US test launches nuclear-capable ICBM after delays over Ukraine, Taiwan tensions

The US has tested a long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile after twice postponing the launch to avoid stoking tensions over Ukraine and Taiwan.

An unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Picture: Senior Airman Ian Dudley/US Air Force via AP

The US successfully tested a long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Tuesday after twice postponing the launch to avoid stoking tensions over Ukraine and Taiwan, the air force announced.

The Air Force Global Strike Command launched the unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) over the Pacific from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California just after midnight local time.

The missile carried a test re-entry vehicle, which in a strategic conflict could be armed with a nuclear warhead.

The re-entry vehicle travelled about 6760km to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific.

“This test launch is part of routine and periodic activities intended to demonstrate that the United States’ nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, reliable and effective,” the air force said in a statement.

“Such tests have occurred more than 300 times before, and this test is not the result of current world events.”

The test was originally scheduled in March but was put off to avoid adding to tensions over Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

It was postponed a second time at the beginning of August as military tensions soared over China’s test launches of multiple ballistic missiles and live-fire exercises in reaction to the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.

“As China engages in destabilising military exercises around Taiwan, the United States is demonstrating instead the behaviour of a responsible nuclear power by reducing the risks of miscalculation and misperception,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said at the time, explaining the postponement.

An unarmed Minuteman III ICBM test launch in 2020. Picture: Clayton Wear/US Air Force/AFP

‘Defend the homeland’

Colonel Chris Cruise, 576th Flight Test Squadron Commander, said the US’ nuclear triad was the “cornerstone of the national security of our country and of our allies around the globe”.

“This scheduled test launch is demonstrative of how our nation’s ICBM fleet illustrates our readiness and reliability of the weapon system,” he said.

“It is also a great platform to show the skill sets and expertise of our strategic weapons maintenance personnel and of our missile crews who maintain an unwavering vigilance to defend the homeland.”

The US and its allies have been alarmed in recent years at the rapid pace of China’s military development, particularly in the realm of hypersonic missile technology where both Beijing and Moscow are feared to have an edge over Washington.

Last year, China alarmed US intelligence officials when it successfully tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle that circled the globe in low orbit before landing.

Such technology would be able to circumvent traditional missile defence and early warning systems designed to detect traditional ICBMs, which launch up and down in a fixed parabolic trajectory like a cannonball.

While China’s nuclear arsenal of several hundred warheads is dwarfed by Russia and the US, the Pentagon believes Beijing is planning to quadruple its stockpile to 1000 nukes by 2030.

There have been growing tensions between the US and China over Taiwan recently. Picture: Sam Yeh/AFP

‘Gorilla in the room’

It came as Beijing announced fresh military drills around Taiwan in response to a visit from a US Congressional delegation, on the heels of Ms Pelosi’s controversial trip earlier this month.

A top US military commander said on Tuesday that China’s recent decision to fire missiles over Taiwan was a “gorilla in the room” that has to be contested.

Those exercises included firing multiple ballistic missiles into waters off Taiwan – some of the world’s busiest shipping routes. It was the first time China has taken such a step since the mid-1990s.

“It’s very important that we contest this type of thing,” Seventh Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Karl Thomas told reporters in Singapore.

“I know that the gorilla in the room is launching missiles over Taiwan. If we just allow that to happen, and we don’t contest that, that’ll be the next norm. It’s irresponsible to launch missiles over Taiwan into international waters, where the shipping lanes, where free shipping operates.”

The Seventh Fleet is based in Japan and is a core part of Washington’s navy presence in the Pacific.

During this month’s drills, Chinese state media reported that some of the ballistic missiles fired by the People’s Liberation Army followed a trajectory directly over Taiwan’s capital Taipei, a new escalation that Beijing stopped short of confirming.

Vice Admiral Thomas compared the threats against Taiwan to the South China Sea where Beijing spent years constructing military bases and facilities on a series of contested atolls, while denying it was doing just that.

“If you don’t challenge it … all of a sudden it can become just like the islands in the South China Sea [that] have now become military outposts,” he said.

“They now are full functioning military outposts that have missiles on them, large runways, hangers, radars, listening posts.”

A Chinese fighter jet during a military drill. Picture: PLA/AFP

China used ‘cognitive warfare’

The Chinese Communist Party has never governed Taiwan but it regards the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.

Sabre rattling towards Taiwan has become more pronounced under Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The US and other Western allies have increased “freedom of navigation” crossings by naval vessels of both the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea in response, to reinforce the concept that those seas are international waterways, sparking anger from Beijing.

China said it conducted new military drills on Monday as a delegation of US politicians visited Taipei.

State media ran footage and pictures of Taiwan’s Penghu Islands purportedly taken from Chinese jets flying a short distance from the archipelago.

But Taiwan denied that Chinese jets came close to Penghu.

“The CCP used cognitive warfare and other tricks to exaggerate and show that [its jet] was close to Penghu. This is not true,” senior air force official Tung Pei-Lun told reporters on Tuesday.

The Penghu Islands sit in between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. They host a major Taiwanese air base and would be on the frontline of any invasion attempt by Beijing.

– with AFP