Military Options in dealing with China

[Skroe]

@Mythic-RaidLead

We beat China from within by turning them into a liberal democracy. If you like geo-political stability and wealth than this is the only option, not war and mass death. Once the whole world is full of liberal democracies then we'll all give each other high fives because we defeated all of the evil socio-economic systems.

Correct, but also hilarious coming from a guy who has for years now steadfastly supported an ongoing attack on OUR liberal democracy from within.

You say the words, but you don't mean them.

[JohnBrown1917]

@Mythic-RaidLead

We beat China from within by turning them into a liberal democracy. If you like geo-political stability and wealth than this is the only option, not war and mass death. Once the whole world is full of liberal democracies then we'll all give each other high fives because we defeated all of the evil socio-economic systems.

Unless you're poor*

[AeneasBK]

Considering the Chinese treat their criminals much more akin to how OP would prefer them treated, I'm quite surprised to hear he feels that they are "the enemy".

That said, the cocktail of kool-aid they presumably quaff daily probably doesn't lend itself to sense.

[Powerogue]

But military options including the use of thermonuclear weapons should be on the table.

No.

I could back that up with rationality, but this is an internet gaming subforum, you're getting meme videos from over a decade ago (yet somehow still perfectly relevant!)

[Skroe]

No.

I could back that up with rationality, but this is an internet gaming subforum, you're getting meme videos from over a decade ago (yet somehow still perfectly relevant!)

Still an absolute classic and as good as the day it was posted.

[PC2]

Correct, but also hilarious coming from a guy who has for years now steadfastly supported an ongoing attack on OUR liberal democracy from within.

You say the words, but you don't mean them.

It's called "keeping you on your toes".

Think of Trump as the first raid boss. China the second.

[shimerra]

It's called "keeping you on your toes".

Think of Trump as the first raid boss. China the second.

I consider Trump more like the logical effect of a pokemon that attacks itself in its confusion. Except instead of being confused by a physic attack people like you were just stupid enough to think it was a good idea to deliberately attack yourself instead of swapping it out for Hillarymon.

The electoral equivalent of cleaning a loaded firearm that you keep pointed at your face the entire time and try and tell me just because you shot your ear off instead of hitting your face it was a good idea.

[JohnBrown1917]

It's called "keeping you on your toes".

Think of Trump as the first raid boss. China the second.

lol imagine thinking the US is just not as terrible as China even without Trump.

[Azadina]

It's called "keeping you on your toes".

Think of Trump as the first raid boss. China the second.

The problem is when one has so much twilight cult trash to clear before the first boss, that it becomes impossible to do within raid lockout.

[mvaliz]

Something needs to be done. I don't know what. But military options including the use of thermonuclear weapons should be on the table...

And that's where I stopped reading.

Between this, and your other posts, I'm more than certain you're just a burner account attempting to T-word people.

[Yadryonych]

Also, I kinda doubt nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would lead to WW3 and end of the world. Be realistic, USA and Russia would not unleash their arsenals in that case, anyone else does not even compare.

I can hardly see Russia responding to attack on china as well. I can hardly see why people fantasize that nuclear exchange between any two countries other than Russia and USA will cause global nuclear annihilation

[zealo]

One of the scariest things about the 21th century is that we've likely got a new cold war coming, but one where the collective experience of the last time industrialised great powers went to war directly with each others is passing from living memory.

Nukes should absolutely not be on the table as suggested by the OP here.

[Thekri]

I can hardly see Russia responding to attack on china as well. I can hardly see why people fantasize that nuclear exchange between any two countries other than Russia and USA will cause global nuclear annihilation

Well, when Russia detects a few thousand US ICBM launches, they have about 10 minutes in real time to figure out if all those missiles are heading to China or if some of them are headed to Russia. If they guess wrong, they lose their entire nuclear capability before they ever have a chance to use it. It is in Russia's best interests to make sure neither the US nor China survive such a scenario.

Anyway, no matter how it plays out it gets staggeringly bad. Even if Russia doesn't launch, and Europe stays out of it as well, and India doesn't take the opportunity to nuke Pakistan and vis versa...

