The point of this exercise is to deter the US from launching conventional strikes against soft Chinese mainland targets like shipyards by threatening tactical nuclear strikes against identical targets in the US. The reason for using tactical nukes as opposed to conventional weapons is because the volume of fire China will be able to generate against the mainland US is pitifully small, so each hit must be very strong and very accurate - that spells out "intercontinental range HGV with tactical nuclear warhead."
A roughly one kiloton tactical nuclear weapon is destructive enough that one hit is enough to delete Newport News Shipbuilding or USAF Plant 4, but not strong enough to obliterate or even severely damage the cities they're in. The aim is calibrated escalation of force and to put the onus of escalation onto the US: leave Chinese military-industrial facilities alone or suffer comparable destruction. The objective is symmetric deterrence - an eye for an eye - but the means are asymmetric. I don't think the physics of the weapons used is what matters, the scale of destruction is what matters.
Of course, reaching strategic parity is a prerequisite for this strategy to work so as to prevent the US from escalating to strategic use of nuclear weapons.
I agree. Even though the quoted comment was supportive, I urge that we keep discussion civil.
I differentiate between strikes on strictly military targets like bases, which can be considered fair game, and soft military-industrial targets like shipyards which I do not consider fair game.
