At the end of the day, MAD or any other balance of power only buys everyone time. That time can be spent on 1) upsetting the balance to off the other parties, 2) keep the balance going, or 3) figuring out how to actually live with the other parties. Being a military forum it's only natural that the focus here is on options 1 and 2 but hopefully in real life the ultimate goal of societies the world over is option 3, hopefully economic interdependence can be one way towards that.
China MAD option
- Thread starter bajingan
- Start date
supercat
Major
China does not have the minimal nuclear deterrence they think they have. The open discussion about Air-Sea battle in the U.S. media proves the point. The fact that a conventional war with China in China's own turf is even conceivable to the U.S. planners indicates unequivocally that China does not have the minimal deterrence.
Has it happen on mainland China yet? Concept is still a concept and to make it happen or want it happen is another matter.
bajingan
Senior Member
I actually could not agree more with supercat statement, if we remember the Russian and georgia conflict, georgia was a US ally, but Russia still invaded Georgia anyway without any fear of US involvement, and no US planner is even contemplating of interfering on behalf of Georgia, and the reason for that is plainly obvious, because of the strength of russian nuclear force long after the cold war ended still strikes fear deep in the heart of americans
The same cannot be said about China, for example if the south China sea dispute with philipines turned into an armed conflict, i believe the US would interfere, most likely along with japan, because they have little fear of China minimal deterence force
I think Chinese leadership is aware of this problem, but why so little has been done to address this problem is beyond me, given China massive military budget and technical know how, I would imagine it would be easy to increase the number of weapons to at least 1000 warheads.
Therefore there is another possibility that i suspect that Chinese nuclear strategy involving taking russia hostage in the event of nuclear war,
there is a member of this forum that suggested that in the event of US nuclear first strike against China, China would relatiate by attacking Russia with nuclear weapons in which it will trigger a chain reaction of Russia launching an all out nuclear strike against all of nuclear weapon states including the US therefore triggering MAD, is that scenario possible at all? this is my question
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LOLzz, your analogy is laughable. As for US support of Philippine is just talk only. But comes to the real action, I believe will be another Georgia. Another reason why Georgia decide to strike South Ossetia is they will misled into believe US aid will come in the worst case which proves to be wrong.
Is getting 95% of your population killed so much less scary than getting 99% of your population killed? China's minimal deterence is sufficient to kill at least 90% of the US population, even if not immediately, the radiation and resulting nuclear winter definitely will. Russia's and by extension, USSR's strategy was to annihilate 99% of the US population in a split second; they couldn't be bothered to wait for the effects of radiation and nuclear winter to set in. I don't know about you, but if I was the US government, I'll be equally scared of China's and Russia's nuclear stockpiles; they will both turn the US into a wasteland and wipe out the majority, if not all, of the population; the only difference is that China's nukes will take a few weeks to finish the job whereas Russia's will immediately yield full results.
escobar
Brigadier
huh, What makes you think that?
escobar
Brigadier
that is the lesson china draw from the cold war: minimum deterence
When one have lived during the Cold War, it is normal that the USA are not scare of china
For this I am puzzled. Dod said the strategic patrol will begin next year, china say it has already begun. As it is impossible to check for people like us, everyone chose who to believe...
that was far from being the sole reason
Why not?? they have challenged more military powefull than china...
According to you, everyone should bow down before china just because they have nuclears warhead?
In a nuclear exchange, China's roughtly 60 ICBMs capable of hitting the continental US wont even get to their launch pads or finished fueling (DF-5A) before getting completely wrecked by an US first strike.
There's no way to talk around that fact.
The difference between US and Chinese nuclear power is that large, that the US could target every single lauch-pad, every single tunnel entrance to China's underground great wall network, and every single suspected storage for nuclear warheads and missiles (that are most probably still kept seperate as of Chinese doctrine), while China can do nothing to prevent that in any meaningful way and to effectively ensure the survival of her deterrence.
The very few Chinese missiles that survive the onslaught, would then be intercepted by the US pacific and national missile defense.
In that scenario, China should actually be happy that none of her missiles went through the US missile defense, since one or two destroyed US cities would be militarily meaningless and will most probably lead to the US striking Chinese civilian population centres in retaliation. When this happens, there's even less China could do about it, having lost all of her nuclear deterrence vis a vis the US, and become a victim of nuclear blackmail or holocaust.
There's no point argueing about it: China needs both nuclear parity or near parity with the US to ensure a MAD situation, as well as better and longer ranged SLBM that can be launched from the Bohai Gulf or near Sanya in the SCS to hit the US, to have a credible second strike capability.
That the Chinese goverment never addressed that very obvious weakness at least through emergency measures (like a mass-production of DF-31A), cant be described as nothing other than criminal negligence of national defense.
If China gains that ensured deterrence through near parity, her diplomatic and geopolitical standing will immediately rise and she will have so much more freedom of action around the world. China could even cut down on military spending for her conventional forces, and save a lot of money.
bajingan
Senior Member
Absolutely agree with your statement PLA's neglect of its nuclear deterence force while having 1.3 billion people to defend its nothing short of madness, and in my opinion its the biggest blunder of the history of Chinese communist party, its an even bigger blunder than the cultural revolution imho