China ICBM/SLBM, nuclear arms thread

[mister unknown]

Not only that but china did like 50 tests by 1996. US did a 1000 tests by 1992. With each successive test you get diminished info value.
So if everyone gets to continue testing, china gets a lot more to learn and gain than US with additional, say 100 or 200 tests.

Its actually in US interest not to give anyone else excuse to test. Even if china was doing it secretly on its own, it still makes sense for US not to open the testing floodgate because secret tests must be done seldomly if they are to remain secret and deniable. If to remain deniable and secret, china probably can't do more than several in a decade. And they must remain tiny yield tests which arent nearly as valuable as larger scale tests. So US advantage in test information is still likely to remain pretty big, for as long as testing is only occasional and of tiny yield.

Agreed. The PRC has far more to gain than the US from the resumption of nuclear testing, that's why I'm hoping that the US would be stupid enough to actually start testing after using the PRC as a pretext. Although realistically speaking, I doubt they'd escalate to full-scale tests right away. They'll likely salami slice their way upwards, starting from not-quite-sub-critical tests.

On the subject of tests, Russia did 700 or so and I don't see why it wouldn't share its test data with China. There's also the likelihood that China got a lot of the US's test data through espionage.

There are certain types of data that countries typically don't share with anyone else regardless of the circumstances (e.g. SSN acoustic stealth tech, nuclear weapons designs, etc.), no matter how close of an "ally" you think they might be. There are plenty of roughly analogous historical examples of how sensitive data sharing can be damaging down the road to the data provider. Jonathan Pollard & the Sino-Soviet split comes to mind right away, but I doubt those are the only examples.

Also, even if Russia provided that data, would we trust it enough to bet our warhead designs (& thus our entire nuclear deterrence) on it? I doubt it.

 

[Maikeru]

Decker Eveleth on alleged CN nuclear test:

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[taxiya]

On the subject of tests, Russia did 700 or so and I don't see why it wouldn't share its test data with China. There's also the likelihood that China got a lot of the US's test data through espionage.

There are two types of test and result. The first is theorotical which is used to prove a concept, this can be useful if shared. The second is engineering which is used to determine a final product and is very specific to design. The second is nearly useless even if it is shared. The vast majority of tests are of the second type and they are the purpose of renewed nuclear test.

 

[antiterror13]

I have a feel that US might have a test in 2026 and then "snowballing" others will follow, scary scenario.

For the big 5 is not a big issues as they already have a credible design and test. Imagine India, Pakistan, NK, Israel, Japan, South Korea had a test and then Canada may feel to need to have a test as well, and then Germany, Italia, Spain, etc .. pure chaos

 

[ENTED64]

I have a feel that US might have a test in 2026 and then "snowballing" others will follow, scary scenario.

For the big 5 is not a big issues as they already have a credible design and test. Imagine India, Pakistan, NK, Israel, Japan, South Korea had a test and then Canada may feel to need to have a test as well, and then Germany, Italia, Spain, etc .. pure chaos

I'm not saying this is impossible, but I think this is right now still pretty unlikely. It definitely looks like the test ban treaties are not going to be upheld going forward, but that's not the same as the non-proliferation treaty. As long as the NPT is in place, and right now it seems like it's going to continue to be in place, the odds of a large scale cascade where a lot of countries get nukes all at once is pretty low I think.

 

[Lethe]

One major concern for Washington is how this larger, more modern arsenal might change China’s behavior in a crisis, particularly over Taiwan.

China wants to be “in the position where they believe they’re largely immune from nuclear coercion by the United States,” said

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, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for China who is now a senior political scientist at RAND. “I think they probably judge that could come into play in a conventional conflict over Taiwan.”

This is, of course, of great concern to those who are intent on nuclear coercion. Says it all, really.

I think it's a refreshingly frank acknowledgement of the dynamics at play here. Ironically, it is only now that China is far more conventionally powerful than it used to be that the imperative for a large nuclear arsenal clearly emerges. The impulse toward a larger inventory has been made more urgent by incremental progress on ballistic missile defence systems that threaten to undermine the deterrence value of more modest nuclear inventories, but there is also the underlying shift in the conventional balance of power to consider.

In a previous era, the United States was confident that it could achieve its objectives through conventional means. The perceived risk in Washington was that a reckless Chinese leadership, faced with the prospect of humiliating defeat, would be tempted to threaten nuclear escalation to secure its objectives. Going forward, the United States is far less confident that it can achieve its objectives through conventional means. The perceived risk in Beijing is that a reckless American leadership, faced with the prospect of humiliating defeat, might be tempted to threaten nuclear escalation to secure its objectives. The problem for Beijing is that its historically smaller and less credible nuclear inventory is not clearly sufficient to deter Washington from taking this path. Hence, the contemporary impulse to expand the nuclear inventory and improve its credibility to more closely mirror the American arsenal, thereby reducing the prospect that decision-makers in Washington might be tempted to escalate a conventional conflict to the nuclear dimension.

