China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[ougoah]

Sure, other means of MAD such as Cyber attacks and large-scale ASAT can do terrible harm. But nothing comes close to scaring the shit out of your enemies than nuclear weapons. If only China can somehow develop the next step in nuclear weaponry: pure fusion weapons. That would be a game changer.

What's a "pure fusion" weapon? China's had fusion weapons detonated in 1967 and even that one already achieved a yield of 3300KT. MT yields are easy but MIRV and miniaturised warheads carry xxxKT range warheads as far as we know. This is decade old information though. Chinese nukes use a different configuration (supposedly better shelf life) but have also used Teller-Ulam designs too. I wouldn't rule out using some other designs for different types of warheads designed for different tasks.

 

[plawolf]

The 300 warheads number is based on estimates from activity at Chinese nuclear weapons refinement facilities.

The problem with that analysis is that it assumes such dedicated (and now closed) facilities are China’s only possible source for weapons grade fissile material, which is problematic at best and wilfully ignorant at worst.

Even if one is to assume western intelligence managed to find all of China’s nuclear refineries, and that it didn’t decide to locate any in underground or otherwise hard to monitor locations. One only needs to look at China’s large and growing civilian and nuclear submarine sectors to see another possible easily obtainable source.

When China is making fuel rods for its nuclear subs or civilian reactors, who can stop them from refining the material more until it is weapons grade?

Who can stop China recycling its power generation nuclear waste into weapons grade materials?

For a country like China, wanting to expand its nuclear stockpile is simply a matter of want. If it wants to, it can pretty much any time it wants.

Even if China only does have 300 nukes, would anyone dare to doubt them if they made an announcement that they have 3000 warheads tomorrow?

The 300 warheads figure is at best a very outdated figure, and more likely an outright fiction. It just serves the interests of both China and America to keep that fiction going.

 

[Rubeena]

Agree with those points. China should adopt Russia's nuclear policy of having overwhelming second strike capability. China also needs to modify its NFU policy to the one similar to Russia's version. That China will not be the first to use nukes. But will use them on two conditions:
1) A nuclear attack on China. (obviously off course)
2) A conventional military action that threatens China's very existence.

But the catch is that China would need to approach Russia's nuclear arsenal size for this nuclear policy to work. A nuclear retaliation based condition (2) is practically a first strike. First strike always needs far more warheads than a second strike because there are thousands of places to target such as nuclear weapons sites, bases, fleets, air bases, industrial zones, cities, etc. So thousands of warheads are needed for that to work.

Point (2) is all the more urgent now, because US and friends are constantly poking and testing out China's resolve to keep One-China together. In a Steve Bannon's wet dream, the combined nuclear forces of NATO & India can defeat China in an all out war with limited repercussions for the USA. So China must have the nuclear arsenal to stop such ideas of a 'survivable WWIII'.



Yes I hope you are right, that China already 'grew up' from that 300 warheads strategy. China is not a small state like North Korea or Pakistan. Where it is not worthwhile for the USA or India to suffer a nuclear attack in order to destroy that country. Destroying China, a geopolitical heavyweight and suffering from some of its relatively small nuclear stockpile might seem worthwhile for US and friends.



It is rumoured that China already has the 475kt W88 warhead design via espionage. If that is true, then China does have an excellent warhead design to mass-produce for strategic nuclear deterrence. But this is still just rumour and speculation. I still don't know why China's announced MIRV warheads are only maxed out at 150kt if they already have the W88 design.

Sure, other means of MAD such as Cyber attacks and large-scale ASAT can do terrible harm. But nothing comes close to scaring the shit out of your enemies than nuclear weapons. If only China can somehow develop the next step in nuclear weaponry: pure fusion weapons. That would be a game changer.

i would differ in terms that cyber attacks are more powerful in terms the countries will not come to know what hit them. Nuclear becomes to obvious as said by earlier user.
what you say about the Cyber capabilitites of China's?

 

[Sardaukar20]

What's a "pure fusion" weapon? China's had fusion weapons detonated in 1967 and even that one already achieved a yield of 3300KT. MT yields are easy but MIRV and miniaturised warheads carry xxxKT range warheads as far as we know. This is decade old information though. Chinese nukes use a different configuration (supposedly better shelf life) but have also used Teller-Ulam designs too. I wouldn't rule out using some other designs for different types of warheads designed for different tasks.

'Pure Fusion' weapons are hydrogen bombs that do not need the primary fission stage to detonate the secondary fusion stage. All current fusion weapons work on this two-stage principle. Pure fusion weapons do not yet exist, but there is research bring done in this area; especially by the US. Because fusion alone leaves very little fallout compared to fission, it is a nuclear warmonger's dream weapon. Imagine having a hydrogen bomb without any long-term fallout. Furthermore, nuclear fuel for fusion is far more abundant than for fission. Not having to use relatively scarce fissile materials like U-235 and Pu-239 can simplify nuclear buildup. In short, this is future tech stuff, maybe not within reach in our lifetimes.

