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Strategic nuclear balance between US and China has apparently changed, and this has been publicly acknowledged by elected US representatives.
Apart from it making a US led escalation of a Taiwan war somewhat less likely, I'm not sure what this means. A ploy to get more money for defense ?
It's a big deal as scholars on twitter whom I follow were reduced from their usual verbosity to posting just .. "what the hell".
I've been seeing rumors from nuclear experts about a Chinese nuclear build-up, but now US house & senate claim it's real.
Would welcome some discussion of this, as I'm sure this is going to have real world implications.
/images/16703763204140296.webp
So a follow-up to my original comment and again I would stress the conditional OR in section 1648(a). At the gym this evening I was listening to this presentation by the Army University Press and noted several comments from civilian TRADOC analyst Brad Marvel who was one of the authors of ATP 7-100.3 (as of this writing army.mil seems down but when it comes back up that link should be good). From a numbers perspective he makes two claims. Starting around 30:16 talking about the PLARF he says they have "the worlds largest and best ballistic missile fleet". Later starting around 32:18 referencing the CMPR (likely the 2021 version given the youtube July 2022 publish date, the 2022 version was released this November) he mentions that the PLA is targeting 2030 for over 1000 active nuclear warheads (infographic in the video says US has 1644).
Here are some pulls from the 2022 CMPR:
Executive summary, Nuclear Capabilities, pg IX
Appendix I: PRC and Taiwan Forces Data, pg 167
Compare the missile and launcher inventory to US numbers at your leisure, I don't have a great source immediately available.
Following up on the thread about the Congress members who signed the letter in addition to district/state military basing that benefits from missile defense here are the open secrets profiles for each of them:
Sen. James M Inhofe noticeable amount of defense contributions, lumping Misc Defense and Defense Aerospace together comes in highest after Leadership PACs (read: party incumbent protection money)
Sen. Deb Fischer has no defense spending but as per previous comment Offutt AFB in her state is kind of a big deal
Rep. Mike D Rogers has received significant campaign support from the Defense industry
Rep. Doug Lamborn also large contributions from Defense in addition to his districts connection to the USSF bases that contain NORAD among other missions
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On first glance, this seemed completely ridiculous even for a China bull like me. As I look into it more, it seems plausible. It depends on how you define 'active' and 'ICBM'.
The numbers for the US are here:
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USStratNukeForceNewSTART
The Minutemen got unMIRVed due to treaty obligations, while the Chinese have apparently MIRVed up their ancient, crappy, liquid-fuelled DF-5s, along with making modern land-based ICBMs (something the US can't be bothered to do). The rising dragon and the falling eagle in a nutshell.
It says later there were about 900 deployed warheads on those Trident missiles in 2018, maybe more. Trident warheads are still MIRVed and that makes things a bit more complicated. There are some missiles with heavy warheads for destroying missile siloes, others with more, lighter warheads for hitting unhardened targets. You can also get more range if you put fewer warheads in the missile, so that's another factor.
Now the Chinese have fewer, crappier missile subs with less missiles and warheads (though this may change when the Type-096 emerges). They couldn't possibly have more SLBMs than the US. They focus a lot more on land-based strategic missiles, which are more traditionally referred to as ICBMs. SLBMs are often considered to be ICBMs too. But maybe this tweet's legalistic definition distinguishes between them. That would mean the Chinese only need to have more than 397 warheads deployed on their land forces, which is more plausible. Of course, the US has thousands of undeployed warheads as well, presumably these aren't counted in the 'active inventory'.
In the last 2 years, China has been building a bunch of new ICBM fields in various deserts capable of holding hundreds of missiles. These would be modern missiles containing ten or so warheads, if all siloes have missiles in them. Maybe the officials think enough of them are finished and now deployed. China already has a fair few ICBMs, some of which are road-mobile (another innovation that the US can't be bothered with). This would mean China has more active ICBMs and warheads than the US, excluding the US's undeployed weapons and its huge submarine arsenal. Even so, this goes against a broad consensus that China only has 350 or so warheads total, including their submarines and bombers. There have also been doubts about how China could build such a large arsenal with its plutonium production.
