PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

Abominable said:

That's right and in a real war will be what people will look at.

Say China uses a tactical nuke on a US base. Is America going to nuke a Chinese city? Unlikely, because they will very likely lose a city themselves. They aren't going to win a battle of population attrition with China.

Most likely their response will be in kind, a nuclear attack on a similar sized base.

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Another factor to consider for how proportional the response will be as well is politics. If China/US got bombed on their territory/base/troops, would their citizens pressure them to escalate even further or deescalate? Those properties that got bombed like military factories and bases may inhabit people, people who have friends, relatives and family that will be either radicalized to demand a bigger response as revenge or grief-stricken that they do not want the war to continue any further.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I welcome anything that makes my idea moot. If the PLA can sweep away all US forces quick enough that the damage they inflict on China's industry is negligible, so much the better. That would be ideal. My idea is about what to do if things aren't ideal.

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I don't assume at all China will be able to do that conventionally, the only way to ensure US forces are completely neutralized is with TNWs, probably also with some higher-yield warheads employed in the battlefield role.

China can announce a "2x retaliation" threat after this: if the US wants to retaliate by hitting Chinese mainland bases, then twice the number of American bases in their homeland will be destroyed in response each time. If they go countervalue China will immediately destroy all American cities and kill >150M, ideally with salted weapons to inhibit recovery.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I don't think you understand how capable PLAN ASW already is and how much more capable it's going to be in the coming decade.

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This is an area of major concern for PLAN. Until Type 095 gets produced and is good, this will be PLAN's Achille heels.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I haven't been clear enough in what I'm trying to get at. What you said isn't what I'm talking about, that's normal warfare. If Chinese military industry suffers enough damage that my proposed threshold is crossed, part of the response is China attacks US military-industrial targets on the US mainland with tactical nuclear weapons. Let's just say that there's no Japan left at the end of the other part.

China doesn't lose, that's the Prime Axiom. China. Does. Not. Lose.

Germany and Japan are flunkies that the US deigned to allow some freedom because it needed them against the Soviet Union. They're still dogs on a leash - I do not want that to be China's fate, nor should anyone who considers themselves sympathetic to China in the least. A US-China war isn't some playfight between kin like the US's war on Germany. It isn't even a war against a hated race like the US's war on Japan. It is The End. It's either the end of US hegemony or the end of the species.

I understand that you might be an American and you don't want Chinese nuclear missiles raining down on you. But that isn't the perspective I take on this. The best way to ensure your safety is for America to dissolve its alliances with Japan, South Korea, et al. and withdraw from the western Pacific - then there needn't be any war.

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Yes, I would much rather stay alive and not be involved in a nuclear war. And living in America is not the reason that I think China doing tactic nukes is a bad idea. And I also do not want any other country, including Japan, getting wiped out.

ZeEa5KPul said:

Is destroying JNCX fine if done with RDX rather than plutonium?

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USN does not have the capabilities to destroy JNCX with conventional weapon while also having to carry out attacks on PLAAF military bases.

ZeEa5KPul said:

There's a point I missed making in my first response to you: Why does the US feel that striking soft Chinese targets - or even any Chinese targets on the mainland (after all, that's the home soil of a nuclear-armed nation) - is either not escalatory or an escalation it can make with impunity? Is destroying JNCX fine if done with RDX rather than plutonium?

There's a core philosophical difference I have with people I argue this with, and I'll state upfront that almost no one agrees with my position - I think the scale of destruction is what determines escalatory potential, not the physics of the weapons employed to achieve that destruction. Viewed from this angle, nuclear weapons across the spectrum of yields become an integrated part of warfighting, not just a totemic deterrent whose use is dismissed from the realm of possibility.

Another consequence of my view is that I consider widespread destruction caused by conventional weapons equivalent to the use of nuclear weapons. Widespread US attacks on critical mainland Chinese targets is a first use of nuclear weapons no matter what weapons the US employed.

If your objection is that at present China doesn't have the number of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, or the force posture and basing, or the conventional forces to protect them from counterattack to successfully employ this strategy and control the US's response, I agree fully. If you object at a deeper level that any use of nuclear weapons by China, no matter how limited, will provoke an overwhelming US response (even if the US is not capable of mounting such a response without courting its own total destruction), then our views on this matter are irreconcilable.

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It is a legitimate argument that when two sides are asymmetrical in terms of conventional capability, the weaker side could use or threaten to use nuclear weapons to even the odds.

