China and threats

I was taking a look at the Lars Larson website tonight.  On his site, Lars always has a daily poll...  tonight, it reads:

“China is threatening nukes if we continue to defend Taiwan... should we stop defending Taiwan?”

What he should have asked is: “should we remind China that, unlike them, we have the means to launch a strategic first-strike, with 100 times their number of warheads, from stealth bombers they can neither detect nor shoot down, rendering not just their military—including their pitiful nuclear arsenal—but their entire civilization, into nothing but radioactive debris?”

Keep in mind, I worked 5 years in a USAF nuclear weapons lab, primarily to determine the nuclear capabilities of other nations.

If Russia started making nuclear threats, I’d be worried. They have tens of thousands of warheads, and even though I’ve been out of the loop for several years now, I have to assume that the majority of them are still ready to launch.  And their missiles, even the old SS-18s, are capable of hitting any major city in the world with enough precision to put ground zero over the city block of their choice—within 30 minutes of launch.  With our NORAD detection and tracking, and our Patriot missiles, we have a good chance of stopping a few crude missiles headed for the U.S.  But against thousands of sophisticated MIRVs, we are a sitting duck.  A first-strike by Russia would end our civilization, even though we could retaliate in like force within moments of detecting their launches.

China, however, has only hundreds of warheads—and unlike the Russians, who successfully tested a 100 megaton device back in 1961, China’s nukes are primarily “tactical,” not “strategic.”  While a 50 kiloton warhead would devastate a typical city, the blast size is still only slightly more than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs: suited for a tactical strike against an industrial or military complex, but not the type of weapon designed to annihilate an entire major metropolitan area.  What’s more, given their limited number of warheads, China does not have the luxury to make the kinds of threats we and the Russians can make.  We can target every military base, every industrial center, every population center, even every smaller city in China—and still have enough warheads left over to A) target the Chinese countryside to render their farmland unusable for a thousand generations, and B) maintain enough of an arsenal for a similar deterrent against other nations.  China, on the other hand, has enough firepower to target major military bases… and nothing more.

China’s missiles have the range to hit the United States, but not the means to accurately hit hardened targets (like our own missile silos).  China has virtually no submarine-based missile threat (although they have submarine-launched nukes, every foreign boomer has an American hunter on its tail, ready to fire in advance of our own first-strike).  And most importantly, China has no stealth capability.

If push came to shove, and the President had to make the decision to launch a pre-emptive first strike in a nuclear conflict, we would begin by launching a squadron of stealth bombers, each carrying a dozen tactical nuclear bombs. They would target Chinese nuclear launch sites, and Chinese command and control centers, hitting all targets within seconds of each other—along with the simultaneous sinking of their nuclear submarine fleet by our aforementioned hunter subs.  The only warning the Chinese military would have would be the sudden increase in ambient temperature by about 6,000 Kelvin.  Even if China’s military was able to retaliate with some surviving nuclear weapons, their capability would be so reduced that, at worst, they would be able to fire a handful of tactical weapons, which would more than likely be targeting military complexes in the Pacific, not U.S. soil.  And, the surviving leaders of China would know that, should they take this action, the American response wouldn’t be more tactical nukes against their military, but a thousand ICBMs with city-killing 5 megaton MIRVs, which would hit their targets in 30 minutes.  Seven-thousand years of Chinese civilization would come to a complete and total end in the time it takes you to pick up Chinese take-out.

Does China really think they can succeed in attacking the United States with nuclear weapons?  No.  They aren’t that stupid.  But they DO know that the American people, if threatened with nuclear war, will have more than a few leftists who will stir up trouble.  They aren’t counting on America fearing their military might.  They are counting on enough Americans putting political pressure on our President to force him into abandoning Taiwan.  They see what is happening with Iraq.  They hear American politicians like Dick Durbin attacking our own military. They believe, and probably rightly so (unfortunately) that such blustering will result in us folding our cards rather than calling their bluff.  And they know that, despite their overt threats, we lack the political will to launch a pre-emptive first-strike.

I wasn’t able to hear Lars' show tonight, so I have no idea what the discussion contained.  But I hope that he was able to convey the message that China must not be allowed to get away with these types of threats.  We need to remind the American people just how much power we really have, and hope that our political will is even a fraction as strong as our military might.  Without political will, our arsenal is meaningless.  China is counting on that.

Comments

[Hannibal]

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK scrambled our B-52 fleet and told the Russians that if they didn't pull their ICBMs out of Cuba, we were prepared to end their existence. He meant it. The Russians backed down.

I hope that, in a similar situation, Bush (or his successor) will be able to exercise this same degree of political will. But I fear that the Left in this country has succeeded in sufficiently tearing down our political will to the point where no current or future President will be able to project this same level of force.

If we are unable to convince foreign powers that we can and will use our full nuclear arsenal when faced with WMD threat, then we have forever lost our greatest deterrent.

The threat of mutually assured destruction prevented the Soviets from ever instigating war with the West. If that threat disappears, then there is nothing stopping China from launching 50 million soldiers into any country it chooses.

We must show China that we will not be intimidated.

[don in kalyfornya]

while China's nuke threat may not be much, it does exist and is a threat--but where did China get this capability? Anyone remember BILL CLINTON giving our nuclear, missile, and computer technology to the Chinese, supposedly to foster peace?

[JustaDog]

Don is right - China loves socialist Bill Clinton. They probably thank him daily.

Me? I'd have no problem with Fried Wantons - fried with a few nukes of our own.

[[email protected]]

Great post Dave. I always appreciate your insight on nukes and the politics that surround them.

Cliff

[Bob Mulroy]

Gawsh! I like when people talk like that.

BTW, I linked you.

[TheTruth]

The tru-truth is that the USSR didn't back down the nukes actually stayed in Cuba.
The tru-truth is that Daddy Bush opened the technology door to china so M. Armstrong could get leo satellites launched from China.
Tru-Truth is that a 50 KT nuke in a major metro area is every bit as deadly as a 50MT device on the same population, maybe just more painful than the larger device.
Tru-Truth if you kill 90% of the poor population of China and 90% of the population of the USofA there are going to be a lot more chinamen than Americans, and the Chinese Govt. would appreciate the decrease in expense that would come from the aid in population control.
The Tru-Truth is that somebody should be concerned that for the first time China feels bold enough to threaten nukes against the U.S., maybe the wholesale dumping of technology into China over the last 5 years has something to do with it.
I mean China actually warning the US Congress not to intefere with the sale of Unocal should make somebody shudder.

It's not about liberalism, it's about isolationism and to ignore the China THREAT is to invite China action, to act in a military manner is to provoke (all that face saving sh*t), so what it means is making tough decisions and stopping US businesses (IBM, Walmart, GM and a host of others) from doing business with COMMUNIST CHINA.

Who the hell opened up China anyway? Oh yeah, some fool who gave us 'peace with honor' against them in Vietnam.

[Gullyborg]

Someone lost his tin foil...

[rimfirejones]

Excellent post.