There is a deterrence value when "all I have is 12 gauge". If my strike warrants a return strike of equal magnitude or no return strike, the gamble may be worth it. If any nuclear based strike results in a guaranteed 500kT return strike regardless of what I sent (because nuclear is nuclear), it's only potentially worth it if I gamble the whole farm
Is the PLA, or CPC for that matter, inclined to gamble?
Conversely, it could be argued that only having strategic nukes invites a tactical strike. Because the other side may believe that "China knows" that using their high yield weapons to respond to a small tactical strike would then involve US retaliation with their own high yield nukes, making it safe for the US to use smaller nuclear weapons- because China would not risk further escalation.
Either scenario is possible, but there is no harm in preparing for all eventualities. This is why although China's policy on paper is to use nukes only in retaliation for nuclear strikes, PLARF (at the time Second Artillery Corps) and other PLA materials contradict this by stating that nuclear use would be warranted if a conventional strike matching the effects of a nuclear strike was carried out by an adversary (this was in the 2000s, so the main scenario being addressed was if the Three Gorges Dam was somehow destroyed). On a more obvious note, if the world somehow united to invade China and was on the verge of conquering it and splitting it up, the PLA would obviously use nukes even if the enemy had not used any at all.
Over in Europe, Russian and American tactical nukes are thought of as being of great value to deterrence. The "gambling" doctrine is basically what France does- and it involves nuking one enemy target upon provocation warranting it (known as
ultime avertissement; final warning), and then if the enemy retaliates, launching a full scale strike. Their lowest yield weapon is 100 kilotons- ten times that of Little Boy, making it strategic (North Korea's hydrogen bomb had a 108 kiloton yield and was intended for its ICBM).
IMO, it would be extremely disadvantageous for China to lock itself into that kind of unflexible strategy. France's own strategy has already come under attack from some questioning if it could truly replace American nuclear deterrence in NATO, because its unflexibility makes it extremely uncredible- France isn't going to let itself get glassed just because Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius have fallen. Whereas the US (in theory) could credibly nuke a Russian air base with a low yield nuke, let a NATO air base get nuked with a low yield nuke, and then make a ceasefire offer with room to negotiate using the threat of further low yield strikes.
In contrast, France would have no such leeway because their threat (that they will launch a full scale strike if, say, Russia was to retaliate to a French strike with a single low yield nuke) is not credible. The US threat possesses credibility, because there is enormous room for continous low yield strikes in Europe- they aren't saying "we hit you once, and if you hit us again we are going to end the both of us," they can continue the conflict and the threat of them continuing the conflict is credible, because they won't bring any harm on themselves (just Europe). Russia likewise can do so, because it is big enough to take quite a few tactical nukes and remain in one piece. France doesn't even envision a continuous tactical exchange, they expect the adversary to believe that they will allow all of France to be destroyed if the enemy does not give in.
To clarify, especially because "the best response to an American tactical nuke is a megaton air burst over Hawaii" is a notion so popular in this thread: I am not saying that China
has to use low yield nukes in response. If they want to respond with a high yield detonation, they can.
I think that PLA thinking is more advanced than that of the dinosaurs that are European militaries, and they would at least want to give themselves options.
If the US actually launches their orbital missiles for intercepting ICBMs during boost phase then you may need tactical nuke interceptors.
I could see rational for putting tactical nukes on the HQ-19 or any other high-end ABM system, similar to how Soviet ABMs had them. That would of course only be necessary if the engineers or PLA were unconfident in the system's accuracy, which they do not seem to be.
The space-based interceptors being proposed by the US involve having the satellite itself hit the ICBM, not launching a missile at it.
If the Golden Dome interceptor satellites are in LEO, wouldn't it be relatively straightforward to destroy them with lasers and ground based ASATs before launching your ICBMs, at least if the interceptors were aimed at boost phase?
It would be, but keep in mind such a constellation would have something on the order of 741,000 satellites (I wrote about this over in the US military thread).
Canards! https://www.reddit.com/r/FighterJets/s/xoLJxnZo0G “You can’t love canard only when it was adopted by a US aircraft.”;)
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Realistically the space-based interceptor system just isn't going to exist at all. The US can't afford it.
Why use a tactical nuke when a dozen high end missiles can do the same damage? And China unlike most countries can consistently produce enough high end weapons to keep up the damage.
Would China (whether that be the CPC or public, or PLA personnel) accept responding to a 300 ton nuclear strike with maybe, 36-72 DF-26s launched at a single target?
Maybe they could, and the CMC would make the decision not to use nukes. But maybe they wouldn't. The idea is not to create an unflexible policy, but to create options to choose from in a contingency.
Maybe in 1990, China would have used tactical nukes in a war to prevent US from overrunning the smaller PLA. But today, that's not really a concern. Putting a lot of small nukes on their delivery vehicles would only increase the risk of an escalation loop, while providing no tactical benefits.
I am not suggesting that China would replace its high yield warheads with low yield ones, let alone make low yield ones that bulk of the force.
On the contrary, the Americans reports (and my own personal opinion) state that China would only produce a very small number of low yield warheads to give them the option for a proportionate retaliation.
Of course, the option remains to retaliate using a larger weapon too.
