The land domain in any U.S.-China clash is no side show; it could decide a fight over Taiwan before aircraft even take off. This article walks through how China has built a missile-first approach to keep American forces at bay, what strengths and gaps Washington still holds, and why basing, survivability, and production matter more than raw numbers. Expect a clear Republican-leaning take: prioritize deterrence, surge missile production, and secure regional access to blunt Beijing’s shore-to-sea strategy.
China has spent decades assembling a land-based missile force meant to deny U.S. access across the Western Pacific, and those missiles now threaten key airfields, ports, and bases. Beijing’s concept is straightforward: use massed, long-range fires to keep American ships and planes at distance and win the opening phase without a traditional air campaign. That shifts the fight from dogfights to who can shoot and hide the most effectively.
The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force is the centerpiece of that plan. “The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force … has built an increasing number of short-, medium-, and long-range missiles,” Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Fox News Digital. “They have the capability to shoot those across the first and increasingly the second island chains.” That reach is designed to punish partners and allies who would host U.S. assets.
Chinese planners decided they could not outmatch the U.S. in air-to-air combat, so they leaned into ground launchers as a workaround. “They didn’t think that they could gain air superiority in a straight-up air-to-air fight,” said Eric Heginbotham, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “So you need another way to get missiles out — and that another way is by building a lot of ground launchers.” Those launchers are often mobile, siloed, or hidden to complicate counterstrikes.
China now fields the largest theater-range missile inventory on Earth, backed by hardened storage, tunnels, and shoot-and-scoot tactics aimed at overwhelming defenses. Yet numbers alone are not destiny. U.S. strengths in targeting, sensors, and joint operations still tilt the balance, provided America maintains production and keeps launchers alive. That combination of hardware and integrated command remains a Republican talking point for investment and readiness.
Targeting is an American edge for now, but it is not permanent. “The Chinese have not fought a war since the 1970s,” Jones said. “We see lots of challenges with their ability to conduct joint operations across different services.” Washington, by contrast, has spent decades refining cross-domain targeting with satellites, undersea sensors, stealthy drones, and seasoned operational command systems.
China’s defense industrial base also raises doubts about sustainability. “Most of (China’s defense firms) are state-owned enterprises,” he said. “We see massive inefficiency, the quality of the systems … we see a lot of maintenance challenges.” Those problems matter when a sustained missile exchange turns logistics and upkeep into the deciding factor.
Even so, the U.S. faces its own urgent shortfall: munitions. “We still right now … would run out (of long-range munitions) after roughly a week or so of conflict over, say, Taiwan,” Jones said. A Republican approach pushes rapid expansion of production lines, stockpiles, and cheaper interceptors so the United States can match volume while preserving quality and precision.
Washington is already building more ground-launched systems and long-range anti-ship missiles to reach farther from safer positions. “We’re buying anti-ship missiles like there’s no tomorrow,” he said. The plan is to scale from a few thousand such missiles today to many times that number within a decade, creating both a deterrent and the ability to punish aggressive moves.
Defense in depth remains the U.S. playbook: layered interceptors, sea-based launchers, and submarine-launched strikes give American forces options China currently lacks. “We really need a lot more and greater variety of missile defenses and preferably cheaper missile defenses,” he said. Affordable, numerous defenses plus submarines that can launch from stealth are practical, politically acceptable ways to blunt Beijing’s opening salvoes.
Alliances are a force multiplier Washington can exploit. Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and others provide basing, intelligence, and logistics that China simply does not enjoy. “They’ve got big power-projection problems right now,” Jones said. “They don’t have a lot of basing as you get outside of the first island chain.”
Geography and diplomacy matter as much as hardware. U.S. long-range ground fires need host-nation permission, turning access into an element of combat power. “Yes … you can defend Taiwan without striking bases inside China,” Heginbotham said. “But you are giving away a significant advantage.” Those trade-offs are political and strategic choices Washington must be ready to make.
Survivability techniques like mobility, decoys, hardened shelters, and deception are central to any plan to withstand the opening days of a missile war. China has invested heavily in dispersal and deep storage to make its launchers hard to target, and the U.S. is rebuilding similar resilience after years focused elsewhere. The key question is which side can fire, relocate, and fire again while keeping its supply chain intact.
A land fight between the U.S. and China will look nothing like a World War II campaign of armored columns. It will be a missile duel shaped by basing, logistics, command integration, and political choices about escalation. For Republicans, the remedy is clear: surge production, strengthen alliances, and make missile launchers and defenses cheap, numerous, and hard to kill.
Graduate Student, wife, engaged political and legal writer.