If the tweet includes SLBMs as ICBMs, the US has taken a massive L. How could they possibly miss the Chinese going from 350 warheads to well over 1400! Are the CIA's eyes just painted on?
Damn, you think this could be legalistic BS that only takes into account non-sea based missiles ?
Gotta keep an eye out for that possibility.
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I'm not as certain this is as much a problem for the US as it would be for anyone else. Falcon 9s are ICBMs (Second Amendment intensifies); the only distinction between the two is in the payload (and that parts of it can be used more than once).
I believe this because the reverse is true; most satellites orbiting today were put there by missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads (either basically unmodified like the Atlas, or slightly modified like the Minotaur).
Yeah, there probably should be more of an effort to ensure that existing weapon-carrying missiles are sufficient to completely destroy the enemy, but private industry in the US could close the missile gap very quickly if they're asked to do so, and that's really not something any other country can claim.
You could use a Falcon 9 as an ICBM but it would be pretty unsatisfactory. One of the major innovations in ICBM technology was solid fuel. Liquid-fuelled rockets are easier to work with but you have to pump them full of fuel before they can be fired. This takes way too long in a situation where every minute counts. The Chinese still field their liquid-fuelled DF-4s but they are ancient and really serve more as targets than any kind of useful weapon. The US will surely target them in a nuclear exchange, they'd likely be destroyed on the ground. Liquid-fuelled missiles are destabilizing in that they make you want to fire them pre-emptively, before they can be destroyed.
There are probably more issues with using civilian rockets as ICBMs that I'm not aware of. Would you be building siloes for them? Surely you would, otherwise they wouldn't be hardened. Can you launch a Falcon 9 from a silo? Is it dependent on GPS or something that would be threatened in wartime, can you rig up an astro-inertial guidance system for it? Is ECM a consideration? I'd imagine there would be technical problems, I'd imagine the Falcon 9 is specialized for its role in various ways that make it impractical for military use. At best it would be pretty substandard for a modern ICBM.
If you want proper modern weapons, you have to design a purpose-built weapon. You can use a Toyota as a troop carrier, you can put guns on it. But you'd be much better off with an actual military vehicle, something with armor, something designed for war.
Certainly, the US has a problem in that its military-industrial base moves at a snail's pace and demands an astonishing amount of loot for what they deliver. This is why I'm a China bull. I read a book about SpaceX's early years and he was poaching employees from the F-35 program and traditional rocketry/military sector. Everything is very slow and bureaucratic. The US is actually designing a next generation land-based ICBM but it will be ages until it comes into service. 2029! And only three warheads per missile? What are they doing? You could fit many, many warheads on a Falcon 9, that's for sure.
Hey, Northrop just unveiled the B-21! Sure, it'll be 2023 before its first flight and they didn't really show us anything because of the need for secrecy, but it's alleged to be on time and on budget, a miracle in itself 😀
Now if the SR-72 does ever get off the ground by 2025 I'll be very interested. All the talk sounds great but the technical problems seem steep. So I guess this is why Northrop are rubbing Lockheed-Martin's nose in it with their "look, we got our bird out on time!"
Wait..what?
I thought the unveiling meant the thing was out of the prototype stage or entering production or something. It hasn't even flown ?
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Don't make me bring up the Toyota War, I will not stand idly by while one of the greatest modern fighting vehicles is slandered so.
Well there are certainly some military vehicles that are awful. Excessive armour can cause problems: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a37093035/british-armored-vehicle-making-soldiers-sick-problems/
A Toyota with some anti-tank missiles on it could be pretty useful. Even motorcycles would be OK for that. But what if you're under any kind of artillery fire? The fragmentation would wreck it even without any good hits. Apparently using their heavy weapons effectively was too much for the Libyans.
How hard is it to make a light, amphibious, cheap, armoured vehicle like a BMP-3? You can have an anti-tank missile, an autocannon and a machine-gun or two, smokescreens, decent protection from machine guns and artillery. That should be within the capabilities of middle-income countries.
