China's Perspective on Nuclear Deterrence

Originally Posted by bochen280

There has never been a nation that had to face the prospects of nuclear retaliation. Japan couldn't fight back in 1945 because it didn't have nukes. That doesn't count. I'm saying if today US surprise first strike attacks China via nukes and wipe out CCP and all major Chinese cities, what is to guarantee China will actually retaliate? THAT IS THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION. And if they don't retaliate (for whatever reason(s)) or if such retaliation was only minimally effective, then why would the US not attack? Think about it. Population is the problem. Peak oil is a population problem. It IS a zero sum game. The nukes are already there, those are sunken costs whether or not they will ever be used, and this is the most quickly and effective "bang for buck" and the ONLY way US could totally defeat China militaristically and hence economically in short order... Why do you think US is building missile defense in earnest now and trying to persuade Russia to disarm? If China doesn't built a defensive 'deadhand' tied to some sort of 'doomsday machine' or increase its SLBM by orders of magnitude then it is practically inviting US to attack... I mean after Syria and Iran ... China will be next if it doesn't watch out.

That is the conventional wisdom US and China is interconnected and both "need each other" ... but what about a "black swan event"? Everyone (including CCP) believes America is not that reckless and wouldn't instigate a massive nation vs nation war or nuke war with China anytime soon... But Peak Oil changes the whole picture.... If magically the population of India and China could be deleted like the inverse of how the Feds make money on a computer via a digital bookkeeping entry, then "Peak Oil" would be pushed back 10 - 20 years! Gas would go down to $1.50 and the US can party like it is 1999 again....

The US still has 10,000+ active nukes while China is reported to have less than 100 strategic nuclear warheads actually capable of even reaching the U.S. (most of China's limited amount of 400 nukes are tactical nukes of the short range type that are aimed at Russia, India, and closer nations, etc) ... Now America is building National Missile Defense/ Ballistic Missile Defense systems that will negate China's minimal deterrence stance and obliterate its NFU (no first use) policy. China does not possess a credible deterrence against a sudden US first strike or decapitation strike, and since the Chinese have vowed against launching on warning and will only launch after being attacked, that is practically inviting the US to flatten China and take out the CCP.

If America truly believes it can successfully do a nuclear first-strike depreciation of the CCP in China, then why wouldn't' they? It is now or never, use it or lose it... because later on US will be poorer and Chinese military will be stronger than they are right now (relatively speaking...) so if there ever was a chance to pull something like this off with acceptable loses (say Chinese retaliation strike hits only two large cities, face it, nuclear war is a PERCENTAGES game) then it would be now... China would never strike US first because that would be political, economic and militaristic suicide... but US stands to benefit a lot from a surprise first strike... and right now, it seems IF they are successful (relatively speaking) then the pros would outweigh the cons. Maybe there is some truth to Dec 21 2012? Also, realistically, if US nuke strikes China and knocks out entire CCP, do you think a lone Chinese submarine commander would even give the order to launch in retaliation? I think not.... I think he would probably defect to the US for chance to live American dream like what the Russians did in Hunt for Red October. I don't think China has a credible deterrence against US. The Great Wall didn't work the first time around, what makes them think the underground Great Wall is going to work this time around? Deterrence only works if the opponent KNOWS you possess the deterrent AND he BELIEVES it is credible. It makes no sense for China to secretly increase its nuclear deterrence... and as far as publicly knowledge, for a nation of China's stature, its nuclear deterrence is at a pathetically minimal level. This just doesn't make sense. Why isn't China building more launch range strategic thermonuclear MIRVs and SLBM to protect itself against such an existential Western threat?

All I can say is... huh?

The US has brought its nuclear stockpile down to around 5,000 nukes, of which roughly half are operational
United States Discloses Size of Nuclear Weapons Stockpile » FAS Strategic Security Blog


What is your argument? The warmongering US is going to pre-emptively nuke China? A possible conflict scenario? China should build 10,000 nukes?, China is no match for the US?

Whatever your argument is, it uses alot of if's, looks very shaky.

Originally Posted by bochen280

There has never been a nation that had to face the prospects of nuclear retaliation. Japan couldn't fight back in 1945 because it didn't have nukes. That doesn't count. I'm saying if today US surprise first strike attacks China via nukes and wipe out CCP and all major Chinese cities, what is to guarantee China will actually retaliate? THAT IS THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION. And if they don't retaliate (for whatever reason(s)) or if such retaliation was only minimally effective, then why would the US not attack? Think about it. Population is the problem. Peak oil is a population problem. It IS a zero sum game. The nukes are already there, those are sunken costs whether or not they will ever be used, and this is the most quickly and effective "bang for buck" and the ONLY way US could totally defeat China militaristically and hence economically in short order... Why do you think US is building missile defense in earnest now and trying to persuade Russia to disarm? If China doesn't built a defensive 'deadhand' tied to some sort of 'doomsday machine' or increase its SLBM by orders of magnitude then it is practically inviting US to attack... I mean after Syria and Iran ... China will be next if it doesn't watch out.

