China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[Xizor]

Virtually the entire US populace is completely rabid towards China. They're already foaming at the mouth and chomping at the bit for a total war with the hated yellows, how do you think they'll act once China slaughters tens of thousands of their sailors and troops? Even if it's a relatively pacifist/weak leader in office at the time like Biden, retaliation will be *demanded* by their citizenry, and that will be the only option for retaliation they still have. Do you really think a country that has been so arrogant for so long would react calmly to such an unprecedented, devastating and humiliating loss?

The thing to note in all these articles is the emphasis on 'The imbalance of Nuclear weapon stockpiles between the two countries'.

Think about it
1. China doesn't face any technological issues regarding nuclear weapon designs (China has its own designs and access to US ones).
2. China isn't lacking in delivery technology whatsoever. Space Powers don't struggle with that, usually.US indeed has SSBN VLS that are quite hard to prosecute. But China has been improving them too and could develop asymmetric weapons that are relatively cheap and be mass produced with effort ( torpedoes like Russian Poseidon), FOBs, HGVs etc.
3. China can spin up centrifuges and produce more quality fissile materials.

That article is written by AEI (American enterprise institute). Basically, a think tank of/for NeoCons. Neocons are pretty dumb (and dangerous) and very few like them after the mess made by Bush ( He can't paint his way out of that). I dismiss articles from them as they see war One dimensionally.

American policy considers their mainland civilian safety first and then their economy (prosperity) second. Both of this is NOT safe in a war with China.

 

[Insignius]

Before striking US mainland, China could answer by beginning to de-imperialize the US: Hunt down and strike every single US military asset outside the US homeland around the world. Global ranged HGVs are needed for that, and optionally fitted with tactical nuclear warheads in case the US started it. The fallout of the US losing their world-wide bases and carrier groups means that regional actors like Iran and Russia will have easier time to push forward their agenda. This will be a worse hit against the US than merely losing their hegemony in Asia alone.

 

[Andy1974]

Before striking US mainland, China could answer by beginning to de-imperialize the US: Hunt down and strike every single US military asset outside the US homeland around the world. Global ranged HGVs are needed for that, and optionally fitted with tactical nuclear warheads in case the US started it. The fallout of the US losing their world-wide bases and carrier groups means that regional actors like Iran and Russia will have easier time to push forward their agenda. This will be a worse hit against the US than merely losing their hegemony in Asia alone.

Delete.

 

[plawolf]

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Another funny and rabid warmongering propaganda piece. I reject the premise entirely, because I think the war cannot last long as all US forces will be destroyed very rapidly in the opening stages, but one thing I found interesting is the revelation that they are preparing tactical nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on their submarines to use against China. Indeed, their subs are the one asset in my model that survives and would remain as an available platform to deploy TNWs from, as the USN surface ships are all sunk by ASBMs/DF-17s/ASCMs/PLAN subs and their bases likewise flattened by the PLARF.

This relates to another question, does anyone know if the PLARF has enough conventional S/M/IRBMs to completely destroy all Asian US bases? I believe they do, but it shouldn't be too hard to calculate this if one takes the total area covered by infrastructure on all those bases and divides it by the average blast radius of a conventional warhead for the number needed for total coverage (denser coverage may be needed on runways to make repair impossible), then compare the result to the current missile force stockpile. If it's sufficient, China has to think in advance what other targets to retaliate against for US first use of TNWs, given there will already be nothing left of those bases. ICBMs may have to be used because there aren't any other US targets within range of IRBMs. E.g. low-yield warheads against Pearl Harbor maybe? Even then likely more than just that one target would be needed, especially if the US carries out a major tactical nuclear assault on Chinese forces as I believe they likely will after such a conventional humiliation.

The article is pure neocon wet dreaming junk.

It was basically written with the end result in mind and then working backwards to the start.

In any remotely realistic scenario, China will not fire the first shot against the US unless the US crossed clear red lines and gave China no choice.

There will be no Pearl Harbour 2.0 since that pre-condition was inserted purely to ensure the US not only has zero choice other than to fight, but also to ensure it cannot easily back out of the fight, even when all conventional means of victory had been exhausted, which leads to the true starting point of the article, which is to manufacture a pretext to suggest nuking China without being laughed out the room as batshit crazy.

If the US used nukes first, China will have no choice but to respond with nukes itself. Since China doesn’t waste its time with tactical nukes, it will respond with city killers and dare the US to go full MAD. That means that unless the US is crazy enough to go full MAD, it looses any nuclear exchange with China by default and even if it does go full MAD, the best it can achieve is a draw since everyone will be dead.

If China starts armed reunification, the US will spend weeks gathering forces before deciding whether to get involved to gauge how effective the PLA is fighting and how hard and effective Taiwan is resisting. That is to allow it to better assess its own chances against China. So really the decision will be made primarily by China based on how well its military performs.