I think by the time you've put ATGMs and an autocannon on something you're at the point where it becomes a target for weapons heavier than MGs. And if it's also carrying 8-12 passengers it becomes a very expensive liability for the widows and orphans fund, which non-conscript armies have to factor into their budgets these days.
I suspect that we're going to see more semi-automated weapon platforms used as light/disposable combat vehicles, with any vehicle stuffed full of people getting either tank level protection (Israeli APC-style) or being kept well out of any high intensity fighting. Much as infantrymen love direct fire support, they don't necessarily want to sit right next to something that will be scooting away to dodge artillery fire.
So... you want a BMP-3?
It's a vehicle with ridiculous amounts of firepower. Protected from shell splinters and small arms, probably pretty cheap considering it's just a tin can with a so-so engine.
That's exactly what I don't want. Anything with that many men in it should be low profile and covered in active protection systems, not stuffed with enough weapons to make it a high value target in its own right.
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Be where the artillery isn't.
Just drive away, speed is armour.
Splinter-level armor protection is extremely cheap.
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A Toyota would probably be a damn sight more reliable 😁
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both sides have enough nukes to annihilate the world multiple times over anyways - is this about first strike capability?
They probably want the ability to hit targets with higher confidence. Shooting multiple missiles is an easy way to do that.
Still, I wonder why China ramped up nukes more recently, decades after the soviets and USA have abandoned the same strategy. Also, why is it such a secret? Of course you'd want to keep the details secret, but wouldn't you at least want your enemies to know you have a large nuclear arsenal?
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No, they don't. You need orders and orders of magnitude stronger weapons to destroy the world.
That's bullshit fearmongering courtesy of .. probably Soviet disinfo aimed at disarmament.
US with their nukes could crash the world economy but they'd be unable to kill more than say, 30% of world population even if they tried their hardest with proper targetting. (and every nuke was deployed, not just the ones presently mounted in delivery systems)
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This may not be the case, Chinese nuclear arsenal is shrouded in mystery and nobody knows how many they have. The estimates range from just couple dozens to high hundreds. Another factor here is that Chinese army is famously corrupt and inept. You have a lot of nepotism - like Mao's grandson who is clearly borderline mentally challenged holding position of Major General and being in charge of thousands of soldiers. Chinese general Guo Boxiong who was sentenced for corruption was charged with openly selling promotions inside army en masse. If somebody thinks that Russian Army is corrupt, Russians are playing child's game next to the status of PLA. So who knows how many of the nuclear weapons are actually functional. Nukes require very sophisticated and expensive maintenance and calibration. And these are exactly ideal targets of corruption as they are existing only on paper with low chance of them ever being used. Similar situation as when Russian suddenly realized that supposed 1.5 million uniforms in warehouses actually do not exist. It is similar situation as when within weeks of declared inspection of grain reserves in China many grain silos mysteriously caught on fire.
It's believed by military analysts Xi clamped down on that and mostly fixed it. And they also appear to now hold adversarial military exercises.
Xi did not clamp on anything. China runs on corruption - there is 100 million members of CCP who suck the blood out of Chinese people. Corruption is how things are done. The whole thing has analogy of Medvedev´s anti-corruption campaign in 2009, the only purpose for it was to eliminate political enemies like it was done with Khodorkovsky in 2003.
I am not saying that corrupt officials should not be arrested. But it would be as if gang leader turned political leader did a campaign to eliminate murderers, thieves and drug dealers. The only thing that would result is domination of his gang and corrupt and ineffective police force under his thumb.
I am reminded of the story of that Russian military minister(?) who did manage to legit reform Russia's military (allowing them to win in Georgia), only to be eventually sacked because, of course, he was rocking the boat too much for Putin's friends.
Which is indeed the ambiguity: has Xi, as the big cheese of China, managed to genuinely clean the rot out from the CCP and orient the PRC into a worthy competitor to the US in all matters political, economic, and military, or is this more like Saudi Arabia where "anti-corruption" efforts were just a fig-leaf for getting his political opponents out of the way? Even if the former is true, can he remain in power, or has he shaken things up too much and painted a target on his back? If the latter is true, should we even worry about the Thucydides Trap?