China thankfully have established expertise in thermonuclear weapons. Having detonated weapons in the MT range puts China in a very privileged position in the nuclear weapons world. However, MIRV warheads do not need MT yields. One Trident II with 4 x 475kT W88 MIRV packs way more punch than a DF-31A with 1 x 1000kT warhead.

I am not sure if China does have weapons design that are, as you have described, having supposedly better shelf life. That would be great for stockpile buildup as the cost to maintain it decreases significantly.

 

[Sardaukar20]

i would differ in terms that cyber attacks are more powerful in terms the countries will not come to know what hit them. Nuclear becomes to obvious as said by earlier user.
what you say about the Cyber capabilitites of China's?

I haven't looked deep enough into cyber warfare to give an educated comment. But based on hearsay, China's cyber warfare capabilities are said to be formidable. Nevertheless, the US is arguably still the undisputed leader in this field.

The thing about cyber warfare is that it is more useful for espionage, terrorist activities, and peace-time attacks. There are too many counter-measures to cyber-warfare, because it is constantly happening, unlike nuclear war. You have the firewalls, and counter-hackers to contend with. I would argue that cyber-warfare is actually more useful against weak or stupid countries like India. But limited against powerful and educated countries like USA and Japan.

 

[bajingan]

If we think about the real weaknesses of the us such as non existent healthcare, racial tension, economic disparity, they were all laid bare by coronavirus, a virus that only has fatality rate of 0.05% managed to bring the us to the brink, now imagine what a highly infectious ebola or even a slightly more deadly coronavirus could do to them.

Eveybody loves to think about the future of warfare is all about exotic weapons such as AI, hypersonic missiles, cyber warfare, i think the future of warfare hideously, and unfortunately will also includes biological warfare with progress made in pathogen manipulation to develop ethnic specific viruses

I believe China also realize the importance of bio warfare judging by the increasing number of bio labs level 4 and if rumours were true joint research projects with pakistan in manipulation of pathogens such as anthrax and bio-informatics

Strong bio warfare capabilities will add another layer of China strategic deterrence to supplement her nuclear deterrence

 

[BMEWS]

I think it absolutely is and the whole "only 300 warheads" is also a part of the same structure. The strategic thinking is an old one, where China shows the other powers that it is not a military threat and will "behave" with their nukes unlike other "rogue states" they like to point out such as North Korea, or even Pakistan and India who have in the past worried people in the 90s. Same would apply to potential Iranian nukes (so they must stop them and really anyone else who isn't on their leash).

The truth is the 300 warhead count is from the 2000s and still declared up to around 2010 but more recent estimates are publicly disclosed by the US to be around 600 to 1000. Just based on apparent size and variety of Chinese missiles, the 600 to 1000 count seems to be far more realistic, possibly higher now due to unprecedented levels of threat and the breakdown in relations. Also the escalations happening with India. If it hasn't already been stockpiling for any absolute "worst case scenarios" the CCP certainly is getting to it. The Chinese rumours were talking about (last year and this year) the apparent unwillingness to stockpile significant numbers being attributed to the CCP waiting for next generations of weapons which are soon to be ready or have only become ready recently. There are also other methods of MAD being considered and hedged. The attitude is nuclear weapons, even extremely high yield or small tactical thermonuclear (incl neutron bombs) are "ancient" MAD technologies albeit proven, simple, and reliable. The tone is almost fanboyish when describing how much more capable and superior new generations of weapons are and indeed even non-nuclear MAD. Although there is of course a total absence of evidence and the whole thing is word of mouth rumour spreading.

The nuclear escalation theories are all still built on speculation and conjecture as they range from the very simplistic "you nuke me >0% and I nuke you back 100%" to the escalation chains. I think the true nature of CCP's motivations on their MAD program development relies considers everything and must have redundancies and be fool proof while still holding utility even though the law specifically states otherwise, such as how to respond in case of Indian nuclear attack on PLA positions for example. They obviously need a way to respond and certainly have. The formal posture is now half a century old or older with minimal if any changes. I am confident the US knows better about what the CCP has and how it plans on playing their cards depending on the situation.

As for a SCS war, I doubt the PRC even needs to resort to nukes to make it politically unpalatable for the US. They only need to make the costs prohibitive enough and that is first achieved through US death toll. Although the US does have an appetite for losses and bear them even in recent Middle Eastern wars, if the PLAN can do enough damage, the threat could be more than enough to stop any kinetic action. But you can't rely on one layer of defence and assumption. Say the US miscalculates, CCP would need to meta consider everything and have effective tools and responses for every move and every outcome. But I'm sure it does since it's like 2 hours of work given the intelligence (information) available to the ones in charge.

