actively preventing the disentanglement of the DF-26. With the DF-26 fully and widely incorporated into the PLARF, supporters of disentanglement would have to argue against a now-proven model. Given the amount of time spent on training dual-capable personnel, PLARF commanders may also be reluctant to move those personnel to solely conventional or nuclear systems and “waste” that sunk cost.

Finally, the utility of retaining the DF-26’s dual capability outweighs the risks of entanglement in the eyes of Chinese decision-makers. Now that the Dongfeng-21, a mobile missile launcher that predated the DF-26 has seen its nuclear variant fully replaced by the DF-26, disentanglement would leave a hole in China’s flexible nuclear response. A nuclear-tipped DF-26 contributes to regional deterrence by threatening Guam and parts of India and Russia that are beyond the range of China’s medium-range and short-range ballistic missiles, though not its intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In addition to adding flexibility, the DF-26’s nuclear mission may be seen as important for adding redundancy to a nuclear arsenal that is still dwarfed by those of the United States and Russia. In the event of a nuclear attack, for instance, the DF-26 could play an important role by swapping its conventional warheads for nuclear warheads that were sheltered from a first strike. When talking about the DF-26, Chinese state media repeatedly emphasize its dual capability and the technological achievement that this dual capability represents. The DF-26 is a completely homegrown system, and not utilising its full technological potential might be seen as minimising China’s growing technological prowess.

A final possible explanation is that although China may not have entangled its forces intentionally, it may now see value in manipulating risk through entanglement. Should China disentangle the DF-26, its decision-makers may fear that the United States would then feel more comfortable targeting China’s conventional forces. Additionally, if a war did break out with the United States, the DF-26’s anti-ship variant would likely be one of China’s most formidable weapons. Creating even a slight hesitancy among US decisionmakers to target the DF-26 thereby affording it greater protection—would be valuable.

The persistent risks of entanglement –

Given China’s incredibly opaque system, it is difficult to assess which of these explanations is the driving factor behind China’s decision to retain the DF-26’s nuclear mission. These explanations also apply to the ongoing development of a new dual-capable system, the Dongfeng-27 (DF-27). The DF -27, which is essentially an upgraded version of the DF-26 with a longer range and higher survivability due to the use of a hypersonic glide vehicle, will be an even greater threat to US forces than the DF-26. The DF-27’s eventual deployment will only heighten the dilemma that US commanders would face in a conflict and will raise the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation.

Communicating entanglement risks –

Moving forward, US officials at the highest levels will need to directly communicate to their Chinese counterparts the risks posed by entanglement, since any bottom-up transmission within China has been—and likely will remain—ineffective. If China eventually enters arms control talks, the first point on the agenda should be disentanglement, especially by ending the nuclear missions of the DF-26 and DF-27. However, given China’s reluctance to enter into arms control talks, US officials will have to communicate to Chinese counterparts absent an arms control framework. Such entreaties will be more effective if accompanied by some level of US reciprocity. While China’s ideal form of reciprocity would be an end to US arms sales to Taiwan, the United States can still invite Chinese disentanglement by further disentangling its own nuclear forces. For instance, the United States could differentiate between its strategic bombers designated for the nuclear role versus conventional, or forgo a nuclear role for F-35 jets stationed in Asia.

Even with concerted US action, the strong possibility remains that Chinese decision-makers will defer disentangling the DF-26 and DF-27, because of the sunk costs and the ability to make the United States more wary about targeting those systems. However, as the risks of a conflict over Taiwan grow, it is imperative that the United States exhaust every option available to incentivize China to further disentangle its forces. If not, a quick on-ramp to nuclear war between the world’s two great powers will remain wide open.

Since long Western nuclear analysts have sounded the alarm over a particularly dangerous characteristic of China’s nuclear forces: They often overlap with China’s conventional forces. Should the United States and China ever go to war, a conventional US attack on an overlapping, or “entangled”, Chinese system could be misinterpreted by Chinese decision-makers as an attack on their nuclear arsenal, drastically raising the risk that such a conflict could go nuclear. That risk is particularly acute when it comes to China’s Dongfeng-26 (DF-26) intermediate-range ballistic missile, which is deployed on a road-mobile missile launcher and can carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead. While a nuclear-armed DF-26 would likely have different support vehicles in its vicinity than a conventionally armed one, efforts to conceal and obscure DF-26 deployments during a conflict could easily lead US military analysts to mistake the two on satellite imagery, potentially resulting in a US conventional strike that knocks out a Chinese nuclear weapon. Similarly, if DF-26 missiles were to be launched, US military analysts would likely struggle to discern whether China was conducting a nuclear strike.

Team Maverick