China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[tphuang]

This entire thread is getting crazy. The point of nuclear weapons is to ensure there is enough deterrence value so the other side never uses them. The idea that you need to kill every human being with nuclear weapon is ludicrous. Most likely, any weapon fired over will be used against the largest urban centers. The fallout from radiation and nuclear winter would be devastating for human kind. Who in their right mind uses ICBMs against military targets?

We don't know how many nuclear warheads China has right now, but it is possible they already have enough or will have enough by 2025 to take nuclear strikes off the table for any adversary. After all, can any country in the West really deal with the possibility that 3 or 4 of their largest cities suffer nuclear strikes? Especially since those are the places where all the politicians and elites reside?

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

After all, can any country in the West really deal with the possibility that 3 or 4 of their largest cities suffer nuclear strikes? Especially since those are the places where all the politicians and elites reside?

Of course they can. 3-4 cities (even the largest ones) destroyed is an absolutely pathetic and unacceptably low level of damage to inflict in a counter-value strategy. It's the wrong order of magnitude.

 

[TK3600]

Hot take here, but I agree with @ACuriousPLAFan

​

The world does not magically disappear after a nuclear exchange. It will end the prosperous civilization as we know it, but life goes on. Our collective GDP may fall back to WWII level but it will be far from extinct of humanity.

Ideally a minimal deterrent level of nuclear exchange is all you need to prevent a rational enemy to launch theirs. But what if there is a single irrational actor among ALL holder of nuclear arsenal? It will prompt rest of the rational player launch theirs even toward country that did not initiate the aggression.

While there is no 'winner' in a nuclear exchange, you must still equalize the level of destruction. This is why I agree with @ACuriousPLAFan that China also need to expand beyond "A robust and credible deterrent" and start be capable of counter force. Because once nuclear exchange already happen, losing 50% the GDP and 30% of population would be insufficient to make sure enemy do not come out on top after you losing 80% GDP and 50% of population. Humanity will live on even after nuclear exchange. Places like Africa and South America will be intact. You want to make sure your enemy cannot rule the nice part of Earth afterward.

In conclusion, I propose a nuclear deterrent not just strong enough to deter rational actors from initiating a strike, but also to make sure the irrational player cannot come out on top. This is why in a nuclear exchange between Russia and US China will also be hit. They don't want others to rule the waste land. We are just extending this logic so that which ever 'superpower' that dare to launch will be destroyed to the point of they cannot compete with likes of Brazil and Nigeria afterwards. Unless they can truly destroy the world it would be impractical to simply bring down the nuclear players. Because certainly if somehow rest of nuclear players cease to exist, and somehow US only lose half the population, it will still rule the wasteland eventually. Do not let them.

Per the list of @ACuriousPLAFan 350 nukes will be insufficient to cripple US to that point. It will much less stop likes of UK and France who are nuclear players allied with US. Japan who is a great power nearby and also allied with US. And maybe India a neutral nuclear power who seeks to take advantage of China's down fall.

 

[Andy1974]

Does anyone have any information about underground Chinese cities?

I read 2 pieces recently that triggered my curiosity, one about the safe depth from a nuclear bunker buster actually being 2km deep, and another about a quite elderly man receiving an award for building underground cities.

 

[Overbom]

This entire thread is getting crazy. The point of nuclear weapons is to ensure there is enough deterrence value so the other side never uses them. The idea that you need to kill every human being with nuclear weapon is ludicrous. Most likely, any weapon fired over will be used against the largest urban centers. The fallout from radiation and nuclear winter would be devastating for human kind. Who in their right mind uses ICBMs against military targets?

Not at all.

See it from another perspective, if as you said, nuclear winter would be devastating for humankind then why stop from using even more nuclear weapons. Especially when dealing with schizophrenic countries, better to overdo it.

So the solution is clear as day:
Build more nuclear weapons. The minimal strategic deterrence has been a gigantic mistake which hopefully will never be repeated in the future.
A minimum 10000 nuclear warheads is required and then if you want we can talk about limiting further expansion.

I'm not talking about China nuking the US in a first strike. I'm talking about China nuking the US in general.

Why not? No need to limit yourself. First strike should indeed be China's "hidden" policy.(we can keep the PR of "no first use" for the public). No need to publicize it, just have the capability to launch on warning

 

[TK3600]

But do you know how many US cities are there with significant enough population?

Here're the stats:
1. There are 9 US cities with population of over 1 million;
2. There are 37 US cities with population of over 500 thousand;
3. There are 90 US cities with population of over 250 thousand; and
4. There are 330 US cities with population of over 100 thousand.


<<<END>>>

To expand on this list, I instead will list number of city of a nuclear power in NATO/allied with NATO with population over 500 thousand. Of which number in bracket are cities over 1 million.

US: 46 (9)
France: 11 (5)
UK: 16 (5)
Israel: 4 (2)


Assuming every city over 500 thousand will earn itself 2 nukes, 1 million 3 nukes. 25% of the nukes fail due to interception/counterstrike. How many nukes does it take?

A simple calculation like that gives us 234 high-yield nukes to be effective. But for example of US, having 46 cities being hit will not cripple it at all. The combined population hit is less than 15% of the population. Of which not all of them are going to die. So you are only wiping out about 10% of them. That is less than the loss of Ottoman Empire after WWI.

What if we also need 1 nuke for every 250 thousand population city? US alone would require another 120 high yield nukes. What if we start to count political targets like state capital? What about neutral nuclear powers like India? What about countries hosting nuclear weapons like Germany and Turkey? This is without even starting considering counter force.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

No, I absolutely do not think that the US leadership will "know how to stop after launching 1700 of their nuclear warheads".

