The Pentagon has used the term anti-access weapons for missiles and other weapons that can keep U.S. forces away from China’s coasts, and in particular to prevent the rapid deployment of U.S. naval forces in the Western Pacific to aid Taiwan in any future conflict with China. Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said during a speech outlining the administration’s missile-defense priorities that “potential adversaries are planning to employ ballistic missiles in anti-access tactics. Mr. Lynn also said ”Like asymmetric threats, anti-access tactics are designed to offset our conventional dominance. The proliferation of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles will put U.S. forces on land and at sea at increasing risk of ballistic missile attack. This risk could push our forces further from the battlespace, compromising our ability to bring our conventional superiority to bear.”
Then let's talk about that capability then. To start, you have to talk about the new unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles). The missile is fired from a mobile truck-mounted launcher into the atmosphere, with over-the-horizon radar, satellite tracking and possibly unmanned aerial vehicles each providing guidance. It also incorporates a manoeuvrable warhead to help find its target.
"The Navy has long had to fear carrier-killing capabilities," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the nonpartisan, Washington-based Center for a New American Security. "The emerging Chinese antiship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose."
But Beijing does not need to match the U.S. carrier for carrier. The Dong Feng 21D, smarter, and vastly cheaper, could successfully attack a U.S. carrier, or at least deter it from getting too close. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned of the threat in a speech last September at the Air Force Association Convention. "When considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the U.S. symmetrically — fighter to fighter or ship to ship — and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options," he said. Gates said China's investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, along with ballistic missiles, "could threaten America's primary way to project power" through its forward air bases and carrier strike groups.