Asymmetric warfare: PLA nuclear subs and the doctrine of MAD

Recently having watched movies such as "The Hunt for Red October" and "Crimson Tide" and "WarGames" and played games and sims such as "Defcon" and "Dangerous Waters", etc I have taken an interest in this subject and have a few questions to ask the opinions of some of the knowledgeable people on here...

In terms of a potential US first strike on China, what effective deterrents does the PLA have against America in general and what repercussions would there be?

For example, if the US military believes it can successfully launch a nuclear or thermonuclear first strike on mainland China, would it get away with it with nearly absolute impunity or would it calculate and accept "acceptable" loss and causality rates?

With everything that is going on in the world today (Peak Oil, EROEI, population overshoot, resource depletion, petrodollar hegemony, quantitative easing and the currency and trade wars, demand destruction and pricing out of other nations, etc..) certainty it would appear to the superpowers that we are living in an era where mutual "cooperation" may not be feasible anymore (despite the hype of globalization, just in time logistics, etc) and it could be a "winner takes all" proposition..

If that is the case, naturally America may feel that it has the most to gain and least to loss (probabilistically) than any other nation by attempting a first strike on China. Even though Russia has publicly avowed to be China's strategic partner and Allie, we can't forget the fact that America may have cut a deal with Russia to carve up China and reap the benefits.. So therefore China may not be able to "count on Russia" to help deter it against a potential US first strike that could decapitate the Chinese government and informational, economical, transportation, and military infrastructure.



So I would like to know, what options does China have to deter against this?

* Could it build a doomsday device in the form of a HUGE underground thermonuclear weapon that could go off and blow up the entire earth into bits and pieces, and use this as leverage against any plans of US to devastate China in a nuclear first strike..

* Is it still true that nuclear submarines capable of launching thermonuclear missiles/warheads remain unpreventable deterrent? If America was to launch an surprise all out first strike on China today, what options would the Chinese have? I have read that Chinese nuclear subs are much more louder than US/USSR subs, and that although China MAY have the range to strike US from their own waters, Chinese continental l shelf waters are so lacking in depth that American spy satellites can spot the subs when those subs are in territorial waters. Can Chinese nuclear subs do substantial damage in an retaliation strike against the US? Does the US have Star Wars systems that can shoot down those nuke missiles? Maybe the US already know where each and every China sub are in real time?

* Or conversely, since Chinese since ancient times have historically show to be appeasers and pacifiers, would Chinese government "accept" a US first strike on China given that they know that "revenge" is not in their genes and attacking America out of vengeance is not in the Chinese leader's blood? What I mean is, perhaps Chinese doctrine is to deter American first strike, but when push comes to shove the PLA may take the "soft" side of the MAD doctrine and be psychologically defeated which leads to being physically annihilated. If America were to do first strike against China, obviously they will implant some kind of false flag and decoy strategy whereby perhaps Obama calls Hu and tells him the USA had a glitch and "accidentally" set off a couple of nukes and that for China not to worry and don't attack and those nukes will be recalled in short order.. Hu would not want to start WWIII and if he launched a counteract and it proved that US wasn't doing a first strike then of course America will obliterate China.. So I mean US may use these psychological tricks to get Chinese to stand off for so long until the last minute and it is too late.

It's an intriguing question, but a tricky one to answer without having at least some degree of 'inside information' regarding the history and current status of the Chinese nuclear weapons program.

It is certainly the case that China does have, at least as far as we know, on paper, a surprisingly weak strategic nuclear deterrent for a country of its caliber. Now obviously the two Cold War superpowers, Russia and the US, still hold well over 90% of the world's nuclear weaponry - something which isn't going to change any time soon, so perhaps one could argue that China is merely continuing its policy of 'minimal deterrence'. This has, and still does, allow it to maintain the status of a 'big 5' nuclear power while avoiding the costs of an arms race with either US or Russia which it could never dream of 'winning' anyway, 'winning' in terms of closing its 'missile gap'.

In response to your questions...

1. Any form of 'doomsday device' remains very much the realm of science fiction to this day - and certainly any country/power able to construct any form of operational equivalent of the Death Star would have to be already so far ahead of the US and even the Soviet Union at the peak of its influence that it would hardly need to do so.

2. Unpreventable is a big word, but it still seems inconceivable with today's technology that a country would be able to target an enemy's SSBNs or road-mobile ICBMs with anything even close to the degree of certainty that would be required to make a counterforce first strike possible. But does China even have any operational SLBMs that could target the US? I know the JL-2 is under development but is it deployed yet?

3. I see what you mean - given its (currently) inferior nuclear capability, would they even bother attempting a retaliatory strike against a vastly superior force such as the US? And would they have the 'cojones' to respond countervalue? Obviously they have to say that they would or the bluff wouldn't work.

Would China even be able to though without any kind of 'launch on warning', or Russian-style Dead Man's Hand? IE- Does the US currently hold a first strike capability over China? China currently has something like 20 old DF-5A ICBMs, each mounted with a single, but extremely punishing 4-5 megaton warhead, and 5-10 DF-31A with a smaller, (but still amazingly loud!) 1 megaton H-bomb. The big question from a game theory point of view is this - how much of this arsenal can the US expect to disable on a first strike, and does it consider itself to be able to politically and economically survive the rest?

Remember that a country's true military power is a factor of both that which it *can* do physically, and that which it is able to do politically. Think of the impact September 11 had... and those were just 4 planes and 2 buildings. America isn't any tougher now than it was then.

