Rapid build-up of nuclear deterrent?

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Typhoon

Banned Idiot
Andrew said:
Hi everybody, I read somewhere a few days ago that China was producing 400 ICBMs every month.
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Please, next time when you read someting, remember where you read it, provide us with the link or URL.

See the following link for DIA July 1999 report "A Primer on the Future Threat, the Decades Ahead 1999-2020" (Secret/No Forn).

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DIA estimates are: Chinese has 40-45 ICBM in 1999, and estimated 180-220 ICBM in 2020. They defined ICBM as having at least 1800 km range (that is CSS-3/CSS-5, or DF-3/DF-5).

DIA is Defence Intelligence Agency, in case you don't know yet.

Enjoy, kiddo! :rofl:
 
T

Typhoon

Banned Idiot
Here is an article in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" in May/June 2005 issue, wrote by Jeffrey Lewis. He said it very clear, don't believe any hype that China is aggressively building up its nuclear forces.

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Dr. Jeff Lewis is a reputable expert on Chinese military. He has a highly respected blog:

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Very worthwhile to visit.

Enjoy, kiddo! :nana:
 
I

IDonT

Senior Member
VIP Professional
Roger604 said:
That's silly. The US cannot wipe out China with just long-range ICBMs. Not even close. Bombers are unreliable since you can intercept them.

China's DF-5's are in tunnels deep within mountains and are nearly impossible to get at using a counterforce first-strike. So no matter what the US does, China is guaranteed to be able to destroy 20 population centers with the DF-5's. I think there's a new DF-5 Mod 2 being deployed recently.


Totoro says that China needs mobile launchers. I think this is quite obviously the way to go. I have read some sources that say DF-31 is already deployed (capable of reaching west coast) and that DF-31A (capable of reaching all of ConUSA) will be deployed before 2010. I don't really see why it would need to take so long. China acquired the Topol technology in the late 90's and apparently copied the DF-31A booster technology from Minuteman III.

Given that Topol mobile launchers (i.e. DF-31A) are obviously the way to go, and that there is no technological impediment to making them, I suspect that China is already well on its way to deploying them. Strategic weapons are so secretive as a matter of policy that western estimates of Chinese forces are barely more than guesses. So take that into account when you read "figures" for Chinese nuclear forces.

These mobile launchers alone would be a guaranteed second-strike if numbered sufficiently. During the Cold War, China aimed for several hundred nuclear weapons to maintain deterrence against the Soviet Union. Now, it likely will aim for the same number, but with longer range vehicles to deter the US. I think 300 would be a good number.

Nuclear submarines are always important, but I admit China's nuke sub technology is really far behind. Which makes mobile launchers doubly important.... which reinforces my previous point, the leadership has been modernizing them at a far faster pace than western observers have direct evidence for.


One last point, hair-trigger alerts are dangerous for obvious reasons.
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US has enough Nukes to wipe out the planet many times over. Nuking every square inch of China is not a question of if the US could, but if the US should in light of the consequences.
Just looking at the US SSBN fleet and you will see the amount of nuke power the US possess.
US has 14 remaining Ohio class nukes, each armed with 24 trident missiles, each carrying 12 MIRV warheads with a yield of up to 700 kilo tons.

Norad headquarters is under a mountain, sorrounded by bedrock close to mile thick. The US leadership does not believe this would suvive a direct nuclear hit by Russian nukes. That is the reason why they have the "doomsday" plane. I'm not saying the US can guarantee distruction of those missiles, but they are not as survivable as an SSBN.
 
A

Andrew

New Member
Thanks to Typhoon I've come across the following article which seems to deal precisely the sort of questions I have raised:

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The ambiguous arsenal

...

Dangerous incentives

So, let's review: China deploys just 30 ICBMs, kept unfueled and without warheads, and another 50-100 MRBMs, sitting unarmed in their garrisons. Conventional wisdom suggests this posture is vulnerable and invites preemptive attack during a crisis. This minimal arsenal is clearly a matter of choice: China stopped fissile material production in 1990 and has long had the capacity to produce a much larger number of ballistic missiles. [15] The simplest explanation for this choice is that the Chinese leadership worries less about its vulnerability to a disarming first strike than the costs of an arms race or what some Second Artillery officer might do with a fully armed nuclear weapon. In a strange way, Beijing placed more faith in Washington and Moscow than in its own military officers.

Washington has never reciprocated that trust. Instead, the United States has embarked on a major transformation of its strategic forces that is, in part, driven by concern about the modernization of China's strategic forces. President Bill Clinton reportedly directed U.S. Strategic Command in 1998 to include plans for strikes against China in the U.S. nuclear weapons targeting plan. The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) identified China as one of seven countries "that could be involved in an immediate or potential contingency" with nuclear weapons. [16]

Chinese strategic forces are increasingly supplanting Russia as the primary benchmark for determining the size and capabilities of U.S. strategic forces--at least in administration rhetoric. China's nuclear arsenal is reflected in the 2001 NPR in two ways. First, the review recommends reducing the 6,000 deployed U.S. nuclear weapons to no less than 1,700-2,200. In response to criticism that these cuts didn't go low enough, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that further reductions might encourage China to attempt what he termed a "sprint to parity"--a rapid increase in nuclear forces to reach numerical parity with the United States. [17]