There's a lot of scaremongering in the western mainstream media about the opacity of China's nuclear build-up, but certainly everyone in Washington understands what Beijing is doing and why they are doing it. What is a little surprising is that they found someone willing to say that to the New York Times.

I do think there is a useful discussion to be had about whether the opacity that we have become accustomed to in all things PLA still clearly serves China's interests.

 

[Wrought]

I think it's a refreshingly frank acknowledgement of the dynamics at play here. Ironically, it is only now that China is far more conventionally powerful than it used to be that the imperative for a large nuclear arsenal clearly emerges. The impulse toward a larger inventory has been made more urgent by incremental progress on ballistic missile defence systems that threaten to undermine the deterrence value of more modest nuclear inventories, but there is also the underlying shift in the conventional balance of power to consider.

In a previous era, the United States was confident that it could achieve its objectives through conventional means. The perceived risk was that a reckless Chinese leadership, faced with the prospect of humiliating defeat, would be tempted to threaten nuclear escalation to secure its objectives. Going forward, the United States is far less confident that it can achieve its objectives through conventional means. The perceived risk is that a reckless American leadership, faced with the prospect of humiliating defeat, might be tempted to threaten nuclear escalation to secure its objectives. The problem for Beijing is that its historically smaller and less credible nuclear inventory is not clearly sufficient to deter Washington from taking this path. Hence, the contemporary impulse to expand the nuclear inventory and improve its credibility to more closely mirror the American arsenal, thereby reducing the prospect that decision-makers in Washington might be tempted to escalate a conventional conflict to the nuclear dimension.

There's a lot of scaremongering in the western mainstream media about the opacity of China's nuclear build-up, but certainly everyone in Washington understands what Beijing is doing and why they are doing it. What is a little surprising is that they found someone willing to say that to the New York Times.

Well yeah, the Director of National Intelligence—back when that title meant something—openly said as much.

China remains intent on orienting its nuclear posture for strategic rivalry with the United States because its leaders have concluded their current capabilities are insufficient. Beijing worries that bilateral tension, U.S. nuclear modernization, and the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) advancing conventional capabilities have increased the likelihood of a U.S. first strike.

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[iewgnem]

I think it's a refreshingly frank acknowledgement of the dynamics at play here. Ironically, it is only now that China is far more conventionally powerful than it used to be that the imperative for a large nuclear arsenal clearly emerges. The impulse toward a larger inventory has been made more urgent by incremental progress on ballistic missile defence systems that threaten to undermine the deterrence value of more modest nuclear inventories, but there is also the underlying shift in the conventional balance of power to consider.

In a previous era, the United States was confident that it could achieve its objectives through conventional means. The perceived risk in Washington was that a reckless Chinese leadership, faced with the prospect of humiliating defeat, would be tempted to threaten nuclear escalation to secure its objectives. Going forward, the United States is far less confident that it can achieve its objectives through conventional means. The perceived risk in Beijing is that a reckless American leadership, faced with the prospect of humiliating defeat, might be tempted to threaten nuclear escalation to secure its objectives. The problem for Beijing is that its historically smaller and less credible nuclear inventory is not clearly sufficient to deter Washington from taking this path. Hence, the contemporary impulse to expand the nuclear inventory and improve its credibility to more closely mirror the American arsenal, thereby reducing the prospect that decision-makers in Washington might be tempted to escalate a conventional conflict to the nuclear dimension.

There's a lot of scaremongering in the western mainstream media about the opacity of China's nuclear build-up, but certainly everyone in Washington understands what Beijing is doing and why they are doing it. What is a little surprising is that they found someone willing to say that to the New York Times.

I do think there is a useful discussion to be had about whether the opacity that we have become accustomed to in all things PLA still clearly serves China's interests.

I suspect observing and confirming America's bio attack on China, and their cultural willingness to sacrafice millions of their own people doing so played a role in China's nuclear posture change after 2020.

 

[tamsen_ikard]

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Seems foolish if this is true. Putting all your egg in one basket?

 

[tokenanalyst]

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Seems foolish if this is true. Putting all your egg in one basket?

I think logic will tell me that a country as huge as China has their nuclear warheads distributed over a huge area in multiple command structures in the interior, the SCMP is garbage publication that mostly publish click bait crap. They have no source for this because China nuclear program is secret and US intel is Intel is not reliable.