China MAD option

Lion said:

Bad comparison. During Cold War, China economic and military were very weak? Why would China will be in US picture during the Cold War?

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was talking about US training to nuke USSR.

Now Cold War era is over. China had the economic prowess to win USA and going by the current trend , its military can catch up in a decades or slightly more.

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How all this change the fact that the specter of a nuclear war is much less present than during the Cold War?

Using past context to judge current context is totally irrelevant. Don't tell me American leadership are inflexible?

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Do you think we can discuss the possibility of a nuclear war between countries like the USA and China without drawing lessons from the Cold War?

And your Arguement is still fault. Becos end of the day, no direct war happen between USA and soviet in cold war time. i will dare to say its the nuclear equality that make this happen and world safe.

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Didn't US/USSR were closer to nuclear war than US/China today?

escobar said:

Do you think we can discuss the possibility of a nuclear war between countries like the USA and China without drawing lessons from the Cold War?

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Sure you can, but every era is different and not all lesson can be draw. If you want to stick so strict to Cold War scenario then shouldn't China draw lesson from Soviet and build more nuclear warhead.
Of coz that is unnecessary but China minimum deterence seems not enough to scare off its opponent. With release of news if China SSBN and announcement of SSBN strategic patrol . I believe This is the first few steps CCP start to address regarding their real deter capabilities.

escobar said:

Didn't US/USSR were closer to nuclear war than US/China today?

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Didn't US and USSR were close to war due to more serious matter about postioning of nuclear weapon close to heart land? While US dare to challenge a China, nuclear power for war by interfering China sphere of influence and willing to risk a major conflict over small islands for Japan and Philippines?

It seems US didn't take into China nuclear weapon consideration for making those stand.

Broccoli said:

Every report says that Chinese are manufacturing new warheads, but same time they are also taking older warheads out of service (JL-1, DF-21A, DF-3A), so there has not been that great increase in amount of warheads. If JL-2 is a single warhead missile then it means that PLAN has/will have 48 warheads in it's use and Second Artillery leading with up to 75 ICBM's (includes 7000km DF-31).

Currently PRC seems to be more interested manufacturing conventionally armed MRBM's and SRBM instead of nuclear missiles, if they were really worried about US attack they would be manufacturing dozens of new ICBM's yearly like paranoid Russians do and you cannot really hide that sort of thing.

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Are you using those ONI report to back your conclusion. Isn't those ONI make the wrong call that JL-2 is not operational yet and no China SSBN is on strategic patrol. Which is all prove to be wrong by official China source.

Since all China nuclear manufacturing activities is underground I doubt the west has any grasped of real China nuclear activities behind scenes.

OT

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Mace even at the US Sino worst moments the party congress never had a rousing unified "Death to America!" chant.
And the Chinese government is not written with the destruction of another nation written into there founding documents. The Iranian nuke is a threat as it places the entire middle east in to a whole new level of instability. Additionally Iran is one of the worlds leaders of terrorist sponsorship. If Iran has nukes then the IRGC has nukes and if they have a nuclear option then so does just about every nasty nasty.

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The histories of China and Iran are very different. Iran was the first Muslim country with a Western style democracy. That democracy was destroyed by a combined operation of CIA and MI6 in 1953 to be replaced by the Shah dictatorship.

There is even according to the CIA no evidence of Iran pursuing the possession of nuclear weapons since 2003 while the earlier position is kept in the dark.

Israel was established in 1948 with a campaign of ethnic cleansing against people whose ancestors had been living in the country for more than 2000 years. The PLO didn't object to the state of Israel, it objected to the apartheid policy of that state. The original purpose of the PLO was a Palestine in which Jews, Christians and Muslims wouldn't be discriminated against. The two state concept is only a second best.

The stability in the Middle East was based on the total superiority of Israel ( Israel does possess nuclear and chemical weapons besides its vast superiority in conventional weapons ), supported by the US, over all its neighbors, to the detriment of those neighbors. Hezbollah was founded with Iranian support to drive out a very nasty Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon ( remember the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the Israeli occupation of Beirut ? ). Lebanon is about as large as Israel but is not allowed the weapons to defend itself.

Further on IRGC can you remember anything done by that organisation comparable with the current terrorist campaigns in Iraq and Syria sponsored by Saudi Arabia and other countries?

check your fact right ... Lebanon is nowhere near as big as Israel. Israel is 2x bigger in term of land area and population.

And an Israeli is 3.5x richer than a Lebanese

delft said:

OT



Israel was established in 1948 with a campaign of ethnic cleansing against people whose ancestors had been living in the country for more than 2000 years.

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Pretty sure that when Jews first lived in Canaan there was no such thing as Muslims or Islam. It's about time the Jews get their own territory back after TWO THOUSAND years of exile. If China is so agitated by foreign rule of mere islands, imagine what the Jews are feeling when they entire homeland has been conquered and and denied to them by others.

jobjed said:

Pretty sure that when Jews first lived in Canaan there was no such thing as Muslims or Islam. It's about time the Jews get their own territory back after TWO THOUSAND years of exile. If China is so agitated by foreign rule of mere islands, imagine what the Jews are feeling when they entire homeland has been conquered and and denied to them by others.

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OT, so those TWO THOUSAND years of exile were long enough to make today Jews no longer Semitic, but Palestinians are the original Semite people who live there the whole time.

Broccoli said:

Reagan wrote in he's diaries that he was amazed when he learned that Soviet's really feared that US would start lobbing nukes at them, and since Chinese leadership is not red anymore I doubt they are going to be paranoid like that. ABM shield is not going to make 200-400 warheads useless.