Assuming everything stayed strictly between the US and China (And Japan and South Korea, China will definitely nuke to target the US Forces there), then the survivors have to deal with a world where the #2, #3 and #12 economies just ceased to exist, the #1 economy is horrifically mauled, or also gone, depending how many nukes China got through. Then there are massive bands of irradiated smoke and dust spreading over the northern hemisphere, with cities and forests burning uncontrollably for months. This will cause crops to fail all over the world, on top of losing the agriculture production of the US and China, thus leading to massive famines.

But most of the population of the US, China, Japan, and the Koreas won't actually be dead. Probably only about a third of them died, and while that is still the better part of a billion people gone, that still leaves about 2 billion left. 2 billion people that are going to flee their homes since there is no infrastructure, and everything including the air itself is poison. 2 billion refugees covered in boils with loose teeth and varying degrees of radiation poisoning. Of course they will starve, as will most of the rest of the globe, as global temperatures plunge as the dust reaches the upper atmosphere.

There is a reason nobody seriously considers the use of strategic nuclear weapons. The consequences are more horrific then anything any government actually has done, include Nazis and soviets. The sheer scale of suffering caused is insane.

[Yadryonych]

Well, when Russia detects a few thousand US ICBM launches, they have about 10 minutes in real time to figure out if all those missiles are heading to China or if some of them are headed to Russia. If they guess wrong, they lose their entire nuclear capability before they ever have a chance to use it. It is in Russia's best interests to make sure neither the US nor China survive such a scenario.

First of all ICBM are most likely reserved for Russia so any kind of nuclear bombing will be done from submarines positioned in South China Sea and any major nuclear power would be informed that the attack isn't targeted at them just to prevent a grave misunderstanding. However, I don't see a nuclear war as a possible scenario as long as both counties are governed by sane people. The worst that could happen is as tension rises and the war becomes imminent China seizes south Korea to prevent land invasion, which leads to naval blockade, by then China will have a coastal defense strong enough to prevent enemy landing, then the war ends with a stalemate.

[smityx]

The only way to win is to not play the game.

[Kokolums]

Human history has a repeating theme where there are taboos in war that some strong leader eventually breaks.

1. In the Roman Republic, the military of appointed Roman provinces was to never ever cross the Rubicon river as that would be entering Italy proper. It was taboo. Julius Caesar broke it and sparked the Roman Civil War (which he won) .

2. During the American Revolution in 1776, it was considered taboo / unmanly to flee from a battle. General George Washington not only broke that taboo multiple times, but he lost more battles than he won, but was never captured or forced to surrender, and instead fought the first modern guerrilla war campaign to defeat the British.

3. During the French Revolution in 1795, a Royalist insurrection threatened to dislodge the revolutionary Directory as the government of France. It would likely have done so, but a young general named Napoleon Bonaparte changed history. Of all the generals, he was the only one willing to fire on civilians, breaking a HUGE taboo of war. This was Napoleon's "whiff of grapeshot" battle, or "let's give the civilians a whiff of grapeshot" as he swiveled all the cannons around on civilians to slaughter them all and end the insurrection. In return for this, Napoleon became a rock star with fame, fortune, control of the Army of Italy and it set him on the path to become Emperor.

Currently there is a HUGE war taboo on using nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, I think the odds are great that, eventually, some strong leader is going to break that taboo as well and just lay waste to large areas of the planet until the Earth's environment is permanently crippled.

[Kellhound]

Something needs to be done. I don't know what. But military options including the use of thermonuclear weapons should be on the table. I doesn't mean we have to use them, but we should keep an open mind. Thermonuclear weapons need not be the 1.2 megaton giants that the public perceives them to be, smaller nuclear devices such as 100 kiloton warheads are an option.

The Chinese Communist Party is guilty of perpetrating mass human rights violations such as mass murder of the Falun Gong, political prisoners, and a host of other issues. We need to send a message to the CCP that Chinese aggression will not be tolerated.

In China's Crackdown on Uigers, Children ARE NOT SPARED WTF

There are bigger worries with this totalitarian regime. China is a possible superpower in 2050. They could decide to ignore US warnings and straight up invade and take over Taiwan. Without proper deterrence, they WILL try it. I believe we need to seriously arm Taiwan with thermonuclear weapons OR extend our nuclear umbrella to protect them. We know China wants to take over another country:Taiwan, but we know they won't do it at a severe cost. If Taiwan had 1000 nuclear warheads each 100 kt to 5 mt, that could be a sufficient deterrence.

