PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
Launching tactical nukes at intercontinental ranges is fine, but you will not be about to launch more tactical nukes to the enemy's homeland than the enemy can launch to your homeland by virtue of the forces that they will have in your periphery at the onset of a conflict due to greater availability and variety of launch platforms (ships, submarines, bombers, and carriers) and much cheaper and varying warhead delivery vehicles (cruise missiles, regional range IRBMs/HGVs, or freefall guided nuclear weapons, dependent on launch platform of course).
When all you have are ICBMs (which are also a valuable delivery vehicle for your strategic nuclear warheads that you have to preserve a large force of ICBMs for!), against the opfor's variety of tactical nuclear weapon types that the PLA faces, it is not in the PLA's interest to seek to be the first to use tactical nuclear weapons.
I think we've reached the crux of our disagreement. Let me try explaining this with a table
Acceptable damageUnacceptable damage
SuccessChina doesn't use nukesPossible Chinese first use of tactical nukes
FailureN/A (transition to right)Certain Chinese first use of strategic nukes
The "success" and "failure" refer to the PLA's performance in a conventional war; while "acceptable damage" and "unacceptable damage" refer to the level of devastation suffered by Chinese industrial assets. The upper left is what I previously called scenario 3, the ideal outcome from China's perspective.

The lower left just transitions into the lower right, because if the PLA can't defend China then acceptable damage will soon become unacceptable damage (that or China surrenders unconditionally). The lower right is what we all agree on. That leaves the upper right, which is the crux of our disagreement.

I hold that in the way you conceive of it, it's an impossible scenario. It's impossible for the US to have its forward postured tactical nuclear weapons (and not just a few remnant submarines) at a sufficient level to still hold an asymmetric advantage over China and have the PLA still be considered "successful". So either the US's advantages at the tactical nuclear level have been wiped out or we transition into the lower right (i.e., the PLA has failed).
But it does mean that operating under the assumption that somehow targets on Chinese soil are able to be invulnerable or deterred from being struck, is not a realistic luxury that is worthwhile being afforded, and should instead be viewed as a necessary conflict condition to be integrated into conflict projections.
I don't believe a conflict can be won if this vulnerability isn't addressed to a very high level. If China loses its industrial might then it's setting itself up for catastrophe down the road no matter how well the first Pacific war goes for it.
Well that's the thing, the US doesn't want "just its half" lol.
Well here's the other thing, the US has a price to pay and risks to run if it wants to keep the entire Pacific lol. Sure, everybody wants an empire when they can get it for free, it's when they start having to pay for it that things get more complicated. I'm sure I don't need to tell you given your job and the circles you frequent how much more complicated things are getting.

This isn't about what the US wants, it's about what the US is going to get.
or sentencing an overwhelming majority of the Chinese population to death and radiation sickness, I cannot see how one would prefer the latter.
An an overwhelming majority (if not the totality) of Americans with them. Make sure that factors into your calculations and remains at the forefront of your public's consciousness.
The US will lose if the PRC chooses to conduct an operation to de-throne the US in the Pacific. While the US would most certainly do its best to inflict a heavy toll on the PLA in the process, and upon the PRC as a whole - it would not randomly kill itself by launching a first-use nuclear strike on the PRC and guaranteeing retaliation.
Then we're in the upper left cell of the table I drew above and everything's just fine, no use of nuclear weapons by anybody and China gets what it wants.
 
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Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Oh certainly, I believe there was a very sizable chunk of time in which the US would have seriously considered a complete counterforce salvo to be feasible, and that if push came to shove, that they may well have used that advantage. Indeed though, I too consider the calculus to be far different these days as a result of ICBM TELs, 094s, and the much expanded silo-capacity the PLA has developed.

These days, I view the "MAD" principles to be well and truly in effect, which is the principal reason I am so confident the US will not launch a nuclear first-strike.

On a sidenote, since I'm quite fond of this thread's topic (it's a large part of what my job entails looking at lol), I might post some of our own papers or infographics if that's alright with you. Wouldn't want to appear as self-advertising or anything of the sort. Furthermore, there's another guy I've worked a lot with, goes by Patchwork Chimera. I'll let him know about the thread as well since we've done work together on compiling target sets and generating optimized weaponeering solutions for prosecuting those target sets.

I have observed some of his recent comments on Reddit.

That said, I don't think this thread will be as enlightening as the topic title suggests, it is more of a place to put discussions that don't fit other threads.
 

Mohsin77

Senior Member
Registered Member
....but the US is the one driving that bus and it's not going to just terrorize China into "knowing its place". That to me is completely unacceptable.