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Is that really true?
I've only ever heard this but I just find it hard to believe.
Like, whose nuking Italy and is the nuclear fallout really going to destroy Italy? Or the Pacific islands? Florida?
Will all the missiles actually hit? Won't most be intercepted?
I just don't buy it but I have zero reference point for this aside from the 1000 & 1 times over heard it said.
Literally destroyed, every square mile burning and uninhabitable? No. Not 99% human extinction, maybe not 90%.
Irreparable damage to any way of life more sophisticated than the 1700s, probably. Quite a large fraction of the world is next to either a military base or an industrial target.
There's also the problem that most of the cheap if dirty sources of energy and other resources are much scarcer than they were in the industrial period. Even with modern knowledge to bootstrap it would be harder to build back to the same level of technology.
And that the best places to live and build are...currently occupied and built upon, and thus high on the target list.
Airbursts (for maximum effect on surface targets) have very little residual radiation at the target site at least. A few days to a few weeks (how long before survivor populations in this sort of scenario would even venture towards bombed out target locations) should be fine. Ground bursting trades radius for the ability to hit hardened, buried targets (plus fallout) and wouldn't likely be used in most of those desirable locations. Not great for current occupants but survivors ought to be able to recolonize many of those nice places to live without that much trouble.
Unfortunately there's a lot of ground burst targets near some cities, like major railyards, ports, or the giant buried warehouse of ~2300 Trident missile warheads sitting right next to Seattle. Some of those places are going to glow for a long time.
Edit: maybe only a thousand or so now, unless the ones they're planning to scrap are still in storage?
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The key thing here to understand is half life and radioactivity.
The worse, more harmful some radiation product is, the faster it decays into something harmless.
Another key thing that dangers of radiation are massively overhyped. It's deadly, but not nearly as much as people believe due to popular media. (you can google 'radiation hormesis' and read about it)
Intercepting ballistic missiles is very unusual; it can be done but at the moment you can only hope to see a missile intercepted if you e.g. are on a US carrier, and there are not too many incoming warheads. Of course, in any real war on any protected target, they'd fire multiples.
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Wouldn’t Brazil and Australia come through a global nuclear war fairly intact, while being major food powers? Obviously USA, Russia, Canada, Ukraine, China don’t do too well in the event of a nuclear war, and Argentine and New Zealand agriculture is probably very reliant on imported inputs, but those two seem reasonably well suited to autarky and are major food exporters.
It does make me wonder about the minor nuclear calculus. Sure, France and the UK are probably bound to deploy as the US says. Does Pakistan decide to take a few shots? Does North Korea level Seoul while no one’s looking?
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I think it depends on your definition of annihilate the world multiple times over.
A widespread nuclear exchange would likely be incompatible with anything resembling modern civilization, especially due to how inter-networked the global economy is etc.
Would it be a case where every person perished individually as a result of a direct nuclear bombing, no.
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What scholars? Your first link is to the twitter account of one of the Senators who authored the letter you uploaded posting that same letter.
The relevant Public Law section the Senator references is from the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 and is as follows:
Seems like he and the other committee member signatories think they've gotten something that qualifies as this notice but in classified form and want it in unclassified form so they can publish it. That doesn't get into whether or not China exceeding in number (not necessarily quality) of missiles OR missile launchers OR nuclear warheads in inventory meaningfully alters the strategic picture.
There may be some political aspects to it but it doesn't seem major. Running down the list of letter signatories, Lamborne's district contains Peterson SFB and Schriever SFB which are somewhat interested in ICBMs so more funding to defend against them flows downstream. Rogers' district doesn't seem to have any assets related to ICBMs or China, the closest being maybe Maxwell AFB but nothing based there should really benefit from an increase in anti-Sino-ICBM funding. Fischer representing Nebraska has Offutt AFB which definitely benefits. Infhoe himself has Oklahoma which has a lot of logistics-oriented basing but not much related to strategic or missile defense, though he has a pretty close relationship with the USAF.