However, using tactical nuclear weapons against the CONUS is simply a bad strategic idea, because you are just inviting the US to do a first strike with strategic weapons. As we have seen through many examples, the US leadership is capable of monumental irrationality and exhibit great callousness towards the consequences of its actions.

The proper choice for China is between launching nothing or launching its own full on first strike. At least with a first strike you reduces the number of American warheads while ensuring none of your own weapons are wasted.

China's tactical weapon doctrine should aim to incentivize the US to reduce military presence on the First/Second Island Chains and change its forward deployed postures. The logic is that any US investment in base infrastructure could be lost if China uses tactical nukes, so the US should not make these investments in the first place.

ZeEa5KPul said:

If the PLA can sweep away all US forces quick enough that the damage they inflict on China's industry is negligible, so much the better.

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Indeed. I'd even say that if this first objective isn't accomplished then everything else is kinda moot anyway. It's a neccessary win condition.

Coalescence said:

Another factor to consider for how proportional the response will be as well is politics. If China/US got bombed on their territory/base/troops, would their citizens pressure them to escalate even further or deescalate? Those properties that got bombed like military factories and bases may inhabit people, people who have friends, relatives and family that will be either radicalized to demand a bigger response as revenge or grief-stricken that they do not want the war to continue any further.

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Why would it be different to a conventional bomb? If someone loses their son to a tomahawk strike, is that any better than a tactical nuke? At least with the nuke it'll be instant. I think nuclear weapons have an unfair stigma because there is a concern it'll be used against entire cities. Used responsibly I think they are a very effective counter to America's bigger force.

Anyway if a war happened between America and China we'd probably see martial law and everything will be very tightly controlled. Both would shape public opinion to whatever they wanted.

Look at how things are now on both mainstream and social media with regards to Russia, and America isn't even at war.

ZeEa5KPul said:

Your position is contradictory. You entertain the possibility that in the future the PLA will be able to resoundingly defeat the US Pacific force while suffering tolerable losses (75% of the PLA force intact with 100% of the US force wiped out) and to do it with such speed and ferocity that Chinese industry suffers minimal to no damage. From your lips to God's ears is all I can say to that. Amen.

But why wouldn't the PLA destroy forward deployed US nuclear weapons along with the rest of the US force? Either the US withdraws these weapons or they are captured/destroyed by the PLA in the ensuing rout. If they're on submarines, then the PLAN will pop those subs or they'll withdraw to US waters.

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As part of the initial high intensity conflict in the westpac, I absolutely expect the PLA to seek to neutralize US platforms that are likely to have tactical nuclear weapons as part of their arsenal. The US doesn't declare which vessels and bases have them, but we can make a guess (carriers, Guam, and vessels and submarines which host cruise missiles).
This doesn't change my argument.

ZeEa5KPul said:

It would be so if this policy were a substitute for conventional overmatch rather than a supplement. China isn't North Korea (or the US for that matter) to rely on nuclear weapons to make up for conventional deficiencies. If China's conventional forces are strong enough and properly postured, then the US won't have the capacity to overmatch China with tactical nukes.

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That is essentially what I described in my previous post as what the best PLA strategy would be -- i.e.: seek conventional overmatch in the region.

The thing about tactical nuclear weapons is that their employment platforms are very difficult to be externally distinguished from more strategic capabilities. Bombers and strike fighters are built in with tactical nuclear compatibility, and any type of ship or submarine that can host cruise missiles are automatically potential deployment platforms for tactical nuclear weapons.
If China has conventional overmatch to defeat US conventional forces in the western pacific in a decisive fashion, then by extension it means they are capable of significantly destroying a large portion of US tactical nuclear weapon delivery capability in the region.

However, that doesn't mean it suddenly becomes desirable for China to adopt a tactical nuclear weapon blackmail strategy (say, hypothetically after China has won the first phase of a conflict in a conventional manner), because at that stage in the conflict the US will still be capable of significant tactical nuclear retaliation even with a smaller quantity of mobile assets (namely submarines which will remain difficult to all fully prosecute but with which are capable of launching tactical nuclear cruise missiles, as well as stealth bombers sortied from Hawaii and CONTUS with tactical nuclear cruise missiles).
Putting it another way -- if China is able to decisively defeat US conventional capabilities west of Hawaii, it would be in its interest to avoid using the tactical nuclear blackmail card, as that would arguably simply allow the remaining pockets of US offensive strike capability (submarines with SLCMs, long range bombers with LACMs) that can target Chinese soil to be able to yield that much more effectiveness than if those pockets of US offensive strike capability were relegated to continuing using conventional weapons.

