BMD Focus: The sub that Quickbird saw

WASHINGTON, July 18 (UPI) -- The Federation of American Scientists scored a major journalistic scoop earlier this month. As previously reported by UPI, the venerable, Washington-based arms-control group claimed to have identified the very first commercial imagery of a new Chinese ballistic-missile-carrying nuclear submarine.

FAS analyst and blogger Hans Kristensen believes that Google Earth satellite imagery in late 2006 recorded the pride of China's navy, one of its new Jin-class Type 094 SSBN strategic missile-carrying nuclear submarines.

Kristensen said in his article on the FAS Strategic Studies Blog July 5 that the Jin is 35 feet longer than China's older and smaller Type 092 SSBN. The Jin also has a larger missile compartment, he said.

"Reports have circulated for several years that the sub had been launched (in 2004), that a test launch of its missile occurred in June 2005, and the (U.S. Department of Defense) reported in May that the sub and its missile system (Julang-2) might become operational in the time period 2007-2010. But no image has ever been made available until now," Kristensen told UPI in an article published July 6.

Kristensen said the sub's location at the Xiaopingdao submarine base suggested that at the time of this image the sub was being fitted out and was not fully operational. The image was photographed by a commercial Quickbird satellite, he wrote on his SSB blog.

"Once it becomes operational, it will likely move down to the main Northern Fleet base at Jianggezhuang near Qingdao. An earlier satellite image from the same base (Xiaopingdao) taken in 2005 shows the Golf-class diesel electric sub at the same location where the Jin-class now is," he told UPI.

UPI reported July 6 that FAS earlier this year obtained a document from the Office of Naval Intelligence that states the U.S. Navy expects China to build a fleet of five Jin-class submarines as a nuclear deterrent.

If the Jins can successfully test launch ICBMs while submerged, they will give Chain a profound new strategic nuclear deterrent capability it has never had before. As Kristensen has noted, only one 092, or Xia class missile sub was ever built a quarter of a century ago. The vessel did not prove successful and the experience was so traumatic and costly to China's naval shipbuilding and missile technology sectors that for the next two decades they did not attempt to replace it.

Kristensen wrote on the Strategic Security Blog of the FAS July 5 that the new Jin-class SSBN was photographed at Xiaopingdao Submarine Base south of Dalian, about 193 miles north of Qingdao. "The Jin-class appears to be approximately 35 feet (10 meters) longer than the Xia-class SSBN, primarily due to an extended mid-section of approximately 115 feet (35 meters) that houses the missile launch tubes and part of the reactor compartment," he wrote.

"The extended missile compartment of the Jin-class seems intended to accommodate the Julang-2 sea-launched ballistic missile, which is larger than the Julang-1 deployed on the Xia-class. Part of the extension may also be related to the size of the reactor compartment," Kristensen wrote.

"The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimated in 2004 that the Jin-class, like the Xia-class, will have 12 missiles launch tubes. Other non-governmental sources frequently claim the submarine will have 16 tubes. The satellite image is not of high enough resolution to show the hatches to the missile launch tubes," he wrote.

Kristensen's impressive achievement demonstrates how the combination of universally available high-tech information on the Internet compiled by commercial satellites has revolutionized the field of intelligence-gathering on the most important and most secret strategic, missile and nuclear programs. He scooped not only the major players in the international media, but huge U.S. and other national intelligence services. The task of keeping secret major programs like building new generations of ICBMs or submarines or other state-of-the-art platforms to carry them is now a lot more difficult. Nations may be forced to invest far greater sums in security counter-measures to prevent being caught out that way. And they are also likely to boost their investment in Internet watchers who like Kristensen are skilled at hunting out the most remarkable and revealing data from obscure and apparently innocent sources.

But most important of all, Kristensen's find confirms that China's leaders are ambitiously seeking to diversify their strategic nuclear deterrent against the United States and, no doubt, other nations on a costly and ambitious scale. China still has an enormously long way to go catch up with the United States and Russia, and it may take Beijing decades to do so. Bu the evidence of the Quickbird photograph is that they are determined.