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Well actually , there were people in US in late 40's and early 50's that advocated nuclear strikes on Soviet Union without provocation . And some of them were on very high position , like commander of SAC , Curtis LeMay , who advocated "preemptive nuclear war" against USSR , and even advocating using American nuclear power to "kill a nation" (and what nation that would be is clear to anyone )

Reagan himself was also very sinister in this regard , because he renewed aggressive incursion near or even inside Soviet airspace (they have stopped after few incidents like one with U-2 in 1960. ) and created Strategic Defense Initiative which was direct challenge to doctrine of MAD . Coupled with very realistic exercises of nuclear war like Able Archer in 1983 , I would say that Soviet leadership had every reason to fear from American first strike .

Now , Chinese situation in this regard is different , as they are not (not yet ) portrayed in American media as "evil empire" or "axis of evil" . Also , unlike Soviet Union , economic ties between China and US are huge . Therefore , for now , China does not need to spend lavish sums of money on developing and maintaining huge nuclear force like Soviet Union . But , maintaining credible deterrent , and especially ability to survive first strike and retaliate is a must for any country that wants to be first-rate power on international scene .

thunderchief said:

Well actually , there were people in US in late 40's and early 50's that advocated nuclear strikes on Soviet Union without provocation . And some of them were on very high position , like commander of SAC , Curtis LeMay , who advocated "preemptive nuclear war" against USSR , and even advocating using American nuclear power to "kill a nation" (and what nation that would be is clear to anyone )

Reagan himself was also very sinister in this regard , because he renewed aggressive incursion near or even inside Soviet airspace (they have stopped after few incidents like one with U-2 in 1960. ) and created Strategic Defense Initiative which was direct challenge to doctrine of MAD . Coupled with very realistic exercises of nuclear war like Able Archer in 1983 , I would say that Soviet leadership had every reason to fear from American first strike .

Now , Chinese situation in this regard is different , as they are not (not yet ) portrayed in American media as "evil empire" or "axis of evil" . Also , unlike Soviet Union , economic ties between China and US are huge . Therefore , for now , China does not need to spend lavish sums of money on developing and maintaining huge nuclear force like Soviet Union . But , maintaining credible deterrent , and especially ability to survive first strike and retaliate is a must for any country that wants to be first-rate power on international scene .

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So did US kill any nations with nuclear weapons? No, and that's because LeMay and Powers were never in position to make such decisions and never will, and I would argue they were only talking tough to keep their hard guy image up.

Reagan was playing hard because he's Soviet counterparts started to play hard when they deployed RSD-10/SS-20 IRBM's to Europe. US never challenged the MAD any realistic way, but Pershing II missiles deployed to Europe made it clear to Soviets leadership that if RSD-10 started to fly Pershing II's would make sure that politburo wold not survive the war. Able Archer was best example of Soviet paranoia what almost caused thermonuclear war, and back then Soviet leaders were already pumped on all sort of drugs... it's amazing that humanity survived.



I like Pershing II IRBM because it shows that MIRV's are not necessarily needed to have working deterrence. RSD-10 was a MIRVed missile and many ways "better" than Pershing II, but one could say it was the single warhead (50-80kt yield) carrying Pershing II what ended cold war.

Broccoli said:

So did US kill any nations with nuclear weapons? No, and that's because LeMay and Powers were never in position to make such decisions and never will, and I would argue they were only talking tough to keep their hard guy image up.

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Well , US did use nuclear weapons against Japan and they did employ mass destruction of civilian population (fire-bombings of Japanese and German cities ) as a means of waging war . Bear in mind that at that time neither Japan nor Germany could seriously threaten American civilian population , so it was not case of retaliation .

Therefore it was reasonable to expect even worse for Soviet citizens in case in Soviet Union was in similar position as Japan and Germany (not able to retaliate) .

Broccoli said:

Reagan was playing hard because he's Soviet counterparts started to play hard when they deployed RSD-10/SS-20 IRBM's to Europe. US never challenged the MAD any realistic way, but Pershing II missiles deployed to Europe made it clear to Soviets leadership that if RSD-10 started to fly Pershing II's would make sure that politburo wold not survive the war.

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Pershing II has nothing to do with Politburo . American IRBM's (unlike Soviet ones) were purely first strike weapons , because at that time Soviet Union had no meaningful way to detect them before they could reach Soviet nuclear silos , command§control centers etc. On the other hand , Soviet IRBM's could only target American forces in Europe . Soviet conclusion was that Americans are preparing decapitating strike (and maybe they did) .

Broccoli said:

Able Archer was best example of Soviet paranoia what almost caused thermonuclear war, and back then Soviet leaders were already pumped on all sort of drugs... it's amazing that humanity survived.

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Able Archer was a an exercise of launching nuclear strike on Soviet Union . In such circumstances everyone would be a little bit paranoid . Especially Soviet leadership which was composed of people who witnessed German surprise attack in WW2 .

Broccoli said:

I like Pershing II IRBM because it shows that MIRV's are not necessarily needed to have working deterrence. RSD-10 was a MIRVed missile and many ways "better" than Pershing II, but one could say it was the single warhead (50-80kt yield) carrying Pershing II what ended cold war.

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Cold War ended because of Soviet economic troubles cased by trying to counter Americans in every way possible while retaining unnatural communist regime , it has nothing to do with this weapons system or that .