Tanner Greer, (@scholars_stage) on twitter.
I don't know how well Greer understands court intrigue. By way of reference this didn't make any waves in the OSINT spaces I keep an eye on (who did at least notice an amusing addition in the FY2023 NDAA). I'd wager a frozen bao that Section 1648 was inserted into the FY2022 NDAA specifically so that the letter signatories could do this song and dance. It's new to FY2022 the closest in FY2021 is Section 1651 and has no analog in FY2023 except maybe Section 5846 but that concerns Iran (and it's not been through the Senate yet). Given how the Congress works, the conditional OR in 1648(a), that legislators and/or their staff based on something that was not the notice specified by 1648(b) believe that they should have been sent one and that Admiral Richard has not sent one I'd tap the breaks on how big a deal it might be.
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The only seem to be presenting a couple congressmen saying theirs a gap and politicians often run against China. I think hounded more evidence for your comment. I’m not seeing it here but also haven’t followed the issue.
Have you read it?
The congressmen are upset that SAC neglected to tell Congress & Senate they believe Chinese now have more nukes.
It's not pols saying Chinese have more deployable nukes, it's the US strategic command.
No details. Tough to think anything of it. And pols can exaggerate what their told for politics.
Yea I clicked on your Twitter link.
We are talking about very clear conditions. It'd be straight up lying if they exxagerated.
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Nothing will happen. There will be no worsening of US-china diplomatic relations, similar to similar predictions of worsening regarding Pelosi's Taiwan visit ( remember that?)
Except America's 'way of life' depends on China, and likewise for China.
Same arguments were in the air before WW1, yet..
This is true, but conditions today are way different. China's leadership seems much more defensive and isolationist, save for Taiwan , compared to the colonialist German empire.
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Soon after that the US has obliterated Chinese semiconductor industry. But yeah, I rather expected some novel activity from the Chinese side.
Yes, Chinese will never make a semiconductor again. (facepalm).
If by 'obliterated' you mean ensured China will develop a world class indigenous semiconductor industry, then that's a rather .. interesting meaning of the word 'obliteration'.
Shooting yourself with smaller bullets doesn't build up your bullet resistance, in the same way having your top talent move to the US and getting shut out of the entire modern supply chain is not a precursor to indigenous development, especially seeing as there are, apparently, <5 years left to human-level AI. The Chinese have had roughly 50 years to catch up; they're farther behind than they were under Mao, and they're immensely more isolated, and their leader is, frankly, a fool with wrong priorities and a charmingly naive idea of politics, which in his Marxist mind revolves around material profits (thus, hoping to just buy European tech because Westerners allegedly care about money and honor contractual obligations). They were making those noises about indigenous development for decades, and increasingly so in Xi's era, with those exact copes – now we truly know we must build our own supply chain, thanks for the wake-up call etc.; but there's a qualitative difference between a relatively harmless «wake-up call» and a knockout punch.
I've been following their work with waning interest and optimism, I guess in much the same way some American reactionaries follow zany Russian adventures in Eastern Ukraine or some anthropologist could observe an Amazon hunter-gatherer tribe try to reinvent agriculture. They have been making modest and fragile progress. Now their crops were razed by Gringos, their supplies were plundered, their chieftain is lost in the conversation with spirits, and they're in for a long and harsh winter. Or summer? Doesn't matter.
I suggest you read gwern here before facepalming at me further.
...Chinese are making 14 nm chips.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_nm_process
That's not that bad. Also, the whole thing with 'export ban'
What's going to stop people people in the turd world like say, Phillipines or Brazil mysteriously getting entire containers worth of GPUs getting stolen by unusually lucky & competent thieves ?
