In “Tracing the Undersea Dragon: Chinese SSBN Programme and the Indo-Pacific”, Commodore (Dr) Amit Ray sets out with the ambitious objective of demystifying the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) rapidly advancing sea-based nuclear deterrent and assessing its profound implications for regional stability.
Ray, leveraging his unique background as a serving naval officer of the Indian Navy and a scholar of submarine hydrodynamics, delivers an analysis that is both technically grounded and strategically astute. The book provides a comprehensive synthesis of the PRC’s nuclear doctrine, its technological hurdles and triumphs in submarine design, and the immutable realities of maritime geography.
Ray’s analysis moves beyond generic assessments, offering pinpoint insights such as the detailed examination of the acoustic quieting challenges faced by the Jin-class (Type 094) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) and the strategic imperatives driving the development of the longer-range JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). He argues persuasively that the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) strategic focus is the transformation of the South China Sea into a secure “bastion”, a protected operational area for its SSBNs. Crucially, Ray highlights how the sweeping land-reclamation campaign—turning reefs like Fiery Cross into heavily fortified artificial islands with runways, sea walls, and deep-water berths—extends this bastion seaward, creating concentric layers of surveillance and air-defence coverage that shield SSBN transits to and from Hainan Island in the South China Sea.
The author’s comparison of the Type 094’s building and commissioning timelines with those of similar Western and Russian nuclear-powered submarines gives a realistic, data-based look at the PRC’s military industrial potential. Ray’s research shows that PLAN’s 7–9-year building cycle is very similar to those in the UK, France, and Russia. This puts PRC’s progress right in the middle of SSBN building around the world, dispelling ideas of either rapid growth or crushing delay and showing that the country’s naval-industrial base is steadily moving forward. Building on this, Ray grounds the broader strategic discussion in the concrete technical realities of platform survivability, missile range, and the physical expansion of protected maritime space. In doing so, he demonstrates that PRC’s naval development reflects not only an advancing industrial base but also the practical constraints of marine warfare, offering a nuanced and indispensable contribution that bridges strategic theory with operational realities.
When comparing the book to its declared goal of offering a complete examination, certain key constraints in the subject matter become obvious. Ray’s book is commendably detailed, although its assessment of the PRC’s No First Use (NFU) policy should have been more in-depth. The book accepts Beijing’s stated NFU attitude but devotes less emphasis to delving into the ambiguities and prospective shifts in that doctrine, particularly in light of the increased survivability and operational readiness that a mature SSBN force offers. A more focused examination of how the deployment of a near-invulnerable second-strike capability may, in fact, reduce the threshold for nuclear use in a crisis would have contributed an essential layer of vital depth. The debate of regional consequences, while strong in its focus on the viewpoints of the United States and India, appears to be less developed in terms of other significant Indo-Pacific countries. The strategic anxieties and potential policy responses of nations like the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam to the presence of Chinese SSBN deterrent patrols in their maritime backyard are touched upon but not explored with the same level of detail as the primary dyadic relationships. For a book centred on the Indo-Pacific, a more expansive treatment of these second-order effects would have more fully realised its stated analytical goals.
These limitations do not detract from the book’s overall significance. Instead, they underscore the inherent difficulty of analysing a subject shrouded in deliberate opacity and marked by rapid technological flux. Suppose Ray’s treatment of PRC’s NFU doctrine and the reactions of secondary Indo-Pacific actors leave room for further exploration. This is as much an invitation for subsequent scholarship as it is a shortcoming. The enduring strength of “Tracing the Undersea Dragon” lies in its capacity to provide a rigorous, practice-informed framework that integrates technical detail with strategic analysis. Even where gaps remain, Commodore Ray establishes a vital foundation upon which future researchers can build, making this study an indispensable starting point for anyone seeking to understand the evolving dynamics of PRC’s undersea deterrent and its implications for regional security.
This is a review of Cdre. (Dr) Amit Ray’s Tracing the Undersea Dragon Chinese SSBN Programme and the Indo-Pacific (London: Routledge, 2021). E-book ISBN: 9781003104896
Anubhav Shankar Goswami is a doctoral candidate in Politics and International Relations at the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Murdoch University, Perth. His doctoral research focuses on the field of nuclear strategy, with a particular emphasis on strategic learning and brinkmanship. Anubhav is the author of the book, ‘Deterrence from Depth: SSBNs in India’s Nuclear Strategy’.
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