Triggering a nuclear holocaust and effectively committing mutual assured suicide doesn't restore one's place after losing a conventional war. Getting back on your feet to fight again does that, even if it takes many generations. But that option is off the table if you decide to nuke another nuclear country's home base.

This is why the focus should be to win/compete in the conventional domain. That is the true measure of one's "place."
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
I think we've reached the crux of our disagreement. Let me try explaining this with a table
Acceptable damageUnacceptable damage
SuccessChina doesn't use nukesPossible Chinese first use of tactical nukes
FailureN/A (transition to right)Certain Chinese first use of strategic nukes
The "success" and "failure" refer to the PLA's performance in a conventional war; while "acceptable damage" and "unacceptable damage" refer to the level of devastation suffered by Chinese industrial assets. The upper left is what I previously called scenario 3, the ideal outcome from China's perspective.

The lower left just transitions into the lower right, because if the PLA can't defend China then acceptable damage will soon become unacceptable damage (that or China surrenders unconditionally). The lower right is what we all agree on. That leaves the upper right, which is the crux of our disagreement.

I hold that in the way you conceive of it, it's an impossible scenario. It's impossible for the US to have its forward postured tactical nuclear weapons (and not just a few remnant submarines) at a sufficient level to still hold an asymmetric advantage over China and have the PLA still be considered "successful". So either the US's advantages at the tactical nuclear level have been wiped out or we transition into the lower right (i.e., the PLA has failed).

This is why I don't think your objection holds up - there is no scenario in which the war is going well enough for the PLA to continue fighting while at the same time Chinese industry having suffered unacceptably high losses.

I don't believe a conflict can be won if this vulnerability isn't addressed to a very high level. If China loses its industrial might then it's setting itself up for catastrophe down the road no matter how well the first Pacific war goes for it.

I understand where your argument comes from.
However I believe "Success/Failure" and "Acceptable Damage/Unacceptable Damage" are both the same thing, respectively.
Putting it another way, it's not a 2x2 grid with four possible outcomes.
It's a 1x2 grid with only two possible outcomes.

PLA success
(one consequence of which is that damage is at acceptable levels)
China doesn't use nukes
PLA failure
(one consequence of which is that damage is at unacceptable levels)
Possible or likely use of China using nukes/nuclear armageddon in general
 

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
I understand where your argument comes from.
However I believe "Success/Failure" and "Acceptable Damage/Unacceptable Damage" are both the same thing
Putting it another way, it's not a 2x2 grid.
It's a 1x2 grid

PLA success
(one consequence of which is that damage is at acceptable levels)
China doesn't use nukes
PLA failure
(one consequence of which is that damage is at unacceptable levels)
Possible or likely use of China using nukes/nuclear armageddon in general
I've got to get some sleep now or I'll be up until dawn litigating this. I'll pick this up later if there's still interest in this thread.
 

SEAD

Junior Member
Registered Member
Too many strategies, let me just stop by a tactical hypothesis: I believe H-20 would have buddy tanking feature, or some VLO tanking UAV as wingman. If H-20 is as large as B-2, 2 tankers+1 attacker can cover the whole US with stand-in tactical nuclear bombs or conventional weapons. That would help a lot for them.

That's also why I believe H-20 will be as large as B-2, rather than B-21. If they have 90 H-20, they can deliver 30 of them to US at once with the 2:1 ratio mentioned above.
 

Tempest

New Member
Registered Member
The "success" and "failure" refer to the PLA's performance in a conventional war; while "acceptable damage" and "unacceptable damage" refer to the level of devastation suffered by Chinese industrial assets. The upper left is what I previously called scenario 3, the ideal outcome from China's perspective.
My question here is, why were things allowed to become that way? The principal goal of issuing these sorts of nuclear warnings is to deter a given behavior. If tomorrow, for instance, the US were to violate all of China's red lines and Taiwan were to declare abject independence - that would be a failure of Chinese deterrence. Similarly, if the nuclear capabilities of the PLA are clearly and definitively given conditions that would result in their use - the goal of doing so is to prevent the US from doing those things.

Where you seem to get off to a strange start is that you don't differentiate between deterrence and punishment. Where deterrence is communicating a message that a nation is both wiling and able to disrupt and cause pain to an operational system, and possesses the ultimate goal of preventing an adversary from engaging in a specific behavior; Punishment's goal is to actually create disruption/pain in the operational system which communicates a message of not to do something. The key difference here is that you should never want to have to use your deterrent. Thus, it cannot be threatened to be used in many cases short of national survival. Something as small in scale as a shipyard, a factory, or a port when compared to the existence of the People's Republic of China simply are not on anywhere near the same magnitude of importance.