ZeEa5KPul said:

There's also another component to this that I don't discuss because it'll run afoul of the forum's rules (which is an indictment of the forum's rules that they constrain discussion of strategy). I've mentioned only China's response vis-à-vis the US homeland in response to strikes on Chinese industry; I think you can imagine what I advocate China do to countries like Japan who host US assets used to strike soft Chinese targets.

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I regard the first use of tactical nuclear weapons against the US or any of its treaty allies (that are covered by its nuclear umbrella) as an actively bad decision for the PLA, and that it makes far more sense for it to pursue wide ranging conventional superiority backed up by a potent strategic nuclear deterrence that is primarily counter value in nature.
The geography and basing of US forces and their availability and ability to conduct tactical nuclear strikes against Chinese soil far outweighs that which China can hope to generate against the US.

ZeEa5KPul said:

There's a point I missed making in my first response to you: Why does the US feel that striking soft Chinese targets - or even any Chinese targets on the mainland (after all, that's the home soil of a nuclear-armed nation) - is either not escalatory or an escalation it can make with impunity? Is destroying JNCX fine if done with RDX rather than plutonium?

There's a core philosophical difference I have with people I argue this with, and I'll state upfront that almost no one agrees with my position - I think the scale of destruction is what determines escalatory potential, not the physics of the weapons employed to achieve that destruction. Viewed from this angle, nuclear weapons across the spectrum of yields become an integrated part of warfighting, not just a totemic deterrent whose use is dismissed from the realm of possibility.

Another consequence of my view is that I consider widespread destruction caused by conventional weapons equivalent to the use of nuclear weapons. Widespread US attacks on critical mainland Chinese targets is a first use of nuclear weapons no matter what weapons the US employed.

If your objection is that at present China doesn't have the number of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, or the force posture and basing, or the conventional forces to protect them from counterattack to successfully employ this strategy and control the US's response, I agree fully. If you object at a deeper level that any use of nuclear weapons by China, no matter how limited, will provoke an overwhelming US response (even if the US is not capable of mounting such a response without courting its own total destruction), then our views on this matter are irreconcilable.

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I believe that use of nuclear weapons (tactical or strategic) is inherently escalatory and will prompt nuclear retaliation, especially if it is used against a nation's home soil.

Use of conventional weapons against an adversary's home soil can be escalatory, but whether it prompts nuclear retaliation depends on the power of the nation that wants to retaliate.
When I speak of power, I mean not only the size of its nuclear arsenal and the comprehensiveness of its conventional war fighting capability -- I also mean the positioning of their warfighting assets, bases and platforms around the world.



If you want to think of a future whereby China would respond to conventional strikes on its soil by a nation state with the use of tactical nukes, well I think it would require China to be as much of not more of a hyperpower than what the US was in the immediate cold war era.
I.e.: not a viable for China going into the future.

Bltizo said:

Putting it another way -- if China is able to decisively defeat US conventional capabilities west of Hawaii, it would be in its interest to avoid using the tactical nuclear blackmail card, as that would arguably simply allow the remaining pockets of US offensive strike capability (submarines with SLCMs, long range bombers with LACMs) that can target Chinese soil to be able to yield that much more effectiveness than if those pockets of US offensive strike capability were relegated to continuing using conventional weapons.

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This assumes that the US is waiting for China to use tactical nuclear weapons first so that it feels permitted to use its own. I'm sure you're familiar with the criminal record the US calls a history, when did it ever hesitate to do something it felt was in its interest and it could get away with it? When China reaches the point in its military development when its regional conventional overmatch is clear, the US will equip its submarines and bombers will tactical nuclear weapons and use them at will.

We don't even have to go that far. Trump had a proposal to equip SSBNs with new tactical nuclear missiles. Biden recently defunded it but that's just back-and-forth haggling. It's going to get adopted eventually without a single iota of the hesitation you display. The US seems fine with threatening China with tactical nuclear weapons - I feel fine as well and want to threaten them right back in exactly the same way.

The US also had a policy of using tactical nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union in the early Cold War (The First Offset). Once again, where's the hesitation?

Bltizo said:

I regard the first use of tactical nuclear weapons against the US or any of its treaty allies (that are covered by its nuclear umbrella) as an actively bad decision for the PLA, and that it makes far more sense for it to pursue wide ranging conventional superiority backed up by a potent strategic nuclear deterrence that is primarily counter value in nature.

