plawolf
Lieutenant General
There is no reason or need for such overt provocation, especially since such a move would be a significant strategic overreach that is an obvious bluff, since China will not have the hard conventional power to protect such forward deployed nukes from conventional US attack.
Even if we assume all of the US intelligence network has collectively gone to take a group nap for however long it takes to establish those forward deployed nukes in Cuba, what would be the response if the US does a full Naval blockade and sends attack aircraft to bomb Cuba back to the Stone Age under the pretext of hunting for those missiles? Launch a nuclear first strike and kick off MAD?
The Cuban gambit was worth the risk for the Soviets because that was the only way they could credibly bring much of the US within range of their missiles to counter the US missiles in Europe. For China, it can already hit anywhere in the US from home, so what actual benefit is there to forward deploying nukes on the other side of the planet? Short response time for the enemy is only relevant if you want to launch the first strike. If your posture is purely defensive, forward bases adds nothing of much value or worth to the table.
You are also fundamentally misunderstanding why the US are making more and more brazen provocations against China. Elements within the US needs to do this precisely because they are not united internally and do not have the clout to push their agenda through the maze of conflicting interests of US government. They cannot convert or overrule their domestic rivals who can check most of their substantive moves to declare war against China, so they make symbolic provocations to try to push China to push back and use that pushback as evidence of Chinese hostility and aggression to try to outmanoeuvred their domestic rivals. In short, this sort overreaction from China is precisely what these US provocations are intending to trigger.
By making measured responses, China discredits the pro-war hawks in the US and traps them in an escalation spiral where they need to keep upping the ante to try to elicit a strong response from China and China holds its nerve until the provocations become so blatant that when it does push back propositionally and fundamentally changes the status quo in the straits in its favour, its viewed as a reasonable step since everyone else was expecting war. Case the point, the Pelosi visit.
Had China launched massive war games and basically cancelled the median line across the straits unilaterally, it would have triggered massive diplomatic pushback and maybe even military shows of strengths and economic sanctions from the west. But because that was done as a result of the Polesi provocation, there was nothing from the west other than some empty words.
China is now convinced and United in its war prep. No need to help America sort out its own political mess just for some fleeting feel goods from some empty PR shows of strength.
Rather than merely planning for the worst, China is preparing for it, and every extra day it can buy to prepare, the odds shift more in China’s favour for when the actual moment of truth comes.
I am pretty sure we are now on the express road to AR with very very few remaining off ramps. While it is not yet inevitable, it’s extremely hard to see how we can course change. China’s primary objective now is fully spectrum preparation for that such that it will leave the US with no good options when the day comes. Fight and loose or back off without daring to fight. And that fight includes, economic, diplomatic as well as military. That is the goal now, not some meaningless empty gestures to score short time feel goods.
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