The thrust of my argument is the latter point, that China should threaten the escalation to tactical nuclear weapons if the US strikes military production facilities on Chinese soil. There's a lot of moving parts to that so I'll lay them out here
- China shouldn't threaten anything like this in the near-to-medium term. In fact, China should do all it can to forestall war with the US until at least the mid-to-late 2030s.
- China should use this period of peace to build up its military capacity to a level where it has regional conventional overmatch against the US and all its allies.
- Ideally, China should be able to rout US forces quickly enough that China proper is essentially unscathed. Some bases might be hit and replaceable assets lost, but industry is intact and able to quickly replenish losses. IF that occurs and IF the US doesn't escalate to nuclear use, then end of story. They lived happily ever after.
- If the PLA fails catastrophically at the conventional level or the US launches a war before China is ready, and China suffers major losses to its industry (loss of a major shipyard, for example). I hold that China should then respond with tactical nuclear strikes against similar US targets because at that point it's already over. The PLA won't be able to prevent further destruction to China, so it doesn't really matter whether or not the US responds with tactical nukes against more targets anyway, because they're gone either way.
- If the PLA succeeds at the conventional level but the US launches tactical nuclear weapons to stem its losses and shift the battle in its favour, then China responds in kind and there's nothing more to discuss.
The role of tactical nuclear weapons in a war depends on whether we're in scenario 3, 4, or 5. I think you and I and most everyone here would want scenario 3 where the PLA defeats the US resoundingly and the US takes the L without being willing or able to escalate to higher levels. That would be lovely but I wouldn't bet China's future on that.
Scenarios 4 and 5 are more dangerous so they're what should be examined. It's possible that despite China's best efforts to maintain peace, the US finally reads the writing on the wall and launches a war before China is ready. If that happens then China must be prepared to mount an absolutely frenzied defense. If scenario 5 occurs, then I think both of us agree that China is perfectly entitled to respond in kind.
If I understood your argument correctly, your objection to my view rests on the fact that China's first use guarantees a response. To which I would reply
- That's not necessarily true; China's threat of first use might successfully deter the US from attacking Chinese military production. Don't foreclose on the possibility.
- If scenario 4 above occurs, then China has already lost and it doesn't matter whether the US attacks Chinese military production with tac-nukes or conventional weapons. The US doesn't gain anything by escalating since China has already lost everything.
- If scenario 5 occurs, then China's doesn't initiate escalation and this whole argument is moot.
Overall, my perception of PLA strategic planning is similar to your five scenarios, and yes, scenarios 4 and 5 are the most dangerous.
In terms of scenario 5, I have no issues with China responding with tac nukes if the US uses tac nukes.
In terms of scenario 4 -- as I wrote before, the only way in which it would make sense for China to be the one to use tac nukes first is if the war is going so badly that its comprehensive defeat is all but guaranteed.
My issue with your proposal from previous posts is that by proclaiming that China will respond to
any attack on military production facilities with the use of tactical nuclear weapons on its own against US soil, you open yourself up to a massive grey zone area where if the US conducts say, a number of smaller scale strikes against Chinese military production, then will China respond with tactical nukes? Will they not? What if the US conducts an attempt against Chinese military production but China manages to defeat it with their IADS -- will that result in a Chinese response with tactical nukes?
Would China interpret any attack on Chinese soil in general in a launch-on-warning threat against military production facilities? Is that even possible given that the attack profile of strike systems against Chinese military bases and Chinese military production facilities would look fairly similar until they get a hundred km away from their target?
That depends on how thoroughly China can degrade these forces and prevent them from doing damage. If China fails at this then it becomes more important to make the US suffer at least as much as the US is going to make China suffer.
Let's leave aside the Zoomer zingers.
That's the mountain the PLA must climb and there must be peace until it climbs that mountain. We discussed previously what China would need to achieve to win a war of attrition against the US in the western Pacific; a PLA that can do that is a PLA that can seize/neutralize Hawaii.
I agree that I equivocated and should have made these delineations clearer. The point I tried to make is that the US never second-guessed itself when it threatened the Soviet Union with tactical nuclear weapons during the Cold War, despite the fact that the USSR could respond and escalate against the US. I would like China to drink a little of the water the US has been drinking.
Even though I won't shift your position and you won't shift mine, I hope you see the merit to China abandoning its wholly rational, wholly reactive nuclear posture, even if what I'm selling is a bridge too far.
So, the bolded part is also how I interpret your argument.
The reason why the US was able to credibly threaten the USSR with tactical nuclear weapons in the Cold War, is because of long term peacetime geostrategic positioning. The forward basing of US forces in Europe and the fact that Europe would be the battleground and thus the area where the vast majority of tactical nuclear use would be seen (due to the delivery platforms of tactical nukes which was delineated from strategic nuclear weapon delivery vehicles), means that it was in the US interest to be the first one willing to use tactical nukes, as their homeland (containing their major centers of sociopolitical, industrial, economic, military strategic command importance) was at far lower risk of being struck by tactical nuclear weapons. That is why the US possessed escalation advantage against the USSR in terms of employment of tactical nukes.
The reason why China is unable to credibly threaten the US (now, and into the foreseeable future) with tactical nuclear weapons, is also because of long term peacetime geostrategic positioning. The forward basing of US forces in westpac and the fact that westpac would be the battleground and thus where the vast majority of tactical nuclear use would be seen (due to the delivery platforms of contemporary tactical nukes, which remains similarly delineated from strategic nuclear weapon delivery vehicles), means that it is not in the Chinese interest to be the first one willing to use tactical nukes, because the Chinese homeland (containing their major centers of sociopolitical, industrial, economic, military strategic command importance) is at far higher risk of being struck in the ensuing tactical nuclear exchange.
That is why I believe it is impossible for China to possess escalation advantage (or even parity) against the US in terms of employment of tactical nukes, until the long term peacetime geostrategic positioning question is resolved --- but of course to resolve that question would either require a massive drawdown of US globally deployed forces (requiring some sort of large scale geostrategic/economic collapse in the US on the scale of the American Civil War), or a major westpac conflict where the PLA is capable of decisively achieving victory and driving the US presence backwards, to Hawaii if not beyond.
