PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

GZDRefugee said:

The problem is that China currently doesn't have enough nukes to ensure the annihilation of CONUS. Should be sprinting to parity ASAP.

Click to expand...

This. It doesn't make sense to talk about how hard China will respond to an use of nuclear weapons - tactical or otherwise - by the US, because the US has escalation dominance, meaning it gets to decide when escalation happens, NOT China.

As long as that's the case, the US can do whatever it wants. US elites have never been shy about sacrificing their own for foreign policy goals. Not to mention they can get on a plane to Europe even if the entirety of North America becomes a nuclear waste land. From the perspective of white European elites who travel the Atlantic on a regular basis, the New World is an adopted home land, not the original.

China doesn't have that sort of escalation dominance, because 1) it doesn't have enough weapons and 2) it doesn't control enough territory as the great Western colonial empire. Only the first of these is under China's control, so a nuclear arms race is inevitable.

latenlazy said:

You fundamentally misunderstand the difference between tactical and strategic nuclear escalation. You are not signaling that the next step is MAD if you go for Hawaii. Going for Hawaii itself is already a MAD trigger.

Click to expand...

If US nuke use is purely tactical, it is still in China's interest not to nullify it's own conventional advantage by going to MAD. One option to counter then which isn't often talked about is to deescalate through escalation.

China can nuke Pearl with a strategic warhead, massively overkilling military targets without killing any civilians. It would be a measured response that allows US room to back down as no civilians have been hurt so far, but at the same time, the full power of nukes was displayed.

GZDRefugee said:

The problem is that China currently doesn't have enough nukes to ensure the annihilation of CONUS. Should be sprinting to parity ASAP.

Click to expand...

Since DF41, China can reach Brazil/Panama from the mainland, without relying on SSBN. Even before that, US president + cabinet surviving but every town sized and up settlement nuked still means America is functionally annihilated.

Ultimately many of the nuke discussions for US and China are kinda pointless, until a method exists to avoid MAD, it's just a money sink to put research in. Yet the very moment one such power believes credibly it can break the balance of mutual destruction, game theory dictates they should do a first strike by any means, including perfidy by claiming no first use. Because there is no higher value than getting rid of the other major nuclear power, that would otherwise be impossible to get rid of.

Eventine said:

This. It doesn't make sense to talk about how hard China will respond to an use of nuclear weapons - tactical or otherwise - by the US, because the US has escalation dominance, meaning it gets to decide when escalation happens, NOT China.

As long as that's the case, the US can do whatever it wants. US elites have never been shy about sacrificing their own for foreign policy goals. Not to mention they can get on a plane to Europe even if the entirety of North America becomes a nuclear waste land. From the perspective of white European elites who travel the Atlantic on a regular basis, the New World is an adopted home land, not the original.

China doesn't have that sort of escalation dominance, because 1) it doesn't have enough weapons and 2) it doesn't control enough territory as the great Western colonial empire. Only the first of these is under China's control, so a nuclear arms race is inevitable.

Click to expand...

I don't think nuclear exchanges work in the way where US can just say "teehee I'm going to x country which isn't US so I can survive and rebuild there and you're contractually not allowed to nuke something that isn't US".

In fact I think China would cynically nuke much of the third world as well in addition to Europe, just so that these countries can't leapfrog and colonize what remains of China. Or be taken over by US military remnants and used to rebuild US power.

Nuclear war is only about who remains standing in the end. In this type of fight there are no rules.

latenlazy said:

You fundamentally misunderstand the difference between tactical and strategic nuclear escalation. You are not signaling that the next step is MAD if you go for Hawaii. Going for Hawaii itself is already a MAD trigger.

Click to expand...

If you think a nuclear strike against a 2.64 million city(Taipei) and global economic importance only warrant retaliation against a tourist island of 1.44 million... You gotta go for Chicago (2.66mil) minimum. Given the whole Taiwan island(23mil) will be affected, New York(8 mil) is letting American off easy. Equivalent exchange is top 10 American cities (around 23 millions).

And no, Pearl Harbor is not worth 2.64million civilians. There will not be much of a fleet left in there by the time nukes start flying. The fleet is either destroyed, or forward deployed closer to China.

Index said:

In fact I think China would cynically nuke much of the third world as well in addition to Europe, just so that these countries can't leapfrog and colonize what remains of China. Or be taken over by US military remnants and used to rebuild US power.

Click to expand...

Then China definitely doesn't have enough nukes.

GZDRefugee said:

Then China definitely doesn't have enough nukes.

Click to expand...

if you thoroughly read ''ICBM/SLBM , Nuclear Arms'' thread. you wouldn't said this thing..

Fast Breed reactor massive expansion , next generation ICBM(DF-45/DF-XX) , next generation SLBM , new DF-41 bridges and 300+ silos under construction and official report from DOD about China's rapidly Nuclear build up..

all These are authentic information available on that thread. if you still think China doesn't have enough nukes then i can't help you..

sunnymaxi said:

if you thoroughly read ''ICBM/SLBM , Nuclear Arms'' thread. you wouldn't said this thing..

Fast Breed reactor massive expansion , next generation ICBM(DF-45/DF-XX) , next generation SLBM , new DF-41 bridges and 300+ silos under construction and official report from DOD about China's rapidly Nuclear build up..

all These are authentic information available on that thread. if you still think China doesn't have enough nukes then i can't help you..

Click to expand...

Note how the reply was in response to an assertation that the third world, in addition to Europe will need to be nuked.

GZDRefugee said:

Note how the reply was in response to an assertation that the third world, in addition to Europe will need to be nuked.

Click to expand...

You think that the moment the unthinkable ( the use of nuclear weapons) happens Russia would simply sit it out and watch all the fireworks between the U.S. and China? Do you really even envision for one moment that U.S. would not waste time nuking Russia as well since it's not worth getting obliterated with one of your sworn enemy going to possibly the only country to be able to rebuild a nuked planet.

Index said:

China can nuke Pearl with a strategic warhead, massively overkilling military targets without killing any civilians. It would be a measured response that allows US room to back down as no civilians have been hurt so far, but at the same time, the full power of nukes was displayed.

Click to expand...

Hitting Pearl with a strategic warhead without killing any civilians? Do you even know where Pearl Harbor is located?

GZDRefugee said:

Then China definitely doesn't have enough nukes.

Click to expand...

US at least seems to act as if they have. What information did you find that contradicts that?

You need maybe 300-500 (1 on every township or larger) for each actual great power strike, which China needs to do 2 of, and much less for the third world, since they'll be nuked by everyone.

China has more than enough missiles in that terms (especially since many targets are close enough to be hit by IRBM). By peacetime, some have speculated that China may have only enough nukes on high alert to destroy only the US. But China keeps the vast majority of its nukes separated from their warheads, so should the situation worsen, they are only a truck drive and however long it takes to reattach the warheads away from several additional thousands more launch ready nukes.

Mind that even whatever peacetime number should be quite overkill, because it can be assumed that Russia handles Europe. The Russians are so close they can use more primitive delivery methods and not just the 1000 ish long range modern weapons they have, that would likely also be earmarked to US (or maybe south/latin America, since China overkills the US mainland already)

If US can break MAD, they would have used nukes already. They are very far from it, likely even further than China is, because the home air defenses in US are fairly bad, they have no nuclear proof bunkers for the majority of their population, they don't really have well concealed extensive underground military facilities either.