China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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Because it wouldnt make sense to hide your deterrence? Deterring predators is all about showing your fangs and not pretending you are a soft juicy snack.
Warfighting and deterrence are two things. You might want to hide your strengths during an armed conflict, but to prevent one, you show what you got so that your enemy thinks twice about launching a preemptive attack on you. The narrative that China just hides their large amount of nukes just makes no sense as a deterrence posture.
Warfighting and deterrence are two things. You might want to hide your strengths during an armed conflict, but to prevent one, you show what you got so that your enemy thinks twice about launching a preemptive attack on you. The narrative that China just hides their large amount of nukes just makes no sense as a deterrence posture.
But the thing is, China has never confirmed in the first place how many missiles and warheads do have. These 260-300 are old US estimations.
antiterror13
Brigadier
Exactly, I believe China has close to 1,000 nukes. For ballistic missiles, already way over 1,000 but the majority are IRBM and SRBM
They haven't told how many exactly so no information can be extrapolated from the reported numbers. No telling is closer to presenting a very credible deterrence because the assumption could range wildly. Telling is giving some certainty to the actual numbers and if they are low, there's no point telling as you sort of lose the deterrence relative to presenting a larger stockpile. Therefore not telling would much more realistically suggest a low stockpile. It's the best way to maximise the deterrence of really having a low stockpile of nukes because you get a bonus deterrence on top of what you have (the unknown factor). All of this makes the assumption that deterrence functions the way Insignius described, which is more or less 100% bang on. It's far more likely China's nuclear stockpile is measly (compared to the US the primary antagonist) at best. Maybe possibly third highest count but there's a huge drop off between second and third.
Hiding huge nuclear stockpile makes zero sense politically and even less militarily. The only benefit is safety and savings. The USA probably has several hundred times more warheads so they can't exactly complain about it politically. Even if China's count is in the thousands, it's still quite a lot less than Russia and USA, therefore they can't complain, therefore no sense in hiding it. Nukes are not used in conventional warfare so even less reason to be so secretive.
Hiding huge nuclear stockpile makes zero sense politically and even less militarily. The only benefit is safety and savings. The USA probably has several hundred times more warheads so they can't exactly complain about it politically. Even if China's count is in the thousands, it's still quite a lot less than Russia and USA, therefore they can't complain, therefore no sense in hiding it. Nukes are not used in conventional warfare so even less reason to be so secretive.
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antiterror13
Brigadier
well, having 1,000 warheads (for China) and 15,000 warheads for USA and Russia ... won't make any different anyway
well, having 1,000 warheads (for China) and 15,000 warheads for USA and Russia ... won't make any different anyway
Depends how well you can deliver those warheads. There are only a handful of missiles capable of reaching western europe and USA in case of nuclear exchanges. That's VERY precarious. They can wipe out China and cover every inch while China's got a few chances at hitting their major cities only. This is assuming no issues, perfect operation, no interception. How many of those 1000 warheads are on DF-41 and JL-3?
China needs to have 1000 DF-31, DF-41, JL-2, JL-3, and HGV delivered with those ranges to ensure deterrence. Right now China can hit and cover all neighbouring countries pretty convincingly only. Not as much range for the real eventual targets in a nuclear exchange.
antiterror13
Brigadier
What make you think that China didn't have enough DF-41 and DF-31AG to cover the USA?
I am sure there is enough DF-41 and DF-31AG to cover the US. I don't see there is any difficulty to produce those missiles and relatively cheap too, not more than $30M each. Technically? no problems at all
Do you think Xi is too stupid not producing enough ICBM, especially now with a very hostile US govt toward China?
I believe Xi is already confident enough of PLARF strength and ability, including nuclear force, thats why China is building the navy and air force like no tomorrow in the last 15 years
LGM-30 is listed as $7M ... which I don't believe it, more likely $60M (I assume Chinese ICBM cost half of the US)
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It's worse than that. How many of those already few missiles would survive a first strike? I really hope that China didn't expand its arsenal previously because it lacked advanced, survivable missiles that could reach the US and that it wasn't a political decision to appease the US. Now that the technological bottleneck has been removed with the DF-41 and JL-3, I expect to see an expansion.
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