Yeah, one of China's conclusions from the fall of the USSR was that massive investments in arms, and having defence concerns superseding all other policy priorities, is fucking stupid, the USSR was able to maintain their advantage in terms of conventional military power in Europe for decades, but what did is matter for when Communism fell practically without a shot being fired.
Nonetheless the concept of a winnable nuclear war remains a tragic oxymoron. China still has around 100 ICBMS, meaning ~200 warheads, and their planning on doubling that arsenal. The Pentagons own tests indicate that anti-Ballistic Missile systems only have a 40-50% sucess rate (and those tests are done in ideal conditions). Even if we generously assume that China is only able to launch 50% of their missiles after suffering from a first strike . That still leaves 50 Nuclear warheads falling onto dozens of American cities, which alone should be enough to ensure that no reasonable person would ever consider Nuking China.
It's not 50 though, that's the point. They have, by most open source accounts, around 20 (to maybe max 40, maybe) Dongfeng-41 missiles. This is the entire extent of their capability to strike the US.
Sure, they also have 2 SSBNs but those are so noisy we should by now assume they are being trailed 24/7 by US attack subs and will be sunk first thing just before a first strike. Dongfeng-5 missiles are too big for the PLA's tunnel network and sit in silos. Moreover, they take like an hour to prepare for launching, so you can write them off as well.
Now, no one really knows how effective the DF-41 is in penetrating the US anti-missile shield but the Russians believe that their own newest, most sophisticated Yars ICBM (which should be even more advanced in terms of survivability, at least on paper, what with its flat trajectory, short engine burn time and autonomously manoeuvrable warheads) has around 65% penetration probability. At the end of the day this is a numbers game, the only way to reliably retaliate is by oversaturating the enemy's defence capabilities. Back in 2011 (I think, need to look it up) there was an interview with a former Soviet and current RF missile defence expert Yuri Saveliev who was raising an alarm about how Putin's neglect of the strategic missile forces was making Russia lose its deterrent credibility. By his calculations, due to the necessary phasing out of expired Soviet ICBMs and SLBMs, combined with the meagre production capabilities of new replacement missiles, Russia would have only around 230 credibly functional strategic missiles by 2015. In his view almost all of them (99%) would be halted by the American anti-missile shield consisting of bases in Poland/Romania, ROK, Japan, US, Canada as well as the sea based AEGIS systems. In view of this I don't think that Chinese prospects are currently optimism inspiring.
All in all we just might be in for a re-run of the arms race in preparation for WW2 between Nazi Germany and the USSR, only this time around China has less defence in depth in terms of available land and there doesn't seem to be anyone for now to take on the second front/lend-lease role.
I suspect that's a vast over-estimate of Aegis/ABM systems. I honestly doubt their ability to stop an R7 more than half the time, let alone anything with MIRV capability. Also I'm pretty sure China will have its D-5 network prepared if things look even remotely like kicking off.
Trump is off his nut but he's not "immediately nuke the world with no warning" off his nut. He'll brag and bluster first.
Yeah maybe. I was just trying to say that if the "great minds" in charge of the US nuclear arsenal wanted to militarily mitigate the threat of China eating into American hegemony now would be the best time, since with each passing year the outcome would get more and more dire for them. Will they go for it, no one knows. On the one hand the US never nuked the USSR even though they had a head start of two decades in terms of parity and almost one decade in terms of pretty much complete and total impunity. On the other hand they never had outright apocalyptic nuts controlling the American state and military. If it was just Trump I wouldn't worry, since people like him prioritize their personal safety and well being above all else.
Yeah, one of China's conclusions from the fall of the USSR was that massive investments in arms, and having defence concerns superseding all other policy priorities, is fucking stupid, the USSR was able to maintain their advantage in terms of conventional military power in Europe for decades, but what did is matter for when Communism fell practically without a shot being fired.
Nonetheless the concept of a winnable nuclear war remains a tragic oxymoron. China still has around 100 ICBMS, meaning ~200 warheads, and their planning on doubling that arsenal. The Pentagons own tests indicate that anti-Ballistic Missile systems only have a 40-50% sucess rate (and those tests are done in ideal conditions). Even if we generously assume that China is only able to launch 50% of their missiles after suffering from a first strike . That still leaves 50 Nuclear warheads falling onto dozens of American cities, which alone should be enough to ensure that no reasonable person would ever consider Nuking China.
Which is why whats going on is pretty scary
It's not 50 though, that's the point. They have, by most open source accounts, around 20 (to maybe max 40, maybe) Dongfeng-41 missiles. This is the entire extent of their capability to strike the US. Sure, they also have 2 SSBNs but those are so noisy we should by now assume they are being trailed 24/7 by US attack subs and will be sunk first thing just before a first strike. Dongfeng-5 missiles are too big for the PLA's tunnel network and sit in silos. Moreover, they take like an hour to prepare for launching, so you can write them off as well.
Now, no one really knows how effective the DF-41 is in penetrating the US anti-missile shield but the Russians believe that their own newest, most sophisticated Yars ICBM (which should be even more advanced in terms of survivability, at least on paper, what with its flat trajectory, short engine burn time and autonomously manoeuvrable warheads) has around 65% penetration probability. At the end of the day this is a numbers game, the only way to reliably retaliate is by oversaturating the enemy's defence capabilities. Back in 2011 (I think, need to look it up) there was an interview with a former Soviet and current RF missile defence expert Yuri Saveliev who was raising an alarm about how Putin's neglect of the strategic missile forces was making Russia lose its deterrent credibility. By his calculations, due to the necessary phasing out of expired Soviet ICBMs and SLBMs, combined with the meagre production capabilities of new replacement missiles, Russia would have only around 230 credibly functional strategic missiles by 2015. In his view almost all of them (99%) would be halted by the American anti-missile shield consisting of bases in Poland/Romania, ROK, Japan, US, Canada as well as the sea based AEGIS systems. In view of this I don't think that Chinese prospects are currently optimism inspiring.
All in all we just might be in for a re-run of the arms race in preparation for WW2 between Nazi Germany and the USSR, only this time around China has less defence in depth in terms of available land and there doesn't seem to be anyone for now to take on the second front/lend-lease role.
I suspect that's a vast over-estimate of Aegis/ABM systems. I honestly doubt their ability to stop an R7 more than half the time, let alone anything with MIRV capability. Also I'm pretty sure China will have its D-5 network prepared if things look even remotely like kicking off.
Trump is off his nut but he's not "immediately nuke the world with no warning" off his nut. He'll brag and bluster first.
Yeah maybe. I was just trying to say that if the "great minds" in charge of the US nuclear arsenal wanted to militarily mitigate the threat of China eating into American hegemony now would be the best time, since with each passing year the outcome would get more and more dire for them. Will they go for it, no one knows. On the one hand the US never nuked the USSR even though they had a head start of two decades in terms of parity and almost one decade in terms of pretty much complete and total impunity. On the other hand they never had outright apocalyptic nuts controlling the American state and military. If it was just Trump I wouldn't worry, since people like him prioritize their personal safety and well being above all else.
I never thought I'd be depressed by the idea that a world-ending nuclear war was not possible.