O míssil hipersônico e seu papel para a dissuasão convencional e nuclear: uma análise do caso da China

Abstract

China has been investing heavily in hypersonic missiles, new generation weaponry with remarkable strategic potential. How do China's hypersonic missiles add to its deterrence capacity in this context? This thesis analyses what contributions these weapons add to China's conventional and nuclear deterrence. Our hypothesis is that hypersonic missiles contribute towards increasing the credibility of deterrence, assisting in the execution and operationalization of denial and punishment strategies. In order to achieve our objective, we extract vital characteristics and understandings from the deterrence debate and current literature on hypersonic missiles, which will be used to support our analysis of the topic in the Chinese context. Methodologically, we employ a qualitative approach and structure the research as a single case study, using the deterrence debate as the theoretical foundation for analyzing data collected from primary and secondary documents from China. At the end of the paper, we analyze China's context from three deterrent strategies: nuclear deterrence by punishment, conventional deterrence by denial, and conventional deterrence by punishment.