If the PLA were to come to blows with the US, and the US were to attack Dalian and Jiangnan at the outset of the conflict, and the PLA were to employ tactical nuclear weapons as "punishment" for those actions, it would be a blunder of colossal scale. Not only would Dalian and Jiangnan still be destroyed, but now the US has been nuked (which means their deterrence has failed); and they are entirely willing to switch to "punishment" as a result. From here, the best case scenario is a tactical nuclear war ensuing - and the worst is global thermonuclear apocalypse.

My point in this is that if strategic deterrents are used haphazardly or overzealously with the hope of gaining an advantageous state of affairs (i.e. the mainland being off limits to US attack), they are extremely vulnerable to being either discredited if there is no follow-through, or leading to calamitous results if there is.

Well here's the other thing, the US has a price to pay and risks to run if it wants to keep the entire Pacific lol. Sure, everybody wants an empire when they can get it for free, it's when they start having to pay for it that things get more complicated. I'm sure I don't need to tell you given your job and the circles you frequent how much more complicated things are getting.

This isn't about what the US wants, it's about what the US is going to get.
I absolutely agree. If the US wants to hold on to its current position in the Western Pacific, it'll have to fight for it one of these days. Ultimately I think if it came to blows, the US would end up in a comparatively worse position than it's in now. I don't really think there's anyone contesting that if the US wants to remain essentially the global hegemon that it will be forced to contend with China's rapid rise one way or another.

An an overwhelming majority (if not the totality) of Americans with them. Make sure that factors into your calculations and remains at the forefront of your public's consciousness.
Yes, I am fully aware of this. Americans are fully aware of this. This is not news. My point is that employing nuclear weapons is basically the capstone to what ought to be a series of escalations culminating in there being existential threat to the state, if their use is to be justified. If the conditions before ending the world in a global thermonuclear exchange are considered superior to the conditions after doing so, there is simply no reason to do so. While this preference varies person to person (you for instance seem to be quite trigger happy, and ostensibly would trade the lives of billions upon billions of people (including your own) to punish the US if they defeat the PLA in the field), most people consider being alive and being in an intact, non-wasteland nation minus a couple of factories, ports, what have you - to be a preferable state of affairs compared to living (or not living) in an irradiated wasteland. It's madness to involve nuclear weapons for something of this nature; and were the CMC similarly overzealous as you, I'd recommend everyone in this thread topic start stocking up on Potassium Iodide.
 

Abominable

Major
Registered Member
I pretty much agree with everything Zeak said.

About the "nuclear umbrellas". Claiming that an attack on an ally (or a military base on an allied country) will be treated exactly as an attack on an allied nation is not true. No country I know of will treat a nuclear attack on a foreign country as the same as their own, no matter what they say publically. It may be more likely depending on how close the nations are, how dangerous the opponent is and so on.

Alliances are just pieces of paper at the end of the day. They're just a pre-emptive threat. Any action done with an alliance can be done just as easily without one.
 

JamesRed

New Member
Registered Member
This thread exemplifies how disconnected from reality the war machine is. A nuclear war would be a war of attrition, not strategy. Whichever society is best able to adapt to the new and radically different lifestyle that will result will most likely win.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Well that's the thing, the US doesn't want "just its half" lol. It will fight to defend its current sphere of influence tooth and nail until the very moment it can no longer be held onto. Again, you're coming from a very "principles" centric position, whereas foreign policy is an awful lot more pragmatic. The US currently has control over the First Island Chain, and has no real desire to relinquish it, no matter how unfair it may be. It's as simple as that; there is no more to it.

Agreed.

But at the same time, in the longer term, the US position in the Western Pacific is likely untenable.

If we look to 2035 onwards, I expect the Chinese economy to be twice the size of the US. So we're looking at China being the centre of the global trading and investment network, and particularly influential amongst its neighbours in Asia. China's military capability will lag somewhat because weapons systems take so long to develop and then last for typically 30 years.

Personally I see the possibility of a China-US conflict as in the region of 20% in the coming years. So I don't see it as inevitable. But at the same time, it isn't a negligible risk, and the consequences are catastrophic on many levels.

So I see the key task as navigating the next 15 years and the helping to inform the US retreat from the Western Pacific. The good news is that as per the opinion polls (ISEAS, Pew, etc), the public and the decision makers in Asia generally accept that China have or will displace the US in the Western Pacific.
 
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