That is the conventional wisdom US and China is interconnected and both "need each other" ... but what about a "black swan event"? Everyone (including CCP) believes America is not that reckless and wouldn't instigate a massive nation vs nation war or nuke war with China anytime soon... But Peak Oil changes the whole picture.... If magically the population of India and China could be deleted like the inverse of how the Feds make money on a computer via a digital bookkeeping entry, then "Peak Oil" would be pushed back 10 - 20 years! Gas would go down to $1.50 and the US can party like it is 1999 again....

The US still has 10,000+ active nukes while China is reported to have less than 100 strategic nuclear warheads actually capable of even reaching the U.S. (most of China's limited amount of 400 nukes are tactical nukes of the short range type that are aimed at Russia, India, and closer nations, etc) ... Now America is building National Missile Defense/ Ballistic Missile Defense systems that will negate China's minimal deterrence stance and obliterate its NFU (no first use) policy. China does not possess a credible deterrence against a sudden US first strike or decapitation strike, and since the Chinese have vowed against launching on warning and will only launch after being attacked, that is practically inviting the US to flatten China and take out the CCP.

If America truly believes it can successfully do a nuclear first-strike depreciation of the CCP in China, then why wouldn't' they? It is now or never, use it or lose it... because later on US will be poorer and Chinese military will be stronger than they are right now (relatively speaking...) so if there ever was a chance to pull something like this off with acceptable loses (say Chinese retaliation strike hits only two large cities, face it, nuclear war is a PERCENTAGES game) then it would be now... China would never strike US first because that would be political, economic and militaristic suicide... but US stands to benefit a lot from a surprise first strike... and right now, it seems IF they are successful (relatively speaking) then the pros would outweigh the cons. Maybe there is some truth to Dec 21 2012? Also, realistically, if US nuke strikes China and knocks out entire CCP, do you think a lone Chinese submarine commander would even give the order to launch in retaliation? I think not.... I think he would probably defect to the US for chance to live American dream like what the Russians did in Hunt for Red October. I don't think China has a credible deterrence against US. The Great Wall didn't work the first time around, what makes them think the underground Great Wall is going to work this time around? Deterrence only works if the opponent KNOWS you possess the deterrent AND he BELIEVES it is credible. It makes no sense for China to secretly increase its nuclear deterrence... and as far as publicly knowledge, for a nation of China's stature, its nuclear deterrence is at a pathetically minimal level. This just doesn't make sense. Why isn't China building more launch range strategic thermonuclear MIRVs and SLBM to protect itself against such an existential Western threat?

All I would say is,

in nuclear war between country A and B; MAD is in effect if country A require a first strike to garuntee the destruction of country B is so severe that the nuclear fall out will kill country A.

This is what China and the USA is at right now, for argument sake, 200 nuclear warhead will wipe China off the face of the earth and prevent her from retaliating with her 400 some warheads. that 200 nukes will create a nuclear winter sufficient to kill off most life on earth. If the USA launches less warheads, then you can pretty much be damned that China will land a few nuke on US soil -> MAD is served; and therefore China do not need more nukes.

china should have nuclear infinity, so that in a nuclear attack by the U.S. and China do not have the ability to retaliate, enough china nuclear explosions in china stock itself or anywhere else, but must have a blast radiation effects that can spend their entire life on earth, so there is no a living creature that can live on earth from the north pole to south pole and from east to west, the whole life be destroyed, from the smallest creatures such as ants brightest human beings to perish no one alive, until no one was left alive, that number that nuclear should be owned by China, with new so no one would dare to attack China with nuclear weapons and become a lasting peace for the insurance world, except the American people are tired of living, to die by the effects of nuclear radiation

Originally Posted by barackobambamaa

china should have nuclear infinity, so that in a nuclear attack by the U.S. and China do not have the ability to retaliate, enough china nuclear explosions in china stock itself or anywhere else, but must have a blast radiation effects that can spend their entire life on earth, so there is no a living creature that can live on earth from the north pole to south pole and from east to west, the whole life be destroyed, from the smallest creatures such as ants brightest human beings to perish no one alive, until no one was left alive, that number that nuclear should be owned by China, with new so no one would dare to attack China with nuclear weapons and become a lasting peace for the insurance world, except the American people are tired of living, to die by the effects of nuclear radiation