It is also possible that the US will tactical nuke the islands of the SCS and then duck and run... not giving China a chance to counter or escalate porportionally and flattening the islands so that they cannot be used again in the future. This would be at no cost to the US, and would make any future engagement or escalation much eaiser for the US side to have leveraged advantage over. For example the next step could be Tiawan issue or after that the entire blockade of China by sea...

Also in addition to the complexities of nuclear stockpile (quantity, quality) there is that of the authorization of use. If US believes it can surprise attack and take out all those in power to actually authorize a counterstrike then it may go for the first-strike decapulation of those who could decide to return fire in the first place. No use having 100 DF-41's for example if they never get the proper authorization and directive to use them... In anything like security it is always to go for weakest link, for example don't attack the encryption algorithm if you can get more success from attacking the implementation (and exploits and weaknessess) of the algorithm itself... Likewise, instead of trying to find all hidden nukes that China could use to retailiate, how about find a way to short circuit the process whereby effective retailaition is nuetered regardless of which tactic is it achieved by... (buy out certain CCP officials, decapitate the rest of them, destroy the ability for the authorization to be communicated to the actual field units etc)

There is a very high likelyhood the US will attempt to get NATO/EU to join them in a "Final Solution" in the next couple weeks and months and people always bring up the "but Russia" but I think they would flip Russia on their side and Russia agree to standdown during all of it. When push comes to shove Russia is still white and would not come to the add of nonCaucasin power being attacked in nuclear fashion and lets not forget China is 1.4+ billion and rising standards of living while the West (lesser population) is in decline... they view China as existential threat in more ways than one and in a world of climate change, peak everything, deminishing energy returned on energy invested, overpopulation, etc "solving" the "China problem" will bring about and "buy" several decades of more time for the rest of the world in terms of larger pieces of the pie for the remainder given the true zero sum game dynamic of the current real world situation... Taking China out completely will solve a lot of their problems...

 

[Sardaukar20]

The 300 warheads figure is at best a very outdated figure, and more likely an outright fiction. It just serves the interests of both China and America to keep that fiction going.

I am not sure that in today's context, this fiction is actually making things safer for China. China can claim to be a peaceful nation, without any ambition to nuke the world. But that is not slowing down the explosive growth of 'China the big bad guy' propaganda.

USA and friends today could be thinking to themselves: "We have a more than 5000 warheads combined nuclear arsenal, China has only a puny 300 warhead arsenal. Before they can overtake us and lord over us and the free-world, lets take them down. We have Uncle Sam's BMDs too. We fancy our chances!"

It is childish rhetoric. But in today's new super-heated anti-China climate of: Trump USA, Modi India, Bojo UK, Morrison Australia, Abe Japan, Tsai Taiwan, and co. I just think it is in China's best interest to say to them: "We have 3000 nuclear warheads in stock. We know what you clowns are up to. Stop f**king with us and leave us in peace, or else!"

 

[BMEWS]

I am not sure that in today's context, this fiction is actually making things safer for China. China can claim to be a peaceful nation, without any ambition to nuke the world. But that is not slowing down the explosive growth of 'China the big bad guy' propaganda.

USA and friends today could be thinking to themselves: "We have a more than 5000 warheads combined nuclear arsenal, China has only a puny 300 warhead arsenal. Before they can overtake us and lord over us and the free-world, lets take them down. We have Uncle Sam's BMDs too. We fancy our chances!"

It is childish rhetoric. But in today's new super-heated anti-China climate of: Trump USA, Modi India, Bojo UK, Morrison Australia, Abe Japan, Tsai Taiwan, and co. I just think it is in China's best interest to say to them: "We have 3000 nuclear warheads in stock. We know what you clowns are up to. Stop f**king with us and leave us in peace, or else!"

China should announce it has a deadhand/ perimeter system even if it does not currently...

 

[Rubeena]

I haven't looked deep enough into cyber warfare to give an educated comment. But based on hearsay, China's cyber warfare capabilities are said to be formidable. Nevertheless, the US is arguably still the undisputed leader in this field.

The thing about cyber warfare is that it is more useful for espionage, terrorist activities, and peace-time attacks. There are too many counter-measures to cyber-warfare, because it is constantly happening, unlike nuclear war. You have the firewalls, and counter-hackers to contend with. I would argue that cyber-warfare is actually more useful against weak or stupid countries like India. But limited against powerful and educated countries like USA and Japan.

Can you please answer for my knowledge
1. Can you please elaborate how cyber attacks against India can be successful? They keep on saying that they have the sophisticated network structure.
2. In past, we have also seen cyber capabilities of a developed countries like China, Japan, US, Russia can can easily destroy the opponent and can create a lot of damage in terms of information and network breach. But never heard that China did any cyber attack or any thing you have on this?