If the US enters a strategic nuclear exchange with another great power, I absolutely expect the US to launch as many of their nukes as possible in multiple follow-up attacks after the initial large first wave, even to the point of no good reason for follow-ups.

With relations to the following:

However, if you are China, it doesn't matter to China whether the US launches 1700 nukes in total or 170,000 nukes in total, because at that point everything is already over and everyone has already been settled. There's no coming back -- they've lost civilization as China knows it.

Let me tell everyone here this fact - The human civilization would never end, even if all 15000~ish nuclear warheads around the world that we have today detonate right this very moment.

We aren't in the 1980s where the global nuclear stockpile reached its crazy peak of 60000 in 1986. That means we would only have, at most, a short period of nuclear autumn, not a nuclear winter, in case of an all-out nuclear war.

That's why I'm confident that even if China is focused to death with nuclear attacks by not just the US but also UK, France and India - China as a civilization state would live on. Whether that be under the leadership of the CPC or others else, but it would certainly be the Chinese that holds the fate of the civilization state of the China in the post-nuclear armageddon world.

Similarly, that means coupled with COG and COOP, it would be very, very hard to destroy the US military and government in its entirety - Let alone the populace as a whole, in case the need for China to retaliate against a nuclear first strike by the US is unavoidable.

With that, there is very high possibility for any remnants of the US leadership to rush getting as many of their mothballed nuclear warheads to leave any remaining launch platforms available to them ASAP. That realization should never be overlooked.

Hence, my listings in my original post.

My most important point is this: To give China enough breathing space and time to rebuild, restructure and re-strengthen herself as she rises again from the ashes to regain her position on the post-nuclear armageddon world stage, those nuclear weapon production and storage locations in the US must be targetted and wiped out in surface-burst nuclear attacks, alongside US military and government command centers, plus naval bases stationed with SSBNs.

That would essentially be equivalent to disarming the US - for years and decades afterwards.

Everything else - I have already made my points clear.

 

[Overbom]

However, if you are China, it doesn't matter to China whether the US launches 1700 nukes in total or 170,000 nukes in total, because at that point everything is already over and everyone has already been settled. There's no coming back -- they've lost civilization as China knows it.

Well the difference between 1700 nukes and (something more realistic) 10000 nukes is pretty massive

With 1700 nukes civilization collapses but China doesn't. Some Chinese people would survive and in the (very) long run could make China return to its former glory.

With 10000 nukes you can be quite certain that maybe some cockroaches will be alive by then. This ensures that China as a whole and as a society and as a race has been eliminated.

So the difference is quite stark here. Thats why China needs to go for at least 10000 warheads because it is quite clear to everyone that the US is not a rational actor and the crazies on power might have thoughts on surviving a nuclear war. Such thoughts are inherently not positive for maintaining nuclear deterrence

The only way to not lose, is by deterring a nuclear war from starting in the first place.

No. you can also lose in the long run (100s/1000s years) if you havent managed to completely eliminate the enemy. 1700 nuclear warheads isn't enough to achieve that (as enemies in that order, I include the US, Japan, Europe, and various other puppets)

As China would not be an instigator in a nuclear war, the goal is thus simply to deter the adversary from launching a nuclear first strike.
And to deter a nuclear first strike, requires you to be able to hold to threat the things that they value with retaliatory capabilities -- that is the basis on which counter-value strategies work.

The things they value is their lives. Being able to eliminate every single one of them is the only deterrence that matters here. Not eliminating 50/100, or 70/100. I mean eliminate 100/100

No. In terms of counter-value strategies, it does not mandate every single city has to be targeted, rather a sufficient number of cities must be targeted to achieve sufficient deterrence effect against the adversary's decision makers to deter them from carrying out a first strike.

No. Every single city should be targeted. What's the issue here, China has plenty of money. When dealing with crazies you should stock up

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

I see two problems with the view @Blitzo presented here:

1. It assumes there's some calculable level or range of damage that any rational US leader would find unacceptable. The issue is that this level of damage is highly subjective and depends both on the temperament of the US leader and what how much he values the goal that provoked the retaliation. President Biden might not value destroying China enough to be sufficiently deterred by China's current arsenal, but does that same calculation hold for a President Trump or a President Cotton or a President Carlson?

Furthermore, as China itself grows wealthier and stronger and it finally dawns on the US that it's going to be eclipsed by China forever and will never again have the power it once held (to put in Biden's phraseology, once the US realizes that it's "best days" are in fact not ahead), destroying China becomes an intrinsically more valuable and desirable goal. President Biden today might be deterred, but if he accepted that America's best days are behind it and China is the reason why, would his calculation change?

2. A minimal/moderate counter-value strategy + NFU is intrinsically reactive. By definition it sets the level of China's arsenal at just enough to deter a nuclear war and cedes all initiative to the enemy. Why should the onus of stopping a first strike be placed on China? Why should Chinese leaders stay awake at night worrying about what the US might do with its superior arsenal? The ball should be put in America's court. Let their leaders stay up at night worrying about stopping a Chinese first strike.

Minimal counter-value and NFU are policies ultimately born out of poverty and, to my dismay, they have ossified into a religion. China is no longer poor and it can and should build an arsenal that provides it with the security it's due. In my view, nothing less than parity with the US is acceptable.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

NFU is actually a brilliant strategy. It enables conventional IRBM first strikes without worry of unnecessary escalation.

Minimum deterrence is not so brilliant, but is flexible in interpretation.