But the question is this: Will nuclear weapons ever become obsolete? And if so, what are the alternatives? We need to hold back against China which will be the biggest threat to national security in the middle of the 21st century. All military options need to be on the table, including nuclear weapons.

China plans to fight a nuclear war against America

Good luck with that China, I mean seriously, good luck with that, you know you cannot win against the United States in this. In a nuclear war between US and China, we will win. But we do need to avoid millions of deaths. So here is a question:

What systems are being developed that can effectively stop an all-out nuclear strike against the United States? Suppose China sends 1000 nukes ICBMs at us, how do we strike them all down before they reach their main targets? Seems to me there is research going on here, however I'm not sure if they can stop almost every ICBM from hitting the USA if they decide to launch hundreds or thousands of them at us.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/20/1...defense-review

No one who understands nuclear weapons wants to use them. There is a reason Mutual Assured Destruction is named that, they are not viable to use against a target that can respond in kind! China has ~260 strategic warheads, which may or may not be enough to effectively destroy the US (depends on your definition).

Current US ICBMs (about 500 are left) are armed with a single warhead of 300kt to perhaps 475kt.
Current US SLBMs (288) are armed with up to 8 warheads of 90kt to 475kt (maximum of 1,152 warheads total, for an average of 4 warheads per missile).
The B-52s can be armed with up to 528 ALCMs with a variable warhead yield of 5-150kt.
The only weapons of greater than 1Mt are the B83 gravity bombs, only really deliverable by the B-2.
The only other nuclear weapons in the US are the various strategic and tactical B61 gravity bombs, with various yields of 0.3kt to 400kt.

So, the US has already moved away from large yield warheads. One of the main reasons is nuclear weapons do not scale as well as you would think, and modern missiles are far more accurate than older ones. A single 1Mt warhead has less about 1/3 the destructive potential of 10 100kt warheads, while a single 5Mt warhead is only 15% as destructive as 50 100kt warheads.

Nuclear warheads will only become obsolete if we invent something even more destructive, which I hope we do not, or we figure out how to actually rid the world of all of them, which isnt going to happen.

[Skroe]

It's called "keeping you on your toes".

Think of Trump as the first raid boss. China the second.

You know, I'm really trying to think of what you mean other than "I support Trump because he's roughing us up out of our complacency as a preparation for the bigger threat after him", but for the life of me, I'm drawing a blank.

Surely, that isn't what you are saying is it? Because that's so absolutely, out of this world self deluded, I just don't know what to say. It's also perhaps the worst Trumphadi excuse I've heard.

Honestly, it won't kill you to say "I fucked up back in supporting Donald Trump and prioritizing near term greivences against my fellow Americans over our long term national interests and I'd take it back if I could". You might gain some respect.

- - - Updated - - -

No one who understands nuclear weapons wants to use them. There is a reason Mutual Assured Destruction is named that, they are not viable to use against a target that can respond in kind! China has ~260 strategic warheads, which may or may not be enough to effectively destroy the US (depends on your definition).

Current US ICBMs (about 500 are left) are armed with a single warhead of 300kt to perhaps 475kt.
Current US SLBMs (288) are armed with up to 8 warheads of 90kt to 475kt (maximum of 1,152 warheads total, for an average of 4 warheads per missile).
The B-52s can be armed with up to 528 ALCMs with a variable warhead yield of 5-150kt.
The only weapons of greater than 1Mt are the B83 gravity bombs, only really deliverable by the B-2.
The only other nuclear weapons in the US are the various strategic and tactical B61 gravity bombs, with various yields of 0.3kt to 400kt.

So, the US has already moved away from large yield warheads. One of the main reasons is nuclear weapons do not scale as well as you would think, and modern missiles are far more accurate than older ones. A single 1Mt warhead has less about 1/3 the destructive potential of 10 100kt warheads, while a single 5Mt warhead is only 15% as destructive as 50 100kt warheads.

Nuclear warheads will only become obsolete if we invent something even more destructive, which I hope we do not, or we figure out how to actually rid the world of all of them, which isnt going to happen.

(I think you know all of this, but I'm directing it to you to educate others).

I think an essential thing to add (for people less in the know) to this is that the destructive potential of the ever larger Cold War-era nuclear weapons were connected to their inaccuracy. When you're throwing a warhead halfway across the planet and it has (due to technological limitations), a circular error probable of 2 kilometers, you need to make your warhead really big in order to miss by up-to 2 meters and still destroy what you're meaning to destroy.

