China’s expanding arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles, widely referred to as “carrier killers,” is fueling heightened concern and intensifying debate across the Pentagon and Capitol Hill over whether the U.S. Navy can still project power in the western Pacific. The DF-21D and DF-26 missile systems sit at the center of that anxiety, intended to hold moving warships at risk at ranges that could force American aircraft carriers to operate farther from a conflict zone near Taiwan or the South China Sea. The alarm is real, but analysts also debate how much of it reflects genuine military vulnerability versus Washington’s broader budget and force-structure politics.
What Makes the DF-21D and DF-26 So Threatening
Both the DF-21D and DF-26 are medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles built to target surface ships, including aircraft carriers, well before those ships can bring their own strike aircraft within range. A long-running Congressional Research Service analysis of China’s naval modernization identifies these two systems as direct threats to U.S. surface forces and carriers operating in the Pacific. The missiles rely on a “kill chain” that combines satellite surveillance, over-the-horizon radar, and maneuverable reentry vehicles to track and strike ships at sea. If that kill chain functions as designed, a carrier battle group costing tens of billions of dollars could be neutralized by a weapon costing a fraction of that sum.
The DF-26 carries an additional layer of risk. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, China’s nuclear warhead stockpile has probably surpassed 600 operational warheads, and the DF-26 is a dual-capable system, meaning it can deliver either a conventional or nuclear payload. That ambiguity complicates any U.S. response: intercepting a DF-26 headed toward a carrier group could, in theory, be interpreted by Beijing as destroying a nuclear delivery vehicle, raising escalation risks that go far beyond a conventional naval engagement. It also means that any crisis in the western Pacific would unfold under a nuclear shadow, forcing U.S. and allied planners to think not just about defending ships, but about managing signals that could be misread in the fog of conflict.
How the Threat Reshapes Navy Force-Structure Debates
The carrier-killer problem is not just a tactical headache. It is reshaping how Congress and the Pentagon think about the size, composition, and mission of the fleet. The same CRS research that flags the DF-21D and DF-26 threat also documents how these weapons shape U.S. Navy capability and force-structure debates. Some defense planners argue the era of the supercarrier as the centerpiece of American sea power may be ending, replaced by a more distributed force of smaller, harder-to-target vessels and unmanned platforms. Others insist that carriers remain survivable if paired with better missile defenses and electronic warfare systems, and that abandoning them would cede the Pacific to China without a fight.
The U.S.-China Commission adds political weight to those debates by framing the missile threat within a broader pattern of Chinese military modernization and recommending that lawmakers treat Pacific defense gaps with greater urgency. That kind of institutional language matters because it feeds directly into authorization and appropriations cycles, giving defense hawks a documented rationale to push for higher spending on countermeasures. The practical effect is that China’s missiles are influencing American shipbuilding plans, missile defense procurement, and basing decisions across the Indo-Pacific, even before a single shot has been fired. As each annual review lands on congressional desks, it reinforces a sense that the window for adjusting U.S. posture is closing, further entrenching the carrier-killer narrative in budget politics.
U.S. Missile Defense Struggles to Keep Pace
While Washington debates fleet architecture, the defense industrial base is struggling to deliver the interceptors and countermeasures the Navy needs right now. The Pentagon acknowledged that RTX, a major missile contractor, had shown poor performance on that program before recent improvements. The admission points to a broader pattern: even when the United States identifies the right defensive technology, translating that into reliable, mass-produced hardware has proven difficult. Production bottlenecks and quality control failures have slowed deliveries at a time when the threat is accelerating, raising questions about whether industrial capacity can match the pace of China’s missile deployments.
To address the backlog, RTX signed a framework agreement with the Pentagon crafted by acquisition chief Michael Duffey, setting the terms for another multi-year contract. The deal signals that the Defense Department is betting on fixing existing supplier relationships rather than starting over with a new contractor, a pragmatic choice driven by the reality that switching vendors for complex missile systems would add years of delay. Yet this approach also concentrates risk: if RTX fails to sustain improved production rates, the Navy could find itself with gaps in its layered defenses just as Chinese missile inventories and training cycles mature. In that sense, the carrier-killer debate is as much about American industrial resilience as it is about Chinese innovation.
Is the Panic Proportional to the Actual Risk?
There is a credible argument that the alarm in Washington is at least partly strategic rather than purely reactive. Defense budget battles reward threat inflation, and the carrier-killer narrative is a powerful tool for justifying investments in everything from hypersonic countermeasures to space-based tracking systems. The Pentagon’s own China report documents the missile buildup in detail, though critics argue official threat assessments can also be shaped by institutional incentives and budget dynamics. None of this means the threat is fabricated. It does mean that the public conversation tends to emphasize worst-case scenarios while downplaying the significant technical challenges China faces in making its kill chain work reliably against a moving carrier in contested electromagnetic conditions.
Hitting a ship at sea with a ballistic missile is an extraordinarily hard engineering problem. The target is moving, the ocean environment is cluttered, and U.S. forces would work aggressively to jam, deceive, and destroy the sensors and communications that feed China’s kill chain. Even if Chinese missiles can theoretically outrange U.S. carriers, range alone does not guarantee effectiveness if targeting data is stale, spoofed, or interrupted. At the same time, underestimating the threat would be equally dangerous. The most realistic assessment lies between panic and complacency: Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles have already changed the strategic calculus in the western Pacific, but whether they truly can “kill” a carrier in wartime will depend on how both sides adapt their technologies, tactics, and industrial bases in the years ahead.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