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You misunderstood me, I don't advocate the use of tactical nuclear weapons against US treaty allies like Japan if their territory is used to launch attacks against the Chinese homeland, I advocate their total obliteration. The US, being armed with strategic nuclear weapons, can't be attacked in this way; Japan can. The US can huff and puff all it wants about treaties and nuclear umbrellas, but will it go through with it on the day? Will it retaliate when it knows that doing so will lead to its destruction? No.

My proposals, quite aside from the risks they entail, are barbaric and evil - but that's what one must be when one has an enemy like the US. These people need to understand that Chinese territory is inviolable and what the consequences of messing with it are.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the US would adopt a posture like mine without hesitation. The moment America feels sure China would defeat it in a conventional conflict in the western Pacific is the moment the US deploys tactical nuclear weapons on every platform that can host them. No hesitation.

Finally, having conventional overmatch and a potent strategic deterrence that is primarily counter value in nature is having an escalation ladder with missing rungs. There should be parity between China and the US at the strategic level at minimum. Counter value or counter force is just a detail to be worked out later. More importantly, if the US has an overmatch at the tactical nuclear level then it has escalation dominance since it can drag the conflict up into levels where China would have no response.

This has to be addressed whether or not you like my ideas about tactical nuclear weapons on enemy homelands. That's just a detail, ceding a critical part of the escalation ladder isn't.

Bltizo said:

The geography and basing of US forces and their availability and ability to conduct tactical nuclear strikes against Chinese soil far outweighs that which China can hope to generate against the US.

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No, absolutely not. The geography and basing of US forces is exactly what we're trying to change, not an immutable given. As I said, if China has the conventional capacity to rout the US quickly enough that it suffers marginal damage, then all's well that ends well. But it's never going to be that clean because the US won't hesitate to use nuclear weapons if it faces conventional defeat. What then?

If China pushes the US back to Hawaii and the US can still generate inordinate force from Hawaii, then Hawaii has to get handled. China must seize the US's Pacific holdings and use them to project force against the US homeland if the US is doing the same to China. Only perfect symmetry is an acceptable state of affairs. If the US has n submarines and m stealth bombers conducting x attacks against China, then China better have n submarines and m stealth bombers conducting x attacks against the US.

Bltizo said:

When I speak of power, I mean not only the size of its nuclear arsenal and the comprehensiveness of its conventional war fighting capability -- I also mean the positioning of their warfighting assets, bases and platforms around the world.

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Only those assets near China and its SLOCs are relevant. US troops in Europe are meaningless militarily, at best they can be used to exert political pressure on European countries to sanction China. That would be a hit in the pocketbook, but the war we're considering is long past that and China in the future won't require any critical technological inputs from Europe or anywhere else. If anything, those US troops are pinned in Europe since their withdrawal leaves the field open to Russia.

For SLOC protection, I have in mind that China would be able to base assets in the Indian Ocean and into the Mediterranean.

Bltizo said:

If you want to think of a future whereby China would respond to conventional strikes on its soil by a nation state with the use of tactical nukes, well I think it would require China to be as much of not more of a hyperpower than what the US was in the immediate cold war era.
I.e.: not a viable for China going into the future.

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No, I just need China to be a comprehensive peer of the US and I think that's eminently achievable. I think China's going to be much more than just a US peer, but peer will do for the purposes of this discussion.

ZeEa5KPul said:

This assumes that the US is waiting for China to use tactical nuclear weapons first so that it feels permitted to use its own. I'm sure you're familiar with the criminal record the US calls a history, when did it ever hesitate to do something it felt was in its interest and it could get away with it? When China reaches the point in its military development when its regional conventional overmatch is clear, the US will equip its submarines and bombers will tactical nuclear weapons and use them at will.

We don't even have to go that far. Trump had a proposal to equip SSBNs with new tactical nuclear missiles. Biden defunded it recently, but that's just back-and-forth haggling. It's going to get adopted eventually without a single iota of the hesitation you display. The US seems fine with threatening China with tactical nuclear weapons - I feel fine as well and want to threaten them right back in exactly the same way.

The US also had a policy of using tactical nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union in the early Cold War (The First Offset). Once again, where's the hesitation?

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I don't understand, is your worry that the US will be the first to use tactical nuclear weapons if it feels like it cannot win a conventional conflict -- or are you arguing that China should be the first to use tactical nuclear weapons if the US conducts any sort of strike against locations (like military production facilities) on Chinese soil?

Because the two are very different things, and I've been addressing the latter.