Modern US weapons are very accurate against fixed targets - around 2-5 meters with the Trident II D5 LEP upgrades over the last decade. But they'd be used only against absolutely-can't-fail targets, like mobile launchers and hardened ICBM bunkers.

Many of the tactical weapons of the Cold War, such as air launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads similarly existed because of accuracy failures. But modern conventional weapons with electro-optical guidance systems would be more effective at destroying their intended targets (usually air defenses).

Modern multi-modal guidance on conventional weapons makes many types of Cold War era nuclear weapons functionally obsolete, leaving the purpose of a nuclear warhead limit to destroying large and hardened infrastructure. It would take a lot of bombs or cruise missiles to destroy a large air field... a nuclear weapon can do it in one. And as you said, a lot of small nuclear weapons (especially very accurate ones) are a hell of a lot more destructive than one big one.

One reason Obama funded prompt global strike was to replace even nuclear weapons in this field too. Because a hypersonic cruise missile launched from the united states striking a target at 25 times the speed of sound may be powerful enough to destroy such a target in one shot too.

So it's very possible that as destructive as nuclear weapons are, their functional utility beyond being end-of-the-world weapons existed in a historically narrow window of time, and they became obsolete due to superior technology for more than scorched earth warfare.

[Kellhound]

You know, I'm really trying to think of what you mean other than "I support Trump because he's roughing us up out of our complacency as a preparation for the bigger threat after him", but for the life of me, I'm drawing a blank.

Surely, that isn't what you are saying is it? Because that's so absolutely, out of this world self deluded, I just don't know what to say. It's also perhaps the worst Trumphadi excuse I've heard.

Honestly, it won't kill you to say "I fucked up back in supporting Donald Trump and prioritizing near term greivences against my fellow Americans over our long term national interests and I'd take it back if I could". You might gain some respect.

- - - Updated - - -



(I think you know all of this, but I'm directing it to you to educate others).

I think an essential thing to add (for people less in the know) to this is that the destructive potential of the ever larger Cold War-era nuclear weapons were connected to their inaccuracy. When you're throwing a warhead halfway across the planet and it has (due to technological limitations), a circular error probable of 2 kilometers, you need to make your warhead really big in order to miss by up-to 2 meters and still destroy what you're meaning to destroy.

Modern US weapons are very accurate against fixed targets - around 2-5 meters with the Trident II D5 LEP upgrades over the last decade. But they'd be used only against absolutely-can't-fail targets, like mobile launchers and hardened ICBM bunkers.

Many of the tactical weapons of the Cold War, such as air launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads similarly existed because of accuracy failures. But modern conventional weapons with electro-optical guidance systems would be more effective at destroying their intended targets (usually air defenses).

Modern multi-modal guidance on conventional weapons makes many types of Cold War era nuclear weapons functionally obsolete, leaving the purpose of a nuclear warhead limit to destroying large and hardened infrastructure. It would take a lot of bombs or cruise missiles to destroy a large air field... a nuclear weapon can do it in one. And as you said, a lot of small nuclear weapons (especially very accurate ones) are a hell of a lot more destructive than one big one.

One reason Obama funded prompt global strike was to replace even nuclear weapons in this field too. Because a hypersonic cruise missile launched from the united states striking a target at 25 times the speed of sound may be powerful enough to destroy such a target in one shot too.

So it's very possible that as destructive as nuclear weapons are, their functional utility beyond being end-of-the-world weapons existed in a historically narrow window of time, and they became obsolete due to superior technology for more than scorched earth warfare.

Tactical nuclear weapons still have a few "practical" uses, such as the destruction of massed armored formations with limited numbers of delivery systems against a target that cannot respond in kind. They are also very effective anti-sub weapons, but the US no longer uses them for that. There is a school of thought that naval warfare is the only viable use of tactical nukes that doesn't lead to a strategic exchange between nuclear powers, but I disagree.

As a viable offensive weapon, nukes become obsolete once MAD levels are reached between opposing sides or the political will to use them is removed. However, as a defensive weapon, they are still very effective, in a "we have nothing else to lose" sense.

[Shadowferal]

This pic seems apropos;