If the PLA does well, the US will find some face saving way to back out of actually fighting. If the PLA blunders and the US thinks it’s got a chance, it will risk it.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Since China doesn’t waste its time with tactical nukes

Tactical nukes are not a waste of time.

it will respond with city killers and dare the US to go full MAD

The crazy routine works for North Korea, not China. China has too much to lose to jump straight to city-killing and the enemy knows it. The best way to address an escalation asymmetry is to match your opponent so there isn't an asymmetry.

You have your bag of nasty tricks? So do I. Whatever you can pull out of yours, I can pull out of mine and we can just keep going however long you like.

 

[plawolf]

Tactical nukes are not a waste of time.

The crazy routine works for North Korea, not China. China has too much to lose to jump straight to city-killing and the enemy knows it. The best way to address an escalation asymmetry is to match your opponent so there isn't an asymmetry.

You have your bag of nasty tricks? So do I. Whatever you can pull out of yours, I can pull out of mine and we can just keep going however long you like.

You realise China’s main goal is to not fight nuclear war right? Tactical nukes make sense for America because they only see themselves dropping them on someone else’s homeland and not setting them off on their own doorsteps.

To engage in a tactical nukes arms race is to permanently lock yourself into never being able to break out of western containment around your periphery because as soon as it looks like you are about to break through conventionally, the US will escalate to tactical nukes to erase your conventional military advantage knowing your response is going to be also limited to your own front yard even if it’s nuclear.

China is not going to repeat the mistakes of the Soviets. Their position is, a nuke is a nuke, you drop one on me and I will drop one on you, not my fault if you want to drop a punny little tactical one, I’m still slamming you with a strategic one. The goal is to take nuclear war off the table full stop.

It’s silo fields are to erase western fantasies about it only having 300 nukes and make it absolutely clear that to cross the nuclear threshold against China is to go all the way.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

You realise China’s main goal is to not fight nuclear war right? Tactical nukes make sense for America because they only see themselves dropping them on someone else’s homeland and not setting them off on their own doorsteps.

To engage in a tactical nukes arms race is to permanently lock yourself into never being able to break out of western containment around your periphery because as soon as it looks like you are about to break through conventionally, the US will escalate to tactical nukes to erase your conventional military advantage knowing your response is going to be also limited to your own front yard even if it’s nuclear.

China is not going to repeat the mistakes of the Soviets. Their position is, a nuke is a nuke, you drop one on me and I will drop one on you, not my fault if you want to drop a punny little tactical one, I’m still slamming you with a strategic one. The goal is to take nuclear war off the table full stop.

It’s silo fields are to erase western fantasies about it only having 300 nukes and make it absolutely clear that to cross the nuclear threshold against China is to go all the way.

I agree with this. There's no need to adhere to proportionality.

If someone rushes at you with a knife and you shoot them in legitimate self defense are you wrong?

If someone shoots at you with a 22 cal handgun, and you have an AK-47, are you wrong for shooting back with the rifle instead of taking out your pistol and shooting back with just a pistol?

If someone uses nuclear weapons it is with the intent to destroy your country just like if someone shoots at you or rushes you with a knife it is with the intent to take your life.

Resisting with the most effective tools possible in legitimate self defense is not only justified but imperative.

Using a less effective tool in the name of proportionality is throwing away a gun to pick up a knife when someone rushes you with a knife. If they didn't want to get shot they shouldn't rush you with a knife.

 

[clockwork]

knowing your response is going to be also limited to your own front yard even if it’s nuclear.

And why would that be the case, lol? My whole point is that China must be prepared for the virtual inevitability of a US TNW response against its forces after getting smoked conventionally so must decide on targets beforehand. It could destroy most military bases in the US homeland, or I agree with @ZeEa5KPul that other MIC targets are a good choice too. Destroying bases in the US mainland provides no military advantage to China in the in-theater conflict, but that's only because we're predicating this scenario on China having already (conventionally) destroyed all or nearly all US forces regionally and thus left with no meaningful advantage to gain there.

 

[clockwork]

I agree with this. There's no need to adhere to proportionality.

There's probably no way to stop runaway escalation after US cities are getting destroyed (i.e. the US protocol is probably to launch a full response after any of its cities have been hit), and the CMC leadership probably expects this too, so a Chinese response to the US TNWs would also have to be low-yield and not countervalue. That's not to say anything about where that response will be geographically directed.

 

[clockwork]

Side note: It's hard to take the Pentagon CMPR reports seriously sometimes when they're full of typos/plain idiotic errors like the 4th-gen fighter count (e.g. in one spot it says 3000km range for DF-26, in others 4000km in the same 2021 report). And their estimates are conservative and very likely too low anyway. But if the 300 IRBM + 600 MRBM missiles figure is accurate, that might not be enough to completely carpet bomb and saturate all US regional bases and ships. If so, China must accelerate the production of launchers and missiles, to ensure an adequate stockpile, especially accounting for some loss in wartime. I think a fair target should be at least 2000 conventional MRBMs and IRBMs in total.