In regards to the former, the way of mitigating the risk of US first use of tactical nuclear weapons is enhancing China's own strategic nuclear deterrence capability while possessing a sufficiently credible and robust tactical nuclear force.
But all of this has to be done with the recognition that the peacetime forward basing/deployment of US forces in westpac means that if push comes to shove in terms of employment of tactical nuclear weapons, the US has the advantage.
Thus it is not in China's interest to be the first to employ tactical weapons as that would guarantee US use of tactical nukes.


In the last few posts we have been discussing your proposal of the PLA being the first to use tactical nuclear weapons against US soil, in response to US conventional strikes against Chinese military production facilities on Chinese soil.
Discussion about how China would respond if the US used tactical nuclear weapons first due to US fears of losing in a conventional conflict, is a very separate topic.

ZeEa5KPul said:

You misunderstood me, I don't advocate the use of tactical nuclear weapons against US treaty allies like Japan if their territory is used to launch attacks against the Chinese homeland, I advocate their total obliteration. The US, being armed with strategic nuclear weapons, can't be attacked in this way; Japan can. The US can huff and puff all it wants about treaties and nuclear umbrellas, but will it go through with it on the day? Will it retaliate when it knows that doing so will lead to its destruction? No.

My proposals, quite aside from the risks they entail, are barbaric and evil - but that's what one must be when one has an enemy like the US. These people need to understand that Chinese territory is inviolable and what the consequences of messing with it are.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the US would adopt a posture like mine without hesitation. The moment America feels sure China would defeat it in a conventional conflict in the western Pacific is the moment the US deploys tactical nuclear weapons on every platform that can host them. No hesitation.

Finally, having conventional overmatch and a potent strategic deterrence that is primarily counter value in nature is having an escalation ladder with missing rungs. There should be parity between China and the US at the strategic level at minimum. Counter value or counter force is just a detail to be worked out later. More importantly, if the US has an overmatch at the tactical nuclear level then it has escalation dominance since it can drag the conflict up into levels where China would have no response.

This has to be addressed whether or not you like my ideas about tactical nuclear weapons on enemy homelands. That's just a detail, ceding a critical part of the escalation ladder isn't.

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I'm not concerned with how evil or whatever something is, we are talking about strategic nuclear exchange already so it is long past discussion about morality.
I am only talking about whether it makes military and strategic sense, so don't cut yourself with that edge.

As for what you've written here about being concerned about, see the above part of my post.

ZeEa5KPul said:

No. Absolutely not. The geography and basing of US forces is exactly what we're trying to change, not an immutable given. As I said, if China has the conventional capacity to rout the US quickly enough that it suffers marginal damage, then all's well that ends well. But it's never going to be that clean because the US won't hesitate to use nuclear weapons if it faces conventional defeat. What then?

If China pushes the US back to Hawaii and the US can still generate inordinate force from Hawaii, then Hawaii has to get handled. China must seize the US's Pacific holdings and use them to project force against the US homeland if the US is doing the same to China. Only perfect symmetry is an acceptable state of affairs. If the US has n submarines and m stealth bombers conducting x attacks against China, then China better have n submarines and m stealth bombers conducting x attacks against the US.

Only those assets near China and its SLOCs are relevant. US troops in Europe are meaningless militarily, at best they can be used to exert political pressure on European countries to sanction China. That would be a hit in the pocketbook, but the war we're considering is long past that and China in the future won't require any critical technological inputs from Europe or anywhere else. If anything, those US troops are pinned in Europe since their withdrawal leaves the field open to Russia.

For SLOC protection, I have in mind that China would be able to base assets in the Indian Ocean and into the Mediterranean.

No, I just need China to be a comprehensive peer of the US and I think that's eminently achievable. I think China's going to be much more than just a US peer, but peer will do for the purposes of this discussion.

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You will not be able to achieve perfect symmetry unless after China is capable of winning a major conventional conflict and rolling back the US forward deployed presence back to Hawaii (or beyond).

If your concern is that as part of that conventional conflict, if the US thinks it is losing, that the US will resort to tactical nuclear weapons, then I am absolutely supportive of China using tactical nuclear weapons in a reciprocal manner.

And just to clarify, I have no issues with having an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, nor do I have an issue with the PLA using them when necessary (especially if it is in retaliation to an enemy using tactical nukes against the PLA).
I don't know why you are suddenly talking about how China would respond if the US used tactical nukes first -- when the entirety of the last few posts has been about you arguing China should use tactical nukes first if the US attacks Chinese military production on Chinese soil.