I don't think you have any knowledge what nuke is, unfortunately

Originally Posted by barackobambamaa

china should have nuclear infinity, so that in a nuclear attack by the U.S. and China do not have the ability to retaliate, enough china nuclear explosions in china stock itself or anywhere else, but must have a blast radiation effects that can spend their entire life on earth, so there is no a living creature that can live on earth from the north pole to south pole and from east to west, the whole life be destroyed, from the smallest creatures such as ants brightest human beings to perish no one alive, until no one was left alive, that number that nuclear should be owned by China, with new so no one would dare to attack China with nuclear weapons and become a lasting peace for the insurance world, except the American people are tired of living, to die by the effects of nuclear radiation

Nukes do not just spontaneously explode if left alone. Hence going through your logic, if china is attacked and cannot respond, it the nukes still hidden somewhere will not just go off. so it doesnt matter if china have 1 nuke or 1 million nuke.

Nukes do not cause much destruction by their explosion. The direct explosive destruction radius of the 5000 US nukes would not suffice to destroy China. The destruction via nukes is by their radioactive poisoning. It's a massive flow of neutron radiation that is released and that creates radioactives isotopes over a very large region. There's no chance to filter all these isotopes that kill off humans. One idea was to wait out most of these isotopes in special shelters. Well, bad news is, while most life not in shelters gets wiped out, the nuke and the radiation leave enough radioactive heavy metal lying around to make consumption of produce of the land deadly for centuries to come (the reports about Polonium poisoning give you an idea how that feels like). The Japanese were lucky as "their" warheads were not that refined neutron emitters.
Furthermore, nuclear warheads have the typical mushroom cloud of an explosion that transports material from the ground into higher atmosphere. For a nuclear warhead this can be very high in the stratosphere, giving all inhabitants on a earth a share of the poisonous nuclear downfall. Since radioactive testing started we had to totally reset the C-13 dating globally (!) despite the tests not being intended in kind and scale to wipe out life on earth. Nukes are MAD and the only option of actual use is tactical size for very high value targets. I would agree that US missile defence opens a window of opportunity for this option against China, while at the same time development of thermobaric weapons and cluster munitions close the gap between conventional weapons and tactical nukes. The Chinese second strike doctrine is a reply to the total annihilation threat of the MAD days of the Cold War. Flexible nuclear use, as envisioned by the US can pose difficult questions whether to risk an all out strike with MAD over one small tactical nuke. Missile defence adds a layer of uncertainty to the effects of that decision. Chinese discussions of some level of first strike tactical nukes might help to seal this opening in Pandora's box.
It's usus that if you don't have nukes, you have chemical and biological weapons up your sleeve to pose at least some deterrence. Unit 731 had assembled enough know-how with their gruesome methods to commit mass murder of some scale even in the US and be it via suicide agents after the "end" of the war. The problem with all these methods is that they turn things messy, they don't solve it and armed violence is for solving a dispute. It helps to read old man Mao a bit, he was a brilliant military leader.

As to peak oil population decimation. If such a catastrophy was to strike home, the US controls the blue water undisputed and has slight problem securing the major oil sources. They can make sure that they have enough and others pay dear or die because they own the SLoC distribution network by right of arms and there's no other network with the slightest chance to compete (look at modern global transport statistics). It's very important to develop methods to safe energy, produce storeable green energy and tap new energy sources such as deep sea methane in order to secure Indian and Chinese survival and prosperity in the future.

Japan and Germany are considered capable to produce nuclear weapons and Germany and Italy were partners almost to the finish in the French nuclear program (with shared information). They are allowed under the non-proliferation treaty to strike back nuclear if under such an attack. Because the requirement of nuclear weapons is not a big blast, but a maximum of poison distribution, they are far easier to manufacture than the early scientists thought who worked on the explosives aspect and had only limited fissile and fusion material at their disposal.
You might research WWII a bit more, all nations involved had developed chemical and biological weapons of mass murder. It seems only the Japanese and the US used this kind in war with the US taking a loophole by introducing something new and the Japanese continuing concepts of the Conquistadors of America. Even someone portrayed as a madman as Hitler(in my opinion he was not mad, but quite a cunning and unscrupulous politician, who reflected what influential interest groups wanted Germany to do) denied his generals to use the chemical stockpile.

Based on the building of civil air defense communication and warning and command automation, the civil air defense information construction is developed along with the process of the information construction of the country and the military. According to statistics, the civil air defense information infrastructure network of China connected with provinces and cities has taken initial shape as evidenced by the fact that over 80 percent of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have established regional optic-fiber communication network with warning sound coverage up to over 95 percent, the area of protection works has increased substantially and the construction of trunk lines of urban underground traffic and others has basically given consideration to the needs of civil air defense.