Second, the 2001 NPR recommends the addition of ballistic missile defenses and non-nuclear strike capabilities to help improve the ability of the United States to extend nuclear deterrence to its allies. [18] Here too, concern over China's arsenal lurked in the background. Shortly before he was nominated as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Forces Policy (with responsibility for overseeing the NPR), Keith Payne argued that the United States, in a crisis with China over Taiwan, must possess the capability to disarm China with a first strike if U.S. deterrence is to be credible. Despite overwhelming U.S. nuclear superiority, he has argued, "China's leadership may not be susceptible to U.S. deterrence threats, regardless of their severity, largely because denying Taiwan independence would be a near-absolute goal for Chinese leaders." Thus, the United States "would have to make blatantly clear its will and capability to defeat Chinese conventional and [weapons of mass destruction] attacks against Taiwan and against its own power projection forces." [19]

Yet, if the United States were truly interested in discouraging a Chinese sprint to parity or the development of a Chinese ballistic missile force that could undertake coercive operations, the president would disavow the vision for nuclear forces outlined in the NPR. The Chinese leadership chose their arsenal in part on the belief that the United States would not be foolish enough to use nuclear weapons against China in a conflict. By asserting that Washington may be that foolish, and by attempting to exploit the weaknesses inherent in China's decision to rely on a small vulnerable force, the NPR creates incentives for Beijing to increase the size, readiness, and usability of its nuclear forces.

...
 
Roger604

Roger604

Senior Member
IDonT said:
US has enough Nukes to wipe out the planet many times over. Nuking every square inch of China is not a question of if the US could, but if the US should in light of the consequences.
Just looking at the US SSBN fleet and you will see the amount of nuke power the US possess.
US has 14 remaining Ohio class nukes, each armed with 24 trident missiles, each carrying 12 MIRV warheads with a yield of up to 700 kilo tons.
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This is silly. You should download Google Earth and start looking at the sheer scale of the countries you are talking about.

The only way to "nuke every square inch of China" is by radiation and fall-out. The actual blast radius -- and 700 kiloton yield nukes are small -- isn't that big.

For example, a one megaton bomb in manhattan would destroy all of manhattan, and probably 50% of brooklyn and have little direct effect once you are some distance away from the coast in New Jersey. All the nuclear weapons of the US can't completely nuke an area the same of the appalachians for instance, probably not even 25%.

Nukes are most useful against highly urbanized countries. Back in the 70's, when China was not urbanized, nuking cities will not cripple the country.

Besides, Chinese cities all have bomb shelters, and American cities don't. So the American population are the ones really concentrated and exposed.

Fall out and nuclear winter is the real wild card. Who really knows how far fall out will travel and what would happen in a nuclear winter? It is likely that the Himalayan mountains are the safest place to be in a nuclear winter because you will be above cloud cover.
 
A

Andrew

New Member
The following article suggests that China might have a much larger force of nuclear missiles hidden underground:

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"Early 1995, China's media reported that a Great Wall project for China's strategic missile force was completed after 10 years of construction in a "famous" mountain range in North China. Look at the topographic maps and read the news reports caref ully, it can be deduced that the underground tunnel network is in the famous Tai-Hai Mountain Range between Hebei and Shanxi provinces. According to the news reports, "tens of thousands" of Army engineers spent over 10 years there digging tunnels.

Normally, a company of soldiers (about 100 men) can dig about 100 meters of tunnel per month (based on the news reports about railroad tunnel construction) without using any advanced tunnel drilling machinery. So the "tens of thousands" of Army engineers (= hundreds of companies) over the 10-year period would have constructed an underground tunnel network of thousands of kilometers inside the Tai-Hei Mountain Range to hide some of China's strategic missiles. I guess it was called the "Great Wall" projec t not without a reason for the Great Wall is at least 5,000 kilometers long."

Now, I am not claiming that this is the truth, as I am not intending to assess the sources nor the validity of the claims made. I'm just posting it, probably it has been discussed a thousand times in this forum (Jeffrey Lewis tears the article apart,
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.

However, plain logical thinking should teach us that it is naive to assume that China will wait and see how America will manoeuver itself in a position from which it will be able to deny and, if necessery, deflect China's rise to global might while it has the ability to do something against this. China has enough weapons-grade material to build thousands of nuclear warheads but chooses to build only a few hundreds. The first Chinese Atomic Bomb detonated on October 16, 1964, the first Chinese Hydrogen Bomb on June 17, 1967. It took them 32 months to get the H Bomb, the shortest time for any nuclear weapons state. France needed 8 years to reach the Hydrogen bomb, the US and Great-Britain 6 and 7 years. Last but not least, China has become a major exporter of missile technology. Building a large number of intercontinental missiles is in my opinion a logical, comparatively cheap and a strategically necessery step for China to take, especially in view of the deteriorating international situation.

with kind regards
Andrew
 
S

Sea Dog

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Roger604 said:
Nukes are most useful against highly urbanized countries. Back in the 70's, when China was not urbanized, nuking cities will not cripple the country.

Besides, Chinese cities all have bomb shelters, and American cities don't. So the American population are the ones really concentrated and exposed.
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Those bomb shelters will do you no good. They are totally useless. Try getting all those people in those shelters in less than 30 minutes. It's going to be utter chaos. Plus when they're inside them, it's quite likely the heat and energy expended from the nuclear blast during ground burst will cook them. I don't think these shelters are very deep or very fortified and protected against this type of heat. I counted on a map the number of cities on the eastern side of China. With the amount of warheads and the yields on the Trident D-5, 1 Ohio SSBN could pretty much put China out of business. And an Ohio taking depressed trajectory shots on the Taiwanese Eastern seaboard could give you less than 6 minutes warning. Those bomb shelters will be empty.
 
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