Nowadays you don't even need a Nuclear deterrent. The U.S. Govt, Russian Govt, and any country's Govt (asides from Iran/NorKo) knows full well that the moment they nuke another nation, roughly 20% of their populace will burst out in protest, 5% violent, while about 50% of the populace will be "generally displeased with the current administration's actions", and that's just sugar coating it. Fact is, we, the U.S., have a far smarter and strategic method of obtaining anything we need without pointing a Trident II at it. China really does not need nuclear weapons, simply enough to keep the Midnight clock close and that'll make a protester out of 4/10 of any populace.

But generally speaking, Chinese nuclear deterrent isn't exactly, "impressive".

1. Any form of 'doomsday device' remains very much the realm of science fiction to this day - and certainly any country/power able to construct any form of operational equivalent of the Death Star would have to be already so far ahead of the US and even the Soviet Union at the peak of its influence that it would hardly need to do so

A fission bomb has a upper bound to payload size, because it quickly reaches critical mass and explodes. H-bombs have no upper limit. The SUN is a prime example. So if China packs enough Hydrogen underground they can create a H-bomb that can blow up the Earth. So can the US, but the US doesn't need such a doomsday weapon. An asymmetrical "dead hand" doomsday weapon like that could serve to prevent a total nuclear decapitation of the CCP by a surprise US first strike, however physiologically the Chinese have to be willing to use it and to destroy the entire Earth, and for it to be a successful deterrent the US has to be able to believe the Chinese are crazy enough to actually use it.

A thread started out from video game ideas?? Might as well let everyone have battle cruisers and tame the zerg swarms. Half of the stuff in the first post is already borderline insane. eg.

* Or conversely, since Chinese since ancient times have historically show to be appeasers and pacifiers, would Chinese government "accept" a US first strike on China given that they know that "revenge" is not in their genes and attacking America out of vengeance is not in the Chinese leader's blood? What I mean is, perhaps Chinese doctrine is to deter American first strike, but when push comes to shove the PLA may take the "soft" side of the MAD doctrine and be psychologically defeated which leads to being physically annihilated. If America were to do first strike against China, obviously they will implant some kind of false flag and decoy strategy whereby perhaps Obama calls Hu and tells him the USA had a glitch and "accidentally" set off a couple of nukes and that for China not to worry and don't attack and those nukes will be recalled in short order.. Hu would not want to start WWIII and if he launched a counteract and it proved that US wasn't doing a first strike then of course America will obliterate China.. So I mean US may use these psychological tricks to get Chinese to stand off for so long until the last minute and it is too late.

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now that is just stupid talk.

If you guys want to talk about asymmetric warfare, don't go into the science fiction genre and please try to stay realistic. Any country's leader that allows another country to nuke them let alone just bomb them without retaliation is simply impossible.

I WILL BE WATCHING THIS ONE

defcon54321 said:

So if China packs enough Hydrogen underground they can create a H-bomb that can blow up the Earth. So can the US, but the US doesn't need such a doomsday weapon.

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As much as I tried to make the most of the few thought-provoking aspects of the TS's original post, the concept of any man-made device 'blowing up the Earth in Death Star fashion' any time soon is so comically incompatible with the laws of physics that proceeding with this thread becomes difficult without falling into fruitless argument.

A pity really, since the question as to why China had given so little emphasis to its nuclear warfare program, compared to even, say, France or the UK, is a very interesting and important one.

sineva said:

As much as I tried to make the most of the few thought-provoking aspects of the TS's original post, the concept of any man-made device 'blowing up the Earth in Death Star fashion' any time soon is so comically incompatible with the laws of physics that proceeding with this thread becomes difficult without falling into fruitless argument.

A pity really, since the question as to why China had given so little emphasis to its nuclear warfare program, compared to even, say, France or the UK, is a very interesting and important one.

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wikipedia article on Nuclear_weapon_yield

"The largest pure-fission bomb ever constructed had a 500 kiloton yield, which is probably in the range of the upper limit on such designs. Fusion boosting could likely raise the efficiency of such a weapon significantly, but eventually all fission-based weapons have an upper yield limit due to the difficulties of dealing with large critical masses. However there is no known upper yield limit for a fusion bomb."

wikipedia article on Boosted_fission_weapon

"This kind of thermonuclear weapon can produce up to 20% of its yield from fusion, with the rest coming from fission and is limited in yield to less than one megaton of TNT (4 PJ) equivalent. Joe-4 yielded 400 kilotons of TNT (1.7 PJ). In comparison, a "true" hydrogen bomb can produce up to 97% of its yield from fusion, and there is no upper limit to its explosive yield."

There's a serious problem with China blackmailing the US with a doomsday machine. That is, that some Americans, no doubt a small minority, would welcome such a disaster, because they expect to see the return of Jesus Christ. The Chinese can not be certain that such an idiot would not become President of the US.

I was talking to my teacher ages ago, he worked for the Iranians on their missile program eons ago in the 60s,

We were talking about the massive Chinese population, if every Chinese in China jump up and down for a bit, the fluctuation and pressure on the earth crust would be sufficient to create significant earthquakes and tsunami across the world.

Imagine, the British had 1 million kids jump up and down and caused a magnitude 3 earthquake, what would 13 billion people jumping up and down create - WMD Mao style?

At first, I though this thread is INTELLIGENT COLLECTING person at work, but then I thought you should not let the thread go off topic if you are collecting Intelligent instead of crap.

What bothers me is not maybe someone who likes to see J***'s return became the president; what bothers me is the "don't give a damn" kind of emotion that nuclear war can be "managed" well if "my country" is high tech enough.

At 60's people (western people) are paranoid about nuclear winter; now adays people are paranoid about nuclear winner? People used to be afraid, now people start to dream?

And it is these people who are to be the backbone of the society and go to the congress and white houses...

That explains my own question, of why China is showing muscles and having more blunt speeches thease days. - Many jokers do not understand the integrity otherwise.