In theory, they have cracked 14nm. In practice, using DUV means they will, and already do, have very poor yield. Without access to ASMLs EUV machines, they might eek out a symbolic advance in some lab, but will not advance in any way that matters (ie, producing chips at scale, economically, which is what matters). ASML makes the most advanced lithography machines, and they are deeply dependent on a global supply chain, including firms from America, Germany, etc. AFAIK SMIC has followed Intel in doing 14nm with DUV, and is also having problems with it. Intel eventually started using EUV, though it's now lagging behind TSMC, and even having some CPUs fabbed by TSMC because they lag behind in their process. SMIC now doesn't have the option to buy EUV machines to even try transitioning to them. ASML is something of a system integrator like Boeing and Airbus. Replicating it means replicating all their suppliers, including leaders in optics, robotics, etc. How long will it take? And when they manage, how far will have the West advanced? China will not only be competing with the USA, but all the nations which in some form or another contribute to making the chip industry function. The USA, EU, Japan, UK, SK, India, Israel, and Taiwan, together have almost 2x population, are far richer, and have a good head start.
They're doing it on ASML's machines.
Also, if they physically have ASML machinery, and they presumably have all of ASML's internal documents, why should we think they can't reverse engineer it inside 5-10 years ?
Firstly, afaik China does not have EUV machines, but I'm not sure. What they surely lack is support from ASML. The machines are somewhat custom built for each customer, and companies don't just buy the things. They also buy maintenance, support services, etc.
Secondly for the same reason that if Putin had the design docs for 5th gen fighters and an intact model, Russia would be building 5th gen fighters any time soon. It's bloody hard, and requires a lot of rare expertise and tacit knowledge in multiple domains. It's not impossible, China has after all built things like planes. But it's really hard. And, as is, companies do not have state support for such a venture. The West won't stand still.
For a historical example, let's take Japan. Their government in the mid 70s organized it's 5 big players in the so called VLSI project, and granted them state support. They also had both a large domestic and export market for it's chips. They became a leader, at least for DRAM, for a time. Unlike China, where Xi is no mood to support anything related to computers, and I'm unaware of any big companies which might be able to pull it off on their own. Maybe the industry self organizes, and deals with this on their own. I would bet that they don't, at least for 4 years.
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Is this suggesting that premium products will be stolen from such countries? If so, I'd like to note that gaming-related stuff like PC hardware is not easy to get in Brazil (as it's regulated similary to actual gambling-related hardware like slot machines, IIRC, driving up costs even further for consumers who already have less purchasing power than gamers in the West (there are stereotypes about Brazilian gamers for a reason)).
Also, I remember flipping through a car magazine from the Philippines published back in 2011 and being amazed that the price of a Subaru Legacy there (for us Americans, just another midsize sedan from a company not known for luxury upmarket cars) was equivalent to at least 40K USD in Pesos (instead of maybe $23-33K like it was here at the time), and treated as a luxury car.
Maybe there's something to what you hint here, but I suspect the solution is already partially there; who the hell is going to ship whole containers of RTX cards to countries where most people can't afford them?
US companies wanting to make a buck, fulfilling an order for some well-bribed local company acting as a front for Chinese ? Goods get delivered, are stolen during transit, front company paid off.
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The first response:
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Americans can't get their junk up without posturing as underdogs. There's the Sputnik moment, there's the missile gap, there's the supercomputer gap and AI papers gap and who knows what else... I guess this has been going on for so long, and so profitably, we're back to the missile gap. There are real gaps – in unlivable apartment buildings, raw concrete production, stuff like that – but they aren't discussed as often.
I suspect Americans have learned this despicable practice from their Israeli friends who are somewhat easier to emphasize with, but it doesn't reflect well on an uncontested hyperpower.
I'll believe the missile gap when I see it.
In any case, the age of the nuke is over, the fear is no longer there, and the West is getting ready for a conventional showdown, tightening the circle, increasing military budgets and ramping up production. This war is but a warmup.
..what ?
I mean, yeah.
But it's also true that most Americans are unaware that going by PPP, Chinese are now outspending the US on defense, apparetnly, no?
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The fear of the nuke isn't entirely gone, I'd say, but it probably isn't like what it was during the Cold War.
People are really nuts if the don't fear the nuke.
I mean, EMP is pretty real. One rogue sub commander who could reprogram the missiles to burst high up could literally roll back industry